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OVERVIEW: The R&D Limited Partnership model of organization and management, subsequently modified as the Limited Liability Corporation (LLC), has become an organization of choice for innovative new businesses, with three basic uses evolving. One allows formation of vertically integrated collaborative efforts to assist new, entrepreneurial organizations in accessing missing time-critical skills and resources. The second allows large companies to form portfolios of entrepreneurial new businesses outside the change-resistant corporate culture, while providing missing skills, resources and risk capital for accelerated development and commercialization. The third use, which may eventually prove the most important, provides a means for developing new businesses and jobs in developing countries by coupling entrepreneurial small businesses in those countries with large companies in the U.S. and other industrial countries. The model was successfully piloted in Israel and then 'cloned' in India and several other countries. KEY CONCEPTS: Limited Liability Corporations, innovation, collaborative R&D, entrepreneurship., The Research and Development Limited Partnership (RDLP) model of organization and management was developed by the Technology Office in the U.S. Department of Commerce, during the Reagan Administration (1). It [...]

All businesses in America, especially small ones, are concerned about health care costs and the related problem of attracting and keeping the best, front-line, service employees. Because of critical and [...]

An overview is presented on US trends in technological advancements, along with specific strategies on how to encourage innovative thinking, planning and development. These include introduction of best practices, efficient utilization of the Internet, facilitating networking and information sharing, targeting spending priorities and transcending traditional organizational boundaries.

Firms should constantly monitor their productivity if they are to survive in the face of intensifying global competition. The productivity measurement methodologies discussed were ROI, PIMS database, learning curve and 'constraint analysis.' These sophisticated methodologies are better approaches to productivity measurement than the old output, labor and capital measures. The additional factors in assessing productivity include sales/profit factor, growth factor, competitor analysis, risk distribution, and core competence factors.

A study was conducted on thirty eight Japanese corporate ventures to determine the feasability of using constraint analysis in a Japanese setting, to establish a relationship between the analysis and state of success and to establish the factors of success and form a program of action in corporate ventures. Success factors and their correlations were discovered and a program of action is presented.

Technology advancements and foreign subsidies of some industries are expanding the horizons of global economy. However, individual firms cannot successfully meet the requirements of international trade with their limited resources. Strategic alliances are vital to globalization as they provide access to different firms' resources which are needed to satisfy demands of the international market.

Over the next 12 to 24 months, small business owners will hear a lot about Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) as 'the solution' to lowering health insurance costs. HSAs will even [...]

WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS HAVE been generally challenged and consolidating for years, but the distributor-to-industry sector has been sorely tested by a prolonged slump for the past 18+ months. Manufacturing America, [...]

In 1985, Karl Albrecht wrote a pop business book titled service america that perfectly hit the boom stage of the service management craze. Legions of pop authors, speakers and total [...]

High incentive programs for employees can result in increased productivity. Federal Express Corp, UPS Inc, L.L.Bean Inc and Nordstrom Inc are among the few companies to practice this, with operational employee compensatory packages that are 150% of going rates. Higher pay justifies these companies' higher expectations of employees and increases personnel stability. By upgrading pay and expectations, companies can attract better employees and reduce turnover.

Byline: D. Bruce Merrifield Strategic alliances will be increasingly required to pool resources, skills and risk capital for maintenance of industrial competitiveness in a hypercompetitive global market-place. The need for alliances is driven by rapidly advancing technology that has collapsed product and process life cycles often to less than 5 years, and by subsidized targeting of selected industries by foreign governments. However, the effective organization and management of alliances often is not well understood, which leads to less than satisfactory results. Effective methodologies are known and can lead to remarkable success. Currently they are by-passing national boundaries to create a 'global village'.

Byline: D. Bruce Merrifield Industrial survival in a hyper-competitive global market-place increasingly will depend upon development of a sustainable competitive advantage. A competitive advantage, in turn, increasingly will require knowledge-intensive high-value-added content in each operating system. The degree of value-added is measurable in terms of various forms of 'productivity' (performance/cost), but conventional measures of productivity are limited in their usefulness. Output divided by labour, or output divided by labour plus capital, do not adequately assess the degree of knowledge-intensive value-added content of an operation. More sophisticated forms of productivity measurement have been developed which have been demonstrated to have a high correlation with success. Much improved strategic allocation of always limited resources can result.

The article presents several letters to the editor in response to articles in previous issues including "Tapping Eastern Bloc Technology," by John Kiser III in the March-April 1982 issue, "The Moral Crisis in American Capitalism," by Robert Wuthnow in the March-April 1982 issue, and "Get New Products from Customers," by Eric von Hippel in the March-April 1982 issue.

Most manufacturers and dealers/distributors have large cross-subsidies that have become part of their current business models. Many of these suppliers find that the 20% of the customers who buy large, [...]

Every manufacturer with a well-known brand name must be prepared for end-users to go searching web sites hoping to find the most information on their goods. Potential customers will also [...]

Many associations that represent manufacturers, reps or distributors in mature, physical-goods channels are now weathering the effects of significant membership and income/dues consolidations. Simultaneously, a host of competitive alternatives are [...]

A strong majority of U.S. executives rate healthcare insurance costs as their No. 1 concern. The poster company for this problem might be GM, which announced on June 7th that [...]