toward a contingency framework of export entrepreneurship conceptualisations and empirical evidence this paper reports the findings of a study which employed a contingency export entrepreneurial approach to investigate the critical influences on export venture creation among a sample of nigerian small firms responding to the repeated calls in the literature for multi disciplinary research frameworks the paper draws on perspectives from entrepreneurship exporting and contingency literatures to examine the antecedent and moderating influences on the export behavior of small firms it explores in particular the effect of entrepreneurial orientation and external environmental moderators in the export venture creation process of small firms the findings suggest that an entrepreneurial orientation is associated with better export venturing and is the appropriate strategic posture for small firms operating in hostile environments it would appear also that this orientation is associated with certain decision maker characteristics including international orientation and contacts and previous business experience and firm level competencies by thus highlighting the entrepreneurial dimensions of export venturing this paper makes the case for greater policy focus on strengthening the entrepreneurial foundations capacities of small firms

responding to financial crisis the case of jamaica abstract the adverse economic and social effects of the financial crises that have afflicted many developing countries in recent years have highlighted the need to develop a policy response which addresses the vulnerability of financial systems to systemic instability and crisis the article examines the experience of jamaica a country which managed a financial sector crisis during the 1990s without the assistance or involvement of the international monetary fund lessons are drawn from the jamaica case study for the domestic management of banking sector failures in lower income countries

internationalisation conceptualising an entrepreneurial process of behaviour in time this paper presents a three stage process of conceptual development in response to the call for a unifying direction for research in the emergent field of international entrepreneurship drawing on classic approaches to internationalisation and importing insight from entrepreneurship as a separate and distinct field of study the paper develops three potential models of internationalisation as a time based process of entrepreneurial behaviour the models evolve from the simple through general to precise levels of conceptualisation research implications are discussed

empirical exercises in estimating the effects of different types of financial institutions functioning on economic growth while recent studies of the finance growth nexus have focused on the use of proxies which more accurately capture the theorized functioning of the financial sector they have tended to focus either on the functioning of the financial sector as a whole or on the dominant institutions within the sector little attention has been paid to a comparison of the relative effects of different types of financial institutions on economic growth this article attempts to get a deeper understanding of the finance growth process by disaggregating the total financial sector impact and examining the individual and relative effects of each type of institution in the financial sector we explore the empirical properties of alternative specifications of models of the impact of financial institutions functioning on economic growth by conducting a number of exercises these exercises experiment with various model specifications to represent the long and short run impacts of the financial institutions functioning on econo

simulation study of the price differentiation effect in a stochastic deteriorating inventory with heterogeneous consumers freshness sensitivity a fixed price policy regardless of expiration date may result in unsold inventory and sales loss price reduction over time as the expiration date approaches motivates customers to purchase all items including the ones that are left with only a short interval until their expiration we conduct a discrete event simulation that captures the main characteristics of this phenomenon results show that a moderate differentiation of price increases profits by 6 a larger differentiation reduces profits profits are the highest for freshness oriented customers a fixed price policy is preferred in an environment of large variance and expected near term expirations

the decision maker and export entry and expansion this paper examines the varied empirical findings of the relationship between firm individual characteristics and foreign entry expansion behavior the results support the view that such activity is neither exclusively determined by structural or managerial factors and is really the result of interaction between both types of variables the paper proposes that foreign entry and expansion can best be understood as an adoption of innovation type behavior

the export development process an integrative review of empirical models despite widespread research on the export behavior of firms no integrative review of the empirical work in relation to export development models exists in the extant literature this article reviews the main models on the subject identifies their structural characteristics evaluates the methodologies used for their validation and analyzes the key conceptual issues emerging from their assessment while valuable inroads into the mechanics and constituent parts of the export development process have been made this avenue of empirical inquiry has attracted criticism on structural methodological and conceptual grounds future research in the field should harness the eclectic contribution afforded by existing theory and at the same time enhance its status with contributions from marketing business and other disciplines

should retailers hold a perishable product having different ages the case of a homogeneous market and multiplicative demand model this paper specializes in investigating the common practice of the coexistence of multiple competing perishables each with different age and price all of which are associated with the same product the fundamental postulate investigated by our model is the replacement of the policy of selling a single product age with a policy of selling multiple product ages coexistence of multiple product ages on the shelf is associated with shorter cycle lengths as well as with providing consumers with the option of choosing between a fresher product on average and a cheaper product on average we use a utility corresponding to the factors of price and time we axiomatically assume the coexistence of multiple product ages while posing several propositions which present certain difficulties in preferring this policy with the support of a multiplicative demand with respect to price and time and by assuming that consumers are homogeneous in their preferences we analyze a deterministic version of the problem and derive the optimal pricing policy given any cycle length and any duration for which both types coexist on the shelf we prove that the optimal policy is not to sell multiple product types at all by means of a numerical example we show that the operational mode of the coexistence of multiple product ages reduces the retailer s profit per unit time by at least 15 sensitivity analysis of some of the most influential parameters is introduced the superiority of the single product age operational mode over the competitor mode sharply decreases as the optimal cycle length is approached

optimal ordering and pricing policy for demand functions that are separable into price and inventory age abstract we formulate and analyze two models for determining the optimal pricing order quantity and replenishment period for items whose demand function is separable into components of price and inventory age the first model assumes a multiplicative demand function we provide conditions which are satisfied by most common price dependent demand functions to reduce the three variable profit maximization problem into a single variable problem which can be solved using an efficient line search method next we show that a genuine additive model cannot exist and instead suggest and analyze a pseudo additive model however this model is more limited than the multiplicative model in its ability to incorporate various combinations of price and inventory age effects and reduction of the maximization problem into a single variable problem is more complicated except in the case of a linear price effect which is further analyzed for both models we show that the optimal solution satisfies the first order condition for equilibrium under a monopoly with a modification that includes inventory holding costs we solve numerical examples to illustrate the solution procedures

small firm internationalisation unveiled through phenomenography phenomenography is proposed here as a qualitative methodology for investigating how owner managers practise internationalisation in small firms and it is applied in an empirical study of internationalising owner managed small australian wineries the findings show a common internationalisation activity cycle but four qualitatively different ways in which these owner managers practise internationalisation we reveal that this variation in owner manager internationalisation practices is determined by their understandings of internationalisation which produce differences in the ways activities within their internationalisation activity cycle are orchestrated in particular phenomenography has enabled new insights into the multiplicity of firm internationalisation practices not able to be captured through other qualitative methodologies such as ethnography or semiotics as they are not designed to capture such variation based on our findings we propose an understanding based theory to explain the idiosyncratic nature of owner managed small firm internationalisation furthermore we suggest that phenomenography used independently or in conjunction with other qualitative methodologies also has potential to reveal the varying practices of internationalising large mnes by enabling an investigation of the collective or shared understanding of firm internationalisation within mnes finally we point out how phenomenography can be extended beyond firm internationalisation practices to investigate other topics within international business

the correlates of entrepreneurship in three types of firms the objective of the research was to discover the chief determinants of entrepreneurship the process by which organizations renew themselves and their markets by pioneering innovation and risk taking some authors have argued that personality factors of the leader are what determine entrepreneurship others have highlighted the role played by the structure of the organization while a final group have pointed to the importance of strategy making we believed that the manner and extent to which entrepreneurship would be influenced by all of these factors would in large measure depend upon the nature of the organization based upon the work of a number of authors we derived a crude typology of firms simple firms are small and their power is centralized at the top planning firms are bigger their goal being smooth and efficient operation through the use of formal controls and plans organic firms strive to be adaptive to their environments emphasizing expertise based power and open communications the predictiveness of the typology was established upon a sample of 52 firms using hypothesis testing and analysis of variance techniques we conjectured that in simple firms entrepreneurship would be determined by the characteristics of the leader in planning firms it would be facilitated by explicit and well integrated product market strategies and in organic firms it would be a function of environment and structure these hypotheses were largely borne out by correlational and multiple regression analyses any programs which aim to stimulate entrepreneurship would benefit greatly from tailoring recommendations to the nature of the target firms

the role of the state in financial markets this paper reexamines the role of the state in financial markets and identifies seven major market failures that provide a potential rationale for government intervention in practice government interventions in capital markets even in industrial countries have been pervasive the paper provides a taxonomy of those interventions with respect to both the objectives they serve and the instruments they employ there is a role for the government in financial markets but the success of government interventions has been mixed it is important that interventions be well designed the paper sets out principles for government regulatory interventions and applies them to prudential regulation it then examines three other areas of intervention directed credit finanical repression and competition policy and identifies circumstances in which some amount of financial repression may actually be beneficial

the economics of rotating savings and credit associations evidence from the jamaican partner abstract using a unique sample of rotating savings and credit association rosca members from jamaica we provide the first econometric tests of the recent theoretical advances in the literature on roscas and find considerable support for an economic theory of roscas we find for example that payments to the rosca leader significantly enhance the sustainability of the rosca and that the contractual relationship between the leader and other rosca members is transaction cost minimizing when the degree of asset specificity is higher the contract is more flexible other theoretical predictions we validate are the inverse relationship between size of rosca and size of contribution and the use of rosca funds for durable goods purchase

restoring banking stability beyond supervised capital requirements emerging economies have been particularly prone to financial sector crises reflecting marked information asymmetries and political interference as well as the substantial volatility in underlying economic conditions and the vulnerability of banking and finance when structural economic changes create a new and uncharted operating environment the standard regulatory paradigm relies mainly on supervised capital adequacy but it may not be enough other measures to improve the incentive structure for bankers regulators and other market participants could effectively increase the number of concerned skilled and watchful eyes intermittent application of supplementary blunt instruments could also be useful

ordering and pricing of service products in an advance sales system with price dependent demand this investigation addresses a service inventory control problem in which a firm orders and sells a service which will be used or consumed by customers on a specific future date the firm sells the product through an advance booking system aiming to optimize product price to maximize the total expected profit considering situations in which product demand is price dependent and customers with reservations may cancel advance orders this work develops a continuous time model to simultaneously determine the order quantity and selling prices the analytical results reveal that the optimal ordering quantity and prices are derived via closed form solutions in addition sensitivity analysis of the optimal prices with respect to the system parameters is also conducted to illustrate optimal decision characteristics

globalisation economic policy and convergence a number of recent contributions to the growth literature have emphasised the positive role played by the forces of globalisation in enabling poor countries to converge on the living standards of rich ones these include sachs and warner 1995 aziz and wescott 1997 imf 1997 world bank 1997 dollar and burnside 1997 edwards 1998 and collier and dollar 1999 and their general message is well captured by sachs and warner s claim 1995 p 3 that open economies converge and closed ones do not in other words if developing countries were to adopt a consistent policy package conducive to the preservation of an open economy that would according to all the authors cited above at least be a necessary condition for convergence there is some disagreement within the washington consensus concerning exactly what the ingredients of this consistent policy package are with sachs and warner laying primary emphasis on measures of trade policy openness collier and dollar 1999 examining a broader range of policy instruments including social policy measures and aziz and wescott 1997 p 18 arguing that what matters is complementarity with three separate elements needed in combination trade openness macro stability and a relatively low degree of government involvement in economic activity the imf s world economic outlook for may 1997 seeks to summarise the state of play by arguing that

explaining the formation of international new ventures the limits of theories from international business research abstract international new ventures invs represent a growing and important type of start up an inv is defined as a business organization that from inception seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries oviatt and mcdougall 1994 their increasing prevalence and important role in international competition indicates a need for greater understanding of these new ventures oviatt and mcdougall 1994 logitech as described in a case study by alahuhta 1990 is a vivid example of an inv its founders were from two different countries and had a global vision for the company from its inception the venture which produces peripheral devices for personal computers established headquarters in both switzerland and the u s manufacturing and r d were split between the u s and switzerland and then quickly spread to taiwan and ireland the venture s first commercial contract was with a japanese company using 24 case studies of invs we found that their formation process is not explained by existing theories from the field of international business specifically neither monopolistic advantage theory product cycle theory stage theory of internationalization oligopolistic reaction theory nor internalization theory can explain the formation process of invs these theories fail because they assume that firms become international long after they have been formed and they therefore highlight large mature firms they also focus too much on the firm level and largely ignore the individual and small group level of analysis i e the entrepreneur and his or her network of business alliances we propose that an explanation for the formation process of invs must answer three questions 1 who are the founders of invs 2 why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries and 3 what form do their international business activities take who are the founders of invs we argue that founders of invs are individuals who see opportunities from establishing ventures that operate across national borders they are alert to the possibilities of combining resources from different national markets because of the competencies networks knowledge and background that they have developed from their earlier activities following the logic of the resource based view of the firm we argue that the possession of these competencies is not matched by other entrepreneurs only the entrepreneur possessing these competencies is able to combine a particular set of resources across national borders and form a given inv why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries the founders of invs recognize they must create international business competencies from the time of venture formation otherwise the venture may become path dependent on the development of domestic competencies and the entrepreneur will find it difficult to change strategic direction when international expansion eventually becomes necessary as the founder of one inv explained the advantage of starting internationally is that you establish an international spirit from the very beginning mamis 1989 38 what form do their international business activities take founders of invs prefer to use hybrid structures i e strategic alliances and networks for their international activities as a way to overcome the usual poverty of resources at the time of start up this study has important implications for the practice of management in financing decisions relating to invs venture capitalists and other venture financiers should look for entrepreneurs who have a global vision international business competence and an established international network when entrepreneurs start invs they should create hybrid structures to preserve scarce resources finally given the path dependence of competence development founders of new ventures should consider whether establishing a domestic new venture with plans to later internationalize will be as successful a strategy as establishing a new venture that is international from inception

what explains the success or failure of structural adjustment programs in the 1980s development assistance shifted largely from financing investments such as roads and dams to promoting policy reform this change came because of a growing awareness that developing countries were held back more by poor policies than by a lack of finance for investment after nearly 20 years experience with policy based or conditional lending there have now been many studies of adjustment lending most of which take a case study approach many conclude that policy based lending works if countries have decided on their own to reform the authors examine a database of 220 world bank supported reform programs to identify why adjustment programs succeed or fail they find that a few political economy variables can successfully predict the outcome of an adjustment loan 75 percent of the time variables under the world bank s control resources devoted to preparation and supervision or number of conditions have no relationship with an adjustment program s success or failure what development agencies must do then is select promising candidates for adjustment support when the candidates is a poor selection devoting more administrative resources or imposing more conditions will not increase the likelihood of successful reform to improve its success rate with adjustment lending the world bank must become more selective and do a better job of understanding which environments are promising for reform and which are not that is likely to lead to fewer adjustment loans unless there is a significant change in the number of promising reformers to become more effective at supporting policy reform the agency must be willing to accept that this may lead to smaller volumes of lending

coordinating inventory control and pricing strategies for perishable products we analyze a joint pricing and inventory control problem for a perishable product with a fixed lifetime over a finite horizon in each period demand depends on the price of the current period plus an additive random term inventories can be intentionally disposed of and those that reach their lifetime have to be disposed of the objective is to find a joint pricing ordering and disposal policy to maximize the total expected discounted profit over the planning horizon taking into account linear ordering cost inventory holding and backlogging or lost sales penalty cost and disposal cost employing the concept of l concavity we show some monotonicity properties of the optimal policies our results shed new light on perishable inventory management and our approach provides a significantly simpler proof of a classical structural result in the literature moreover we identify bounds on the optimal order up to levels and develop an effective heuristic policy numerical results show that our heuristic policy performs well in both stationary and nonstationary settings finally we show that our approach also applies to models with random lifetimes and inventory rationing models with multiple demand classes

the influence of the management team s international experience on the internationalization behaviors of smes why are some small and medium sized enterprises smes more successful in selling outside their domestic markets than are other smes in the same industry although the traditional explanation is that firms can gain valuable knowledge and resources as they become older and larger small and young firms are not necessarily disadvantaged if they develop other mechanisms to acquire the requisite knowledge and resources we examine the role of the management team s international experience as such a mechanism for the internationalization of canadian software product firms we show that internationally experienced management teams have a greater propensity to develop foreign strategic partners and to delay less in obtaining foreign sales after start up and that these behaviors are associated with a higher degree of internationalization