household demand in rural china a two stage les aids model a complete demand system of chinese rural households is estimated using a two stage les aids model and pooled provincial and time series data from 1982 to 1990 for commodity groups food clothing fuel housing and other commodities demand is price inelastic housing and other commodities are luxury goods while clothing and food are necessities within the food group price elasticities range from 0 005 to 0 63 expenditure elasticities are lower for grains and higher for meat tobacco and alcohol the results imply a gap between food demand and supply growth therefore china will face pressure to import food

simultaneity and structural change in u s meat demand an inverse of the almost ideal demand system the iaids is developed in order to test the endogeneity of prices and quantities in the u s meat demand system the iaids has all the desirable theoretical properties of the aids except aggregation from the micro to the market level using annual data both prices and quantities appear to be endogenous within the entire meat market including livestock production costs and technical change indicators as instruments eliminates evidence of a mid 1970s demand change

a further look at flexibilities and elasticities relationships between price elasticities and price flexibilities are examined with emphasis on comparing sizes of difference between a directly estimated demand matrix and an inverted demand matrix results show that by using inverted elasticities to represent flexibilities or vice versa sizable measurement errors may be committed in agricultural policy and program analysis a directly estimated demand matrix should be used

the energy efficiency paradox revisited through a partial observability approach the present paper examines the energy efficiency paradox demonstrated in greek manufacturing firms through a partial observability approach the data set used has resulted from a survey carried out among 161 energy saving technology firm adopters maximum likelihood estimates that arise from an incidental truncation model reveal that the adoption of the energy saving technologies is indeed strongly correlated to the returns of assets that are required in order to undertake the corresponding investments the source of the energy efficiency paradox lies within a wide range of factors policy schemes that aim to increase the adoption rate of energy saving technologies within the field of manufacturing are significantly affected by differences in the size of firms finally mixed policies seem to be more effective than policies that are only capital subsidy or regulation oriented

estimating a cointegrating demand system abstract the set of variables in a time series demand model in the form of the almost ideal demand system are found to be i 1 with the demand equations forming a cointegrating system the parameters of the cointegrating equations are estimated and tested using a triangular error correction procedure the null hypothesis of homogeneity with respect to prices and nominal income in the system cannot be rejected

on interpreting inverse demand systems a primal comparison of scale flexibilities and income elasticities scale flexibilities in inverse demand systems describe how marginal valuations change with expansions in the consumption bundle such effects clearly are related to income elasticities in direct demand systems however the connection is not so close as it first appears we argue that the link between scale flexibilities and income elasticities is tight only if preferences are homothetic a situation where neither measure is interesting or if all elasticities of substitution are unitary we make clear the relationship between the two measures in a coordinate system focusing on how marginal rates of substitution change with consumption scale and proportion

does corporate strategy matter a revisionist view that corporate strategy does not matter has gained considerable influence in recent years this view largely stems from empirical results of early variance decomposition studies that found negligible corporate effects associated with profitability differences between businesses our analysis of the variance decomposition literature shows this view to be incorrect not only do the studies as a group show that factors at the corporate level of organizations contribute to profitability differences but also evidence suggests that factors specifically associated with corporate strategy contribute to corporate effects corporate strategy in fact does matter copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

prices and quality effects in cross sectional demand analysis a conceptual clarification of the sources and meaning of cross sectional price variability is used to motivate a theoretical and econometric framework for the estimation of cross sectional demand functions quality effects are distinguished from supply related price variability to identify cross sectional demand for disaggregated food commodities an empirical application using data from the 1977 78 nationwide food consumption survey indicates that parameter differences resulting from a failure to adjust cross sectional prices for quality effects are likely to be small for relatively homogenous disaggregated food commodities in demand analysis with cross sectional household budget data it is usually assumed that prices are constant allen and bowley prais and houthakker george and king given this assumption engel functions are estimated where expenditure or quantity is regressed on income or total expenditures family size and other demographic characteristics the assumption that cross sectional price effects are absent or are captured adequately by spatial and temporal dummy variables has not been evaluated empirically whether cross sectional price effects can be treated in this manner has implications for the specification of cross sectional demand functions as well as the estimation of engel functions there is a considerable literature on estimating price elasticities with cross sectional data most of the applications utilize timeseries cross sectional data annual or quarterly household consumption surveys and

quality quantity and spatial variation of price this paper develops and implements a method for estimating price elasticities of demand using cross sectional household survey data geographically clustered households report unit values which when corrected for quality effects and for measurement error indicate the underlying spatial variation in prices and can be matched to variation in demand patterns a simple model of quality choice is proposed while the correction for measurement error exploits the clustered design of such surveys data from a 1979 household survey from the ivory coast are used to estimate price elasticities for beef meat fish cereals and starches copyright 1988 by american economic association

alfred chandler and capabilities theories of strategy and management alfred d chandler s scholarship on the large industrial enterprise has deepened understanding of economic development and helped establish the field of strategic management research chandler s monumental work emphasized the importance of organizational innovation managerial acumen and business performance a particular contribution was the support provided for a capabilities theory of the business enterprise this article also looks at recent developments in industrial organization that are less well explained and appreciated in the chandler framework copyright 2010 the author 2010 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

supplier performance in vertical alliances the effects of self enforcing agreements and enforceable contracts the paper examines the significance of enforceability and adaptability in governing vertical alliances and their performance ramifications for suppliers literature on supplier relations suggests that suppliers are skeptical of close ties with their buyers helper 1991 helper and sako 1995 such skepticism persists in spite of the fact that buyers are writing longer enforceable contracts with fewer suppliers in this context the paper develops a transaction cost economics tce based model that distinguishes between the verifiable and nonverifiable aspects of governance attributes of safeguards incentive intensity and adaptability in explaining supplier performance variations the paper argues that the following factors prove valuable for suppliers 1 the adaptive and collaborative orientation fostered by the original equipment manufacturer s oem s credible commitment to the exchange and by information sharing on the part of the supplier 2 the presence of certain nonverifiable safeguards and 3 the incentives inherent in target pricing these assertions have been tested using data from the home appliance industry results indicate that information sharing together with 1 oem dependence and 2 target pricing does indeed enhance supplier performance also results suggest that while nonverifiable safeguards can help verifiable safeguards do not have a positive association with supplier interests under certain conditions then suppliers can venture into closer relationships with buyers and benefit

the relationship between firm growth size and age estimates for 100 manufacturing industries this study uses a sample of all firms operating in 100 manufacturing industries to examine some aspects of firm dynamics it finds that firm growth the variability of firm growth and the probability that a firm will fail decrease with firm age it also finds that firm growth decreases at a diminishing rate with firm size even after controlling for the exit of slow growing firms from the sample gibrat s law therefore fails although the severity of the failure decreases with firm size copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

does transaction misalignment matter for firm survival at all stages of the industry life cycle research on industry life cycles suggests that competitive pressures are more severe during the shakeout stage which could be associated with the emergence of a dominant design than at other stages transaction cost theory on the other hand assumes generally competitive markets and does not address the industry life cycle it therefore implies that transaction cost economizing is a superior firm strategy regardless of the stage of the life cycle this paper seeks to reconcile these two streams of research by investigating whether aligning transactions with governance modes in accordance with transaction cost prescriptions has a differential effect on firm survival in preshakeout versus shakeout stages of the industry life cycle analyzing data from the early u s auto industry 1917 1933 we find that while transaction misalignment did not have a significant impact on firm survival during the preshakeout stage or during the period as a whole it did have a significantly larger negative impact on survival during the shakeout stage than during the preshakeout stage we also find that the negative effects of misalignment on survival were significantly weaker for larger firms during the shakeout stage this suggests that applications of transaction cost theory which assume uniformly severe selection pressures across the industry life cycle and uniform effects of misalignment across firms of different sizes could be misleading it also suggests that theories of the industry life cycle could usefully take transaction costs into account along with production costs in their analyses of competition over the life cycle

estimation of demand functions using cross sectional household data the problem revisited a procedure that corrects for selectivity bias is proposed to estimate demand functions using cross sectional data under the assumption that prices vary across households this procedure which extends the work by cox and wohlgenant includes a two equation system of expenditure and unit value functions this model is applied to household expenditures for beef steaks and roasts

estimates of ghg emission reduction potential by country sector and cost abstract in this study emission reduction potentials in greenhouse gases ghg are assessed by country sector and cost using a ghg emission reduction assessment model with high resolutions with respect to region and technology and high consistency in terms of assumptions interrelationships and solution principles model analyses show that large potential reductions can be achieved at low cost in developing countries and power sectors in addition cost efficient emission reductions were evaluated for some international emission reduction targets that have been derived on the basis of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities among developed and developing countries if 1 emission reduction measures at negative costs and below 50 tco 2 for developed countries 2 intensity improvement measures for selected sectors at negative costs and below 20 tco 2 for major developing countries and 3 all emission reduction measures with negative costs for other developing countries in 2020 are adopted then emission reductions of 8 9 14 8 and 27 7 gtco 2 eq yr compared to the technology frozen case can be expected in developed countries major developing countries and globally corresponding to a 11 decrease 40 increase and 17 increase from 2005 levels respectively large scale emission reductions can be achieved even if co 2 intensity targets for major sectors are assumed for major developing countries

the effects of asset specificity on maintenance financial performance an empirical application of transaction cost theory to the medical device maintenance field abstract this study uses multivariate regression analysis to examine the effects of asset specificity on the financial performance of both external and internal governance structures for medical device maintenance and investigates how the financial performance of external governance structures differs depending on whether a hospital is private or public the hypotheses were tested using information on 764 medical devices and 62 maintenance service providers resulting in 1403 maintenance transactions as such our data sample is significantly larger than those used in previous studies in this area the results empirically support our core theoretical argument that governance financial performance is influenced by assets specificity

quality variation and quantity aggregation in consumer demand for food viewing the problem of quality variation in consumer demand for food as a problem of valid aggregation over goods leads to new insights the simple sum of physical quantities used as the measure of demand in the quality literature is found to be a theoretically arbitrary and potentially misleading measure of demand when goods are heterogenous alternative measures of demand derived from restrictions on quality variation consumer preferences or relative prices are investigated a hypothetical example illustrates the use of a hicksian composite commodity assumption the empirical as well as conceptual merits of the various measures are discussed the usual assumption made about prices in a cross section analysis of household food expenditures is that all households are facing the same prices estimation of price elasticities of demand is commonly left to time series researchers who get price information from intertemporal indices recently however there has been renewed interest in the otential of cross section analysis for estimation of price elasticities of demand for food especially when surveys collect data on both household expenditures for food items and on the physical quantities purchased

make buy or ally a transaction cost theory meta analysis since the publication of williamson s markets and hierarchies many empirical articles have investigated the tenets of transaction cost theory using meta analytic techniques we quantitatively syn

a demand systems analysis of food commodities by u s households segmented by income using the 1987 88 nationwide food consumption survey twelve food commodity groups were analyzed according to household poverty status parameter estimates were used to obtain subsistence expenditures own price elasticities expenditure elasticities and income elasticities own price elasticities were similar between the income groups for most commodities however income elasticities were consistently higher for the lower income group the use of average estimates of price and income elasticities for the population as a whole for the projection of individual commodity demands is not likely to be successful if notable changes are evident in income distribution

a time to grow and a time to die growth and mortality of credit unions in new york city 1914 1990 one vision of organizational evolution suggests that old and large organizations become increasingly dominant over their environment a second suggests that as organizations age they become less able to respond to new challenges in this article the authors investigate which of these visions best characterizes the evolution of state chartered credit unions in new york city from 1914 through 1990 by analyzing the effects of organizational age size and population density on rates of organizational failure and growth the authors find evidence that old and small institutions are more likely to fail while young and small organizations have the highest growth rates

transaction cost determinants and ownership based entry mode choice a meta analytical review entry mode choice is a critical ingredient of international entry strategies and has been voluminously examined in the field the findings however are very mixed especially with respect to transaction cost related factors in determining the ownership based entry mode choice this study conducted a meta analysis to quantitatively summarize the literature and empirically generalize more conclusive findings based on the 106 effect sizes of 38 empirical studies the meta analysis shows that the findings of the existing studies are moderated to varying degrees by both study setting factors and statistical artifacts although the combined overall effects of transaction cost based determinants are consistent with the predictions of transaction cost economics we extensively discuss the implications of meta analytical results especially moderating effects of location country of origin industry type and statistical artifacts highlight the measurement adequacy equivalence and multidimensionality of transaction cost determinants and present our suggestions to improve theoretical inquiries and empirical verifications on entry mode choice

an application of cointegration theory in the estimation of the almost ideal demand system for food consumption in bulgaria abstract the almost ideal demand system is applied to consumption in bulgaria it is argued that the conventional estimation of the almost ideal model should be done within the framework of contemporary time series methodology in this paper the canonical cointegrating regression procedure of park is applied it is argued that the results of the almost ideal demand system that are presented are consistent with both theory and casual observation of consumer behaviour in bulgaria

analysis of japan s energy and environment strategy after the fukushima nuclear plant accident abstract this paper examines economic analyses of the options for energy and the environment proposed by the japanese government the main focuses of the analyses are the power generation mix in 2030 and particularly electricity supply shares of nuclear power the options proposed by the government assume drastic energy efficiency improvements increase in renewable energy and deep co2 emission reductions considerable energy savings are assumed by the government even in the baseline scenario and these are inconsistent with historical growth trends for gdp and power demand we modify the energy savings baseline scenario for consistency with the historical trends and historical electricity savings after the nuclear power accident in order to provide a wider array of options particularly those with fewer negative impacts on gdp this paper proposes alternative options under a revised baseline in the alternative options we assume lower shares of renewable energy in electricity supply and lower carbon price the economic impacts for the alternative options are much smaller than those assumed by the government the economic analyses provided in this paper will help future policy making for energy and environment in japan

an inverse demand analysis with introduction of quality effects an application to spanish consumption of fruit and vegetables this article analyzes consumer preference for fruit and vegetables when by using time series with socioeconomic characteristics of households there can be seemingly unobserved quality effects which are increased by aggregation the changes in spanish demand for fresh and processed fruit and vegetables over the period 1987 2000 are discussed following previous tests and analyses quantities are taken as predetermined and prices as matching the offer conditions thus quality effects based on the nutritional and or health value of the product are estimated from the error terms associated with the functions of the unit values quality variables are introduced as taste shifters in the inverse demand system laitinen theil model the results show the positive effects of quality differences on the normalized price for the group of products through own quality flexibilities and the negative effects between fresh and processed products through cross quality flexibilities

appetite for destruction the impact of the september 11 attacks on business founding it is widely accepted that entrepreneurial creation affects destruction as new and better organizations technologies and transactions replace old ones this phenomenon is labeled creative destruction but it might more accurately be called destructive creation given the driving role of creation in the process we reverse the typical causal ordering and ask whether destruction may drive creation we argue that economic systems may get stuck in suboptimal equilibria due to path dependence and that destruction may sweep away this inertia and open the way for entrepreneurship to test this idea we need an exogenous destructive shock rather than destruction that is endogenous to the process of economic progress our identification strategy relies on the september 11 attacks as an exogenous destructive shock to the economic system centered on new york city consistent with our theoretical claim we find that 15months after the attacks the rate of business founding close to new york city exceeds the rate before the attacks even after controlling for the inflow of recovery funds furthermore the increase in the business founding rate after the attacks grows faster closer to manhattan than it does further away from the epicenter of destruction

the inverse almost ideal demand system abstract a new demand system related to the almost ideal demand system aids of deaton and muellbauer is developed and illustrated this inverse aids iaids retains all of the desirable theoretical properties of the aids model with the exception of consistent aggregation an empirical issue is whether a linear approximation will work as well for the iaids as it has for the aids model since quantities are not as highly correlated as prices an application to u s meat demand demonstrates that the linear approximation of the iaids is excellent which enhanced the ease and range of application

an economic and environmental assessment of future electricity generation mixes in japan an assessment using the e3mg macro econometric model abstract in this paper we consider future options for japanese energy and climate policy we assess the economic and environmental impacts of changing the share of electricity generated by nuclear power and varying the mid term ghg targets the quantitative approach we use is based on the global macro econometric e3mg model our analysis reveals that the cost of denuclearisation to japanese gdp is close to zero and for employment the impact is slightly positive our results also show a double dividend effect if revenue neutral carbon taxes are levied in order to meet the ghg reduction targets and this double dividend effect is largest in the scenarios without nuclear power however our analysis suggests that a very high carbon tax rate would have to be imposed in order to achieve a 25 reduction in ghg emissions in 2020 compared to 1990 levels while simultaneously phasing out nuclear power

strategy structure and performance of korean business groups a transactions cost approach the authors use the transactions cost approach to analyze the diversification strategy and the resulting structure chosen by korean business groups to overcome market imperfections prevalent in developing countries business groups that have multidivisional struc ture are thought to show superior economic performance because such s tructure reduces transactions costs arising from organizational failure also major korean business groups have a relational structure showing both vertical integration and the characteristics of the conglomerate the authors modify the model of r e caves and m uekusa 1976 used for japan to obtain the empirical result tha t group affiliated firms show superior economic performance copyright 1988 by blackwell publishing ltd

deregulation and the adaptation of governance structure the case of the u s airline industry deregulation provides a natural experiment for examining how governance adapts to structural changes in the business environment we investigate the evolution of governance structure characterized by ownership concentration compensation policy and board composition in the u s airline industry during a 22 year period surrounding the airline deregulation act of 1978 consistent with theory we nd that after deregulation i equity ownership is more concentrated ii ceo pay increases iii stock option grants to ceos increase and iv board size decreases airlines governance structures gravitate toward the system of governance mechanisms used by unregulated rms the adaptation process is gradual however suggesting that it is costly to alter organizational capital we also present evidence on the relation between governance structure and rm survival 1999 elsevier science s a all rights reserved jel classixcation g32 g38 j33 l93

anniversary article the strategy field from the perspective of management science divergent strands and possible integration we reflect on the evolution of the strategy field as seen through the window ofmanagement science reflecting the diverse disciplinary roots of strategy research we identify a broad ranging body of work that varies with respect to the assumptions made regarding individual rationality and the level of analysis at which the research is carried out we argue that recent developments begin to delineate a potentially unifying conceptual framework for treating the field s defining questions the conceptual apparatus of evolutionary economics we conclude by laying out important challenges for evolutionary economics if it is to serve as a foundation for both the positive and the normative research agendas of the strategy field

opportunism incentives and the m form hypothesis a laboratory study abstract opportunism is one central premise of the m form hypothesis this premise is investigated in a laboratory experiment using m form and u form organizations under incentives based on corporate profit and divisional profits there was greater opportunism under u form organization than under the m form and under divisional profit than under corporate profit incentives additionally a misguided altruism lead a number of individuals to misrepresent information the m form yields higher performance than the u form also corporate profit incentives yield higher total profit than divisional profit incentives the results partially explain why empirical studies do not strongly support the m form hypothesis

price formation of fish an application of an inverse demand system inverse demand systems explain price variations as functions of quantity variations they have properties analogous to those of regular demand systems there are very few examples of their empirical application in part this is due to lack of data for which price is the decision variable and the quantity given the case of fish landed at belgian sea ports appears to suit an inverse demand system well a rotterdam variant of such a system in estimated allais interaction intensities have been derived and show a reasonable pattern

the implications of debt heterogeneity for r d investment and firm performance an assumption in prior research is that debt is homogeneous and provides inappropriate governance for r d investments we argue that debt is heterogeneous although transactional debt does indeed impose strict contractual constraints that provide inappropriate governance for r d investments relational debt has very different characteristics that provide more appropriate governance using a sample of japanese firms we find that firms that align their debt structures with their r d investments perform better than those that are misaligned furthermore firms tend to align their debt structure with r d investments but only after deregulation permits relatively free access to various types of debt

testing for homogeneity in demand systems when the regressors are nonstationary an implication of optimizing theory is that demand functions are homogeneous of degree zero in prices and nominal income evidence based on estimations of demand systems has repeatedly found this restriction to be rejected by the data however the hypothesis is often formulated in terms of regressors that are non stationary this paper re examines the evidence for homogeneity in light of recent developments in time series econometrics with special emphasis on the treatment of trends we find the demand system to be stochastically but not deterministically cointegrated using techniques developed for estimating cointegrating vectors in the presence of deterministic trends we re estimate the demand system and find that homogeneity holds in many cases

testing restrictions on a model of japanese meat demand tests for quasi separability net substitutability and perfect substitutability are developed and implemented on an almost ideal demand system model of the japanese meat sector the data set satisfies both symmetry and homogeneity there is evidence of net complimentarity between chicken and dairy beef and chicken and pork the tests indicate that japanese wagyu beef is considered a separate commodity to both imported beef and dairy beef the results also indicate that fish can be treated as separable in the japanese meat demand system

using transaction cost economics to explain outsourcing of accounting this study explores whether smes involved in the outsourcing of accounting tasks differ in terms of transactional and personal ceo characteristics from others that perform the same tasks within the company we rely on the transaction cost economics tce model while controlling for age educational background and trust of the sme executive in the external accountant a survey was developed to investigate the outsourcing by belgian smes both of routine entry of invoices interim reporting and non routine period end accounting preparation of financial statements accounting tasks for the routine accounting tasks frequency was significantly associated with outsourcing meanwhile for non routine accounting tasks asset specificity and frequency were significantly associated high frequency tasks were associated with lower levels of outsourcing similarly higher asset specificity was associated with lower levels of outsourcing furthermore the educational background of the ceo as well as the ceo s level of trust in the external accountant was significantly associated with outsourcing confirming the upper echelon theory having a more educated ceo was associated with lower levels of outsourcing both for routine and non routine accounting tasks

the antecedents and performance implications of cooperative exchange norms our study investigates the antecedents and performance implications of cooperative exchange norms we argue that in early relationships the level of expected cooperative norms in an exchange is the result of a calculative process facilitated by transaction attributes joint transaction specific investments and observability the greater the level of these two exchange attributes the greater the level of cooperative exchange norms all else being equal we further argue that the realized level of cooperative exchange norms can deviate from the expected level because the development of such norms is the result of social processes that management cannot directly and fully control this gap between realized and expected norms affects exchange performance performance suffers when the realized level of cooperative exchange norms falls below the expected level but overshooting expectations lays a critical groundwork for repeat transactions the analysis of a survey of 182 collaborative r d alliances provides initial support for our theory

does ownership affect the variability of the production process evidence from international courier services a firm often must ensure that products or services it produces match customer expectations we define variability as any deviation in a production process yielding products or services whose attributes differ from the firm s stated target specifications firms pursuing products marked by low variability are more subject to maladaptation costs if production processes are not adjusted to avoid nonconformities furthermore such adjustments often require idiosyncratic investments e g dedicated information technology systems thereby creating contractual hazards and potential underinvestment we hypothesize that ownership of sequential activities in the value chain helps mitigate problems associated with maladaptation as well as suboptimalities in transaction specific investment thereby resulting in lower variability using data on delivery times from the japanese international courier and small package services industry we assess the variability reducing role of ownership in two complementary ways the first approach is parametric allowing us to assess the impact of ownership on the variance associated with delivery time here we focus on shipments that frequently fail to arrive precisely within the time period initially expected by customers the second approach is more consistent with the notion of reliability or the likelihood that shipments will not arrive later than expected we nonparametrically estimate the distribution of deviations between actual and expected delivery time and verify how distinct organizational choices change the distribution ownership of multiple segments yields a particularly pronounced effect on both variance and reliability ownership bestows variability reducing benefits of ownership especially when ownership is observed in multiple stages of the value chain

being efficiently fickle a dynamic theory of organizational choice a central proposition in organization theory is that discrete organizational forms are matched to environmental conditions market strategies or exchange conditions this paper develops a contrary theoretical proposition we argue that efficiency may dictate modulating between discrete governance modes i e structural modulation in response to a stable set of exchange conditions if governance choices are discrete as much of organization theory argues then the consequent steady state functionality delivered by these organizational forms is itself discrete however if the desired functionality lies in between the steady state functionality delivered by two discrete choices then efficiency gains may be available by modulating between modes we develop an analytical model of structural modulation and examine factors that influence when modulation is ef ficiency enhancing as well as the optimal rate of modulation we conclude that under certain conditions structural modulation is efficiency enhancing further contrary to theories that highlight the potentially destructive consequences of inertia on organizational survival we identify important efficiencyyielding benefits of inertia

testing restrictions in a flexible dynamic demand system an application to consumers expenditure in canada traditionally restrictions on systems of demand equations have been tested using static models whilst being estimated with time series data this paper develops a vector time series model of expenditure shares in the context of a singular dynamic demand system the model allows for non symmetric and non homogeneous short run behaviour the homogeneity and symmetry restrictions are only examined in the long run structure results based on canadian time series data are presented and reject the current practise of static modelling while restrictions suggested by economic theory are not rejected when imposed on the long run structure

internal capital market controls and financial performance in multidivisional firms it is proposed that within the population of m form firms the control systems necessary to realize economic benefits from interrelationships between subunits o f a firm are incompatible with the systems necessary to realize benef its from an m form type internal capital market this hypothesis is t ested on 156 large u k firms questionnaire data are used to classif y the firms according to their internal control characteristics the findings provide tentative support for the hypothesis copyright 1988 by blackwell publishing ltd

advertising and consumer demand a differential approach abstract this paper uses a differential approach to derive demand equations to deal with advertising and show that the demand equations are natural extensions of the usual differential demand equations

the adoption of the m form organizational structure a test of imitation hypothesis the study of organizational adoption of administrative innovations has been generally guided by the imitation hypothesis this hypothesis states that within a relevant population of firms an innovation is first adopted by a select few innovators who communicate and influence others to adopt it resulting in a predictable diffusion pattern using data on the adoption of the m form organizational structure this paper reexamines this hypothesis based on the reported results we cannot reject the null hypothesis that organizational adoption of administrative innovations is characterized by a white noise process this result brings into question the appropriateness of the imitation hypothesis limitations and implications of the results are discussed

internal organization and economic performance an empirical analysis of the profitability of principal firms business historians have long been aware that organizational innovations have had remarkable productivity ramifications a h cole has asserted that if changes in business procedures and practices were patentable the contributions of business change to the economic growth of the nation would be as widely recognized as the influence of mechanical inventions 9 pp 61 62 some economists have come to recognize the role of organizational innovation kenneth arrow noting that truly among man s innovations the use of organization to accomplish his ends is among both his greatest and earliest 2 p 2441 oliver williamson 271 has further championed the study of organizational innovation doing much to provide the theoretical underpinnings necessary to bring the topic into the corpus of economic theory furthermore richard caves has observed that both corporate strategy and organizational structure influence the economic performance of the firm and the market in which it sells 6 p 641 however structural parameters are absent from the neoclassical theory of production which masquerades as the economic theory of the firm developments in the theory of the firm are unlikely to accommodate organizational structure considerations until connections between structure and performance have been demonstrated empirically the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between a particular kind of decentralized and divisionalized internal hierarchical structure what oliver williamson has called the m form innovation 27 ch 81 and firm profitability in essence the methodology involves examining the differential performance between the m form innovator in an industry and its principal rival application of two non parametric statistical tests the sign test and the wilcoxon matched pairs signed ranks test is supportive of the hypothesis that the m form structure is associated with superior firm

evaluating options for the future energy mix of japan after the fukushima nuclear crisis the fukushima nuclear accident in march 2011 has increased social and political reluctance to embrace nuclear power in japan and elsewhere the japanese government has thus been considering four possible future energy mixes including a nuclear free pathway and three others with 10 35 nuclear supply coupled with a larger proportion of renewable energy and fossil fuels to replace nuclear here we use multi criteria decision making analysis mcdma to assess the potential negative economic levelised cost of electricity and energy security environmental greenhouse gas emissions land transformation water consumption heated water discharge air pollution radioactive waste and solid waste and social safety issues impacts of the four proposed pathways to determine which scenario most holistically minimises adverse future outcomes the nuclear free pathway has the highest overall potential for adverse outcomes score 2 49 out of 3 and the 35 nuclear power supply option yielding the lowest negative impact score 0 74 without weightings despite some sensitivity to the choice of criterion weights our analyses demonstrate clearly that from an empirical perspective a nuclear free pathway for japan is the worst option to pursue we recommend that mcdma methodology we used for japan can be applied to other countries to evaluate future electricity generation scenarios

organizational incentives and organizational mortality despite a long tradition of research on organizational mortality organizational theorists have not examined the effect of incentive contracting on firm survival this paper fills this gap by examining the effect of incentive contracting on the survival of u s business format franchise systems over the period 1984 1996 the paper finds empirical support for several hypotheses derived from efficient contracting theory in general large firms that adopt policies which screen agents signal quality and control agents free riding are more likely to survive than large firms which do not adopt these policies

hierarchies and markets abstract whereas previous empirical studies have found performance gains from the adoption of multidivisional organization in u s and u k companies this paper reports a reduction in profitability for german m form firms for several years following reorganization with no sign of an eventual positive gain these results emerge from a cross section analysis of 48 among the top 100 german companies we suggest the constrasting results may flow from certain legal and institutional features not present in the u s and u k attenuating potential gains and enlarging short run transactions costs these include the role of the banks the relative concentration of shareholdings and the dual system of company boards

new size measurements in population ecology in organizational ecology the analysis of the impact of competition between populations on vital ratios is relatively underdeveloped this paper addresses this issue by developing new competition measurements that focus on the importance of organizational size the application of these measurements in the case of competition between organizational subforms in a population and their impact on mortality rates demonstrate their usefulness for modelling competition specifically the results show how levels of competition between firms in a population can be more clearly analysed when the rival population mass or concentration indices are used

profitability transactional alignment and organizational mortality in the u s trucking industry the winds of creative destruction rarely blow more fiercely than in a newly deregulated environment managers simultaneously face a novel focus on operating efficiency and an onslaught of new competitors what must managers do to enable their firms to survive in such an environment what factors bear on firms survival this paper presents an analysis of mortality of large motor carriers in the u s interstate for hire trucking industry after deregulation it examines this phenomenon through a multidisciplinary lens that encompasses organizational ecology neoclassical economics and transaction cost economics the paper posits that carrier mortality is a function of both firm level and industry level attributes which are drawn from both ecological and economic theories while each of these theories separately informs motor carrier mortality the inclusion of predictions derived from both disciplines in one model significantly increases explanatory power over either theory evaluated alone the empirical analysis is among the first to show increased mortality when firms do not adhere to operating policies consistent with transaction cost minimization principles in sum managers are well advised to adopt a multidisciplinary approach to strategy to ensure their firms survival 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

scenario analysis of energy saving and co2 emissions reduction potentials to ratchet up japanese mitigation target in 2030 in the residential sector abstract this paper assesses to what extent co 2 emissions from electricity in the residential sector can be further reduced in japan beyond its post 2020 mitigation target known as intended nationally determined contribution indc the paper examines the reduction potential of electricity demand and co 2 emissions in the residential sector by conducting a scenario analysis electricity consumption scenarios are set up using a time series regression model and used to forecast the electricity consumption patterns to 2030 the scenario analysis also includes scenarios that reduce electricity consumption through enhanced energy efficiency and energy saving measures the obtained results show that japan can reduce electricity consumption and co 2 emissions in the residential sector in 2030 more than the japanese post 2020 mitigation target indicates at the maximum the electricity consumption could be reduced by 35 twh which contributes to 55 4 mtco 2 of emissions reduction in 2030 compared to 2013 if the voluntarily targeted co 2 intensity of electricity is achieved the result implies that japan has the potential to ratchet up post 2020 mitigation targets discussed under the paris agreement of the united nations framework convention on climate change unfccc

diffusion of the m form structure in the u k rate of imitation inter firm and inter industry differences abstract this paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of the diffusion of the multidivisional form structure among a sample of large u k quoted companies it is shown that the diffusion process resembles that reported for complex capital embodied innovations in the literature in cross sectional analyses the determinants of the delay in adoption are examined it is found that size diversification and less clearly merger intensity are significantly positively related to the speed of imitation in confirmation on the m form hypothesis inter industry differences are not generally found to be important apart from a manufacturing service distinction

technology strategy governance structure and interdivisional coordination abstract this paper studies how various organizational forms compare in their capacities to solve coordination problems created by technological interdependence between firms divisions i contrast the organizational mechanisms used by two firms ibm and general motors to address these problems while it is widely recognized that centralization distorts incentives facing division managers this paper highlights its benefits when there are large potential gains from agreement on technological standards the examples show how a centralized governance structure supported by lower powered incentives facilitates interdivisional coordination this suggests a refinement of the theory of organizational form based on how firms resolve the tensions between strategic planning and the measurement of organizational units performances