responsible entrepreneurship in developing countries understanding the realities and complexities developing countries have recently experienced a burgeoning of small scale individual entrepreneurs sies who range from petty traders to personal service workers like small street vendors barbers and owners of small shops as a result of market based reforms rapid urbanisation unemployment landlessness and poverty while sies form a major part of the informal workforce in developing countries and contribute significantly to economic growth their potential is being undermined when they engage in irresponsible and deceptive business practices such as overpricing sale of underweight or substandard products or attempts to hoard goods to name a few despite the growing interest in corporate social responsibility csr initiatives of small businesses in developing countries the sies have received almost no attention to address this void in the literature we explore the reasons for the less than optimal level of social responsibility demonstrated by some sies in developing countries we do so by drawing upon the existing literature to develop a comprehensive framework of social responsibility of sies highlighting their unique characteristics and the different contextual factors that they encounter in developing countries based on this framework we then present a set of propositions specifying the influence of these contextual factors such as business environment cultural traditions socio economic conditions and both international and domestic pressures on the business practices of sies the framework offers an explanation for the lack of responsible entrepreneurship of sies and has important implications for promoting sustainable business practices in developing countries where businesses are striving hard to survive and compete

dea and its use in the regulation of water companies abstract this paper begins with an introduction to the basic principles of data envelopment analysis dea dea is a linear programming based method for assessing the productive efficiencies of operating units such as bank branches sales outlets schools or individuals this paper then goes on to describe the use of dea in the regulatory framework regulation employed to safeguard the public interest is increasingly playing an major role in great britain and other countries in the aftermath of the privatisation of publicly owned companies including utilities which still enjoy a good degree of monopoly power this paper gives an account of the use of dea to estimate potential cost savings at water companies in the context of the price review conducted by the regulator of water companies in england and wales in 1994 it also highlights certain generic issues arising in the use of dea in the regulatory context this paper should prove of interest both to those who want to know about dea as a tool in general and to those interested in efficiency measurement under regulation

some models for estimating technical and scale inefficiencies in data envelopment analysis in management contexts mathematical programming is usually used to evaluate a collection of possible alternative courses of action en route to selecting one which is best in this capacity mathematical programming serves as a planning aid to management data envelopment analysis reverses this role and employs mathematical programming to obtain ex post facto evaluations of the relative efficiency of management accomplishments however they may have been planned or executed mathematical programming is thereby extended for use as a tool for control and evaluation of past accomplishments as well as a tool to aid in planning future activities the ccr ratio form introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes as part of their data envelopment analysis approach comprehends both technical and scale inefficiencies via the optimal value of the ratio form as obtained directly from the data without requiring a priori specification of weights and or explicit delineation of assumed functional forms of relations between inputs and outputs a separation into technical and scale efficiencies is accomplished by the methods developed in this paper without altering the latter conditions for use of dea directly on observational data technical inefficiencies are identified with failures to achieve best possible output levels and or usage of excessive amounts of inputs methods for identifying and correcting the magnitudes of these inefficiencies as supplied in prior work are illustrated in the present paper a new separate variable is introduced which makes it possible to determine whether operations were conducted in regions of increasing constant or decreasing returns to scale in multiple input and multiple output situations the results are discussed and related not only to classical single output economics but also to more modern versions of economics which are identified with contestable market theories

fostering responsible communities a community social marketing approach to sustainable living just as socially irresponsible organizational behavior leaves a punitive legacy on society socially responsible organizations can foster curative change this article examines whether small organizations can foster societal change toward more sustainable modes of living we contend that consumption is deeply intertwined with social relations and norms thus making individual behavioral change toward sustainability a matter of facilitating change in individual behavior as well as in social norms and relations between organizations and consumers we argue that it is in this facilitation process that small firms can play a major role by adopting upstream and downstream approaches to diffuse behavioral change by synthesizing four key strands of literature small businesses and corporate social responsibility ethical consumption community social marketing and the diffusion of innovation and using the exemplar case of modbury the iconic plastic bag free town we demonstrate how responsible small firms can influence communities and the individuals therein to encourage environmentally sustainable practice to diffuse and support change in society

optimal bidding in auctions from a game theory perspective abstract the game theoretic perspective in auction bidding has provided a powerful normative framework for the analysis of auctions and it has generated an impressive volume of research contributions tracing this research we review key recent advances which have greatly expanded our understanding of the operation of auctions and produced a more accurate analysis of mechanism design and optimal bidding we follow various experimental studies which have shown that the predictive power of auction theory remains in many cases limited for this reason we concentrate on research themes which enhance the applicability of auction theory leading to more realistic descriptions of bidding behaviors we identify important innovations which expand the environment of auction bidding and carry us beyond rational decision making we conclude providing directions of future research and discussing their implications

assessing social capital small and medium sized enterprises in germany and the u k social capital can be considered to be the product of co operationbetween various institutions networks and business partners it haspotential as a useful tool for business ethics in this article weidentify categories pertinent to the measurement of social capital insmall and medium sized enterprises smes by drawing on three differentsectors one business to business service one business to customerservice and one manufacturing we have enabled the consideration ofsectoral differences we find sector to play an important part inrelation to business practices and social capital our inclusion of smesfrom germany and the united kingdom has called attention to cultural institutional and economic aspects of two regions of europe and how theycan influence sme social capital social capital is found to beinfluenced by context and in particular institutional arrangements inanalysing the data we note particular areas of interest from the pointof view of smes and social capital as being formal engagement networking within sectors networking across sectors volunteerism andgiving to charity and finally a focus on why people engage we concludethat there is a considerable amount of further research needed on socialcapital sme s and business ethics

incentive plans for productive efficiency innovation and learning in many industries where production or sales is delegated to a number of subunits the central management faces the classical problem how to induce continuous efficiency improvements organizational learning and transfer of knowledge with a minimum of control exercised this paper draws on recent results regarding regulatory frameworks to construct simple yet powerful incentive schemes for decentralized production under asymmetric information the theoretical foundation is based on principal agent theory cf laffont and tirole econometrica 56 1986 614 641 and extensions to production theory by bogetoft management science 40 1994 959 968 the proposed incentive system is operational and makes use of available information to provide positive incentives for participation in the dynamic development of the entire organization

design competition through multidimensional auctions this article studies design competition in government procurement by developing a model of two dimensional auctions wherefirms bid on both price and quality and bids are evaluated by a scoring rule designed by a buyer three auction schemes first score second score and second preferred offer are introduced and related to actual practices if the buyer can commit to a scoring rule in his best interest the resulting optimal scoring rule underrewards quality relative to the buyer s utility function and implements the optimal outcome for the buyer underfirst and second score auctions absent the commitment power the onlyfeasible scoring rule is the buyer s utility function under which 1 all three schemes yield the same expected utility to the buyer and 2 first and second score auctions induce the first best level of quality which turns out to be excessive from the buyer s point of view

estimating most productive scale size using data envelopment analysis abstract the relation between the most productive scale size mpss for paparticular input and output mixes and returns to scale for multiple inputs multiple outputs situations is explicitly developed this relation is then employed to extend the applications of data envelopment analysis dea introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes ccr to the estimation of most productive scale sizes for convex production possibility sets it is then shown that in addition to productive inefficiencies at the actual scale size the ccr efficiency measure also reflects any inefficiencies due to divergence from the most productive scale size two illustrations of the practical applications of these results to the estimation of most productive scale sizes and returns to scale for hospitals and stem electric generation plants are also provided emphasize the advantage of this method in examining specific segments of the efficient production surface

data envelopment analysis on a relaxed set of assumptions data envelopment analysis is a procedure for evaluation of the relative efficiency of units in a production system dea involves construction of composite units as convex combinations of other units inputs and outputs under various conditions related to returns to scale the assumption of convexity is inconsistent with increasing returns to scale and not implied by constant or non increasing returns to scale an alternative dea approach which does not invoke the assumption of a convex production possibility set is developed in this paper it is implemented in two stages stage one is concerned with the spanning of isoquants and stage two with an evaluation of the position of an observed input output combination compared to the isoquants both stages involve linear programming techniques solely

social and symbolic capital and responsible entrepreneurship an empirical investigation of sme narratives this paper investigates links between social capital and symbolic capital and responsible entrepreneurship in the context of small and medium enterprises smes the source of the primary data was 144 business profiles written by the owner managers of small businesses in application for a small business awards competition in 2005 included in each of these narratives were claims relating to the firms contributions to wider society relationships with customers employees and stakeholders these narratives were coded and classified in a framework drawn from nahapiet and ghoshal s 1998 academy of management review 23 2 242 266 categorisation of social capital the analysis revealed a range of strategic orientations towards the development of social and symbolic capital along a conceptual continuum ranging from being responsible for oneself to being responsible for others overall the evidence demonstrates the significance of the power inherent in the social relations of smes as a force for ethical behaviour and suggests that normative theories of the development of social capital may provide competitive advantage through responsible behaviour for small business in the global economy

the relevance of stakeholder theory and social capital theory in the context of csr in smes an australian perspective the concept of business responsibility usually termed as corporate social responsibility csr originated in the early 1930s after the wall street crash of 1929 exposed corporate irresponsibility in large organisations the understanding of csr has evolved since then and its scope has now broadened from mere compliance to corporate laws to active alignment of internal business goals with externally set societal aspirations unfortunately the significance of this multidimensional concept within the small and medium enterprise sme sector has continued to be overshadowed by its application in large and multinational organisations more importantly this has led to the practice of judging smes which are experiencing increasing pressure to engage in social activities as if they are no different from their larger counterparts this study therefore investigates csr from the perspective of smes in australia without any theoretical presumptions and then comments on the relevance and applicability of the two theories that have been commonly used to investigate business responsibility namely stakeholder theory st and social capital theory sct the research findings indicate that csr within the sme sector is more aligned to the fundamentals of sct mainly owing to the unique resource and survival challenges that they face and which are arguably not so pronounced in large organisations

short communication dea based auctions simulations abstract in this paper we use simulations to numerically evaluate the hybrid dea second score auction in a procurement setting the winner of the hybrid auction by design receives payment at the most equal to the second score auction it is therefore superior to the traditional second score scheme from the point of view of a principal interested in acquiring an item at the minimum price without losing in quality for a set of parameters we quantify the size of the improvements and show that the improvement depends intimately on the regularity imposed on the underlying cost function in the least structured case of a variable returns to scale technology the hybrid auction only improved the outcome for a small percentage of cases for other technologies with constant returns to scale the gains are considerably higher and payments are lowered in a large percentage of cases we also show that the number of the participating agents the concavity of the principal value functions and the number of quality dimensions impact the expected payment

multi dimensional procurement auction under uncertain and asymmetric information abstract this paper addresses two important issues in public procurement ex ante uncertainty about the participating agents qualities and costs and their strategic behaviour we present a novel multi dimensional auction that incentivises agents to make a partial inquiry into the procured task and to honestly report quality cost probabilistic estimates based on which the principal can choose the agent that offers the best value for money the mechanism extends second score auction design to settings where the quality is uncertain and it provides incentives to both collect information and deliver desired qualities

import export elasticities and exchange rate dynamics abstract this paper combines the older elasticities approach with the quantity theory of money it is shown that the sole key factor in determining whether the exchange rate overshoots or undershoots its equilibrium value is the magnitude of import export elasticities

dea based auctions we discuss the design of a multi dimensional procurement mechanism that combines data envelopment analysis dea and auction theory the mechanism selects an agent to provide a project characterized by multiple attributes the optimal configuration of the multiple attributes is settled endogenously by trading off the costs to the provider with the benefits to the acquirer this is done within a context of asymmetric information and strategic behavior as well as possibly correlated costs the mechanism makes it individually rational and incentive compatible to participate and reveal costs and the outcome is socially optimal allocatively efficient

the design of auctions and tenders with quality thresholds the symmetric case three designs of auctions with quality thresholds are considered the quality threshold is not known with certainty by the bidders in one scheme quality plans submitted by potential bidders are evaluated first and price bids for only those plans which have been approved are invited the second scheme has price bids first to yield a priority for scrutinising quality a third has simultaneous decisions on price and quality the model yields an equivalence result the use of reserve prices to produce social optimality is then investigated the theory is used to discuss the recent auction for uk television franchises

the flexible exchange basket a macroeconomic analysis abstract this paper constructs and analyzes a multi country stochastic equilibrium framework suitable for analyzing the behavior of an economy which pursues a flexible exchange basket policy the framework is general enough to accommodate the special cases of a multilateral floating exchange rates and b rigid basket regimes an important issue that is addressed in the present framework involves the composition of the optimal flexible basket versus that of the corresponding rigid basket such an investigation is carried out for various patterns of multilateral trade for various types of structural disturbances and for alternative optimality criteria

towards a loanable funds amended liquidity preference theory of the exchange rate and interest rate abstract the objective is to develop a unified theory of the exchange rate and interest rate using a loanable funds amended liquidity preference approach in order to provide a new perspective on many puzzling facts associated with the post bretton woods international economy it is shown that i a monetary expansion can initially raise the interest rate but depreciate the home currency ii real demand shocks can cause interest rate and exchange rate overshooting iii an infinite interest elasticity for capital flows cannot cause exchange rate overshooting if an extended marshall lerner condition holds iv the home currency can appreciate when the current account is negative if the extended marshall lerner condition is not satisfied and v changes in the disequilibrium regime will cause instability in the estimates of reduced form coefficients

incentive efficient production frontiers an agency perspective on dea in this paper we examine how empirical production frontiers may contribute to the incentives of production units we consider a series of data envelopment analysis dea frontiers and we show when these may be incentive efficient in the sense that they contain all the information that are relevant for optimal incentive provision the frontiers considered include the so called constant decreasing and varying return to scale models the free disposability and the free replicability models as well as the increasing and decreasing return to scale models based on a relaxed set of assumptions also we illustrate how to design optimal incentive schemes based on such frontiers contents 1 introduction 2 the incentive problem 3 production frontiers and productivity measures 4 incentive efficient production frontiers 5 extensions 6 an example 7 final remarks mathematical appendix references

estimating cost functions in regulated industries characterized by asymmetric information abstract in this paper a structural model is developed to estimate a cost function that includes both an adverse selection and a moral hazard variable it is shown how traditional cost function estimates may produced biased results if moral hazard is present this gives an alternative reason to feinstein and wolak the econometric implications of incentive compatible regulation in g f rhodes ed advances in econometrics vol 9 159 204 jai press greenwich ct 1991 of why scale economics may be overestimated in regulated industries parameter estimates from our model can be used to design an optimal contract or any other regulatory mechanism we illustrate our approach using data from the norwegian bus transport industry

small firms social capital and the enhancement of business performance through innovation programmes the paper explores the extent to which social capital is advantageous to small and medium enterprise sme growth social capital is a communal property involving civic engagement associational membership high trust reliability and reciprocity in social networks it is capable of being identified in social political and economic contexts often associated with strong communities however not all strong communities exert the effects of social capital in respect of business activities this paper assesses government programmes to promote collaboration amongst smes for improving innovation capacity by increasing social capital through networking it shows that for a sizeable proportion of programme funded firms in denmark ireland and wales u k social capital building was associated with enhanced business knowledge and innovation performance of particular importance was the opportunity afforded to firms for linkage with external innovation networks and the build up of embeddedness or the institutional basis for the enhancement of social capital as a consequence of discovering the advantages of social capital over a third of respondents planned to continue to develop it in future in many cases funding such activities privately rather than calling on the public purse

relative efficiency measurement and prospects for yardstick competition in brazilian electricity distribution abstract the paper considers the non parametric methodology of data envelopment analysis dea in the context of efficiency measurement for brazilian electricity distribution in 1997 98 indicating the existence of firms operating substantially below the efficiency frontier the potential and difficulties associated with the implementation of yardstick competition schemes are then discussed stressing in particular the role of relative efficiency scores obtained from the dea approach

reconsidering the relevance of social license pressure and government regulation for environmental performance of european smes whereas social license pressure is held as a strong motive for the corporate social performance csp of large enterprises it is argued in literature that it will not sufficiently motivate small and medium sized enterprises smes in this view government regulation is the most effective way to improve the environmental performance of smes other studies argue that social license pressure is also important for smes because of the strong embeddedness of smes in their local communities a large scale empirical study into the effects of social license pressures and government regulation on the environmental performance of smes that could help solve this debate is however still lacking this paper contributes to the scientific literature by using structural equation modeling on a sample of 4929 smes from twelve european countries to test both views for micro small and medium sized enterprises another contribution to scientific literature is that our model includes direct as well as indirect effects from social license pressures on environmental performance the indirect effects are mediated by perceived market benefits of csr the estimation results show that social license pressures as perceived by smes significantly affect the environmental performance of micro small and medium sized enterprises directly as well as indirectly through mediation by perceived market benefits of csp in all cases the perceived social license pressure provides a stronger stimulus to improving environmental performance than the motive to comply with government regulation the policy implication is that governments should not rely on direct regulation of environmental performance only but also aim to improve the transparency of environmental performance by soft regulations that induce smes to publish key performance indicators on environmental issues

models for iterative multiattribute procurement auctions multiattribute auctions extend traditional auction settings to allow negotiation over nonprice attributes such as weight color and terms of delivery in addition to price and promise to improve market efficiency in markets with configurable goods this paper provides an iterative auction design for an important special case of the multiattribute allocation problem with special preferential independent additive structure on the buyer value and seller costs auction additive discrete provides a refined design for a price based auction in which the price feedback decomposes to an additive part with a price for each attribute and an aggregate part that appears as a price discount for each supplier in addition this design also has excellent information revelation properties that are validated through computational experiments the auction terminates with an outcome of a modified vickrey clarke groves mechanism this paper also develops auction nonlinear discrete for the more general nonlinear case a particularly simple design that solves the general multiattribute allocation problem but requires that the auctioneer maintains prices on bundles of attribute levels