Economic impact of a ban on the use of over the counter antibiotics in U.S. swine rations

The U.S. pork industry routinely adds antibiotics to rations of weaned pigs both to prevent illness before symptoms emerge and to increase growth rates. The European Union (EU) is in the process of restricting feed use of antibiotics, and the U.S. is currently reviewing the practice. The strategic issue facing U.S. pork producers is whether another food safety dispute with the EU is worthwhile. This paper evaluates the economic impact of such a ban in the U.S. The analysis uses a set of technical assumptions derived from the experience of a similar ban in Sweden and finds such a ban would increase production costs per head between $5.24 and $6.05; net profit would decline $0.79 per head. On the consumer side, the effects of a ban would raise the retail price of pork by 5 cents per pound.     

Competition within the U.S. National Security Regime: A study of the U.S. Aerospace Defense Sector

This article examines the aerospace defense sector and the national export control regime within which U.S. corporations operate. While the U.S. federal government plays many roles in this industry, the focus here is on its role as regulator of defense exports from the United States. From this vantage point, ten case studies illustrate the difficulties faced by companies in this challenging environment, and highlight factors that lead to noncompliance with U.S. government regulations. Firm performance effects are investigated, including impacts on profits, share price, and reputation. The paper concludes with implications for international management practice and international business research that reflect realities in the aerospace defense sector.     

次贷危机前后国际原油市场与中美股票市场间的协动性研究

本文运用基于动态条件相关的多元GARCH(DCC-MVGARCH)模型,对美国次信贷危机发生前后国际原油市场和中、美股票市场间的协动性变化进行了研究。实证结果表明在次信贷危机发生后,国际原油市场与中、美股票市场间的协动性有了明显的增强,不同市场间的波动具有明显的传导作用。国际原油市场与美国股市的协动性相对于中国股市波动性更强,说明冲击在国际原油市场与美国股市间的传导更强烈,其协动性对冲击的反应更敏感。另外,运用偏最小二乘方法(PLS)对影响国际原油市场和中、美股票市场的诸多因素在次信贷危机爆发前后对协动性解释能力的变化进行了分析,结果发现次信贷危机对这些因素的解释能力有明显的影响。     

Analyzing agribusiness competitiveness: The case of the United States sugar industry

The U.S. sugar industry has historically been insulated from volatilities in the world sugar market through the use of an import quota. Recent occurrences in the international agricultural policy arena have brought the need to examine the competitiveness of the United States sugar industry to the fore. Developments with respect to international agricultural policies, combined with a restructuring of United States domestic agricultural policy will undoubtedly reshape the environment in which the U.S. Sugar industry operates. This paper seeks to answer how the various regions and sectors will be able to compete in the world market. This paper starts by outlining an analytical framework to examine the impact of various sources that influence competitiveness in the sugar industry and identify several indicators of competitiveness.     

Top management departures in cross-border acquisitions: Governance issues in an international context

This study examined top management team departures in U.S. manufacturing firms acquired by a foreign multinational during the six-year period following acquisition. Results indicated that greater cultural distance between the United States and the home country of the foreign multinational, higher levels of international integration in the target industry, and poor preacquisition performance in the U.S. target company were related to greater postacquisition top management departures. These effects were moderated significantly by the foreign acquirer’s international business and U.S. acquisition experience and showed different patterns over the short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term. Implications for future research on top management teams involved in cross-border acquisitions are discussed.     

How does homeland security affect U.S. firms' international competitiveness?

This paper frames the issue of homeland security and its relationship to the international competitiveness of U.S. firms in general. This is largely a conceptual statement, identifying the areas of national security (homeland security) that are key to business, and exploring the management concerns of business to the new threats and opportunities that have arisen.We establish the point that homeland security is a purposeful, conscious, and rational response to terrorist events that is an emergent and evolving systems phenomenon. This systems approach is an especially useful way to look at the implications of homeland security in its relation to business. We then look specifically at the kinds of costs and risks that are generated for U.S. international business (exports, imports, incoming and outgoing investments) as a result of this phenomenon. Management strategies for dealing with these costs and risks are explored for U.S. firms.Our conclusion is to demonstrate the scope of analysis that is needed to understand and to managerially cope with the homeland security problem. We show the value of using theory from various disciplines for analyzing a multi-dimensional problem like this. And finally we are able to recommend some policy dimensions for both companies and the U.S. Government toward mitigating the negative impacts of the homeland security problem.     

The implications of internationalisation for the management of the vehicle components industry in Britain,Germany, Japan and the U.S.A.

The vehicle components industry, which in recent years has become subject to a more international pattern of competition, provides a good example of how internationalisation forces companies to re-appraise their strategic priorities. The industry's breadth and complexity afford rich international comparisons and suggest conclusions of broader relevance.Thirty British vehicle component manufacturers and thirty from Germany, Japan and the U.S.A. were matched on the basis of six specific components. Field research, entailing discussions with senior executives and factory visits in all four countries, was complemented with desk research analysing the industry more comprehensively.The dramatic decline in company performances, particularly in Britain, reflects over-reliance on higher-level strategies such as diversification, acquisitions, mergers and industrial consolidation, the pursuit of scale economies and the restoration of financial positions through restructuring and retrenchment. Internationalisation calls for competitive strategies that are coherent in the face of powerfully supported international rivals, and generally requires greater market focus. Secondly, basic issues such as manning levels and productivity, quality and flexible manufacturing systems have increased in importance due to radically improved international standards of best practice, established by countries such as Japan.     

Flexible manufacturing systems performance in U.S. automotive manufacturing plants: a case study

Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) philosophy is a key weapon in achieving global manufacturing competitiveness. It encompasses a wide range of dimensions to improve all aspects of operational performance metrics. The aim of the study is to examine the current state of flexibility adoption in U.S. automotive manufacturing facilities and its impact on operational performance metrics. It utilizes survey questionnaire developed based on previous work in U.S. manufacturing industry. The survey was originally distributed to 420 facility managers in the U.S. domestic automotive industry. It was revealed that 70% of the respondents had implemented all 15 flexibility dimensions listed in the questionnaire. The data analysis conducted shows that implementation of certain flexibility dimensions will lead to significant improvement in specific operational performance metrics. This considerable finding can be used as a guide for manufacturing managers to achieve certain objectives in operational performance improvement in a rapidly changing environment.     

Winning customers through employee involvement

This article describes the author's impressions of American industry following a study tour to the Deep South of the U.S.A. as winner of the 1983 IPM/Gardner Merchant Award. The visit to leading corporations in New Orleans, Houston and Atlanta provided the opportunity to study at first hand their management philosophies and personnel policies. At a time when industry in the U.S.A. is facing stiff international competition and is beginning to come out of the recession, this article provides some timely insights into some of the issues and themes that they are pursuing.     

International investment motivations of U.S. wineries

This study used personal and telephone interviews of wine industry executives and observers to examine the foreign direct investment motivations of U.S. wineries. Underlying most winery motivations was the recognition that U.S. wineries sense increasing pressure to offer a competitive range of wines that meet the price/quality needs of consumers and retailers in important markets and market segments. Wineries’ marketing plans are often constrained by their ability to obtain adequate grape and juice supplies that meet important price and quality criteria, especially when domestic grape production drops. The importance of product portfolios and the industry’s resource dependence have placed tremendous pressures on U.S. wineries to coordinate winegrape and juice acquisitions, especially as retailers consolidate their supply chains. Some U.S. wineries have invested abroad in response to these pressures while others have not. Interview results suggest that foreign investments by U.S. wineries were primarily motivated by the need for greater access to stable or adequate winegrape/juice supplies, the need for more control over the winegrape costs within given quality levels, and the desire to expand wine portfolios.     

Managing Safety‐Related Disruptions: Evidence from the U.S. Nuclear Power Industry

Low‐probability, high‐impact events are difficult to manage. Firms may underinvest in risk assessments for low‐probability, high‐impact events because it is not easy to link the direct and indirect benefits of doing so. Scholarly research on the effectiveness of programs aimed at reducing such events faces the same challenge. In this article, we draw on comprehensive industry‐wide data from the U.S. nuclear power industry to explore the impact of conducting probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) on preventing safety‐related disruptions. We examine this using data from over 25,000 monthly event reports across 101 U.S. nuclear reactors from 1985 to 1998. Using Poisson fixed effects models with time trends, we find that the number of safety‐related disruptions reduced between 8% and 27% per month in periods after operators submitted their PRA in response to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Generic Letter 88‐20, which required all operators to conduct a PRA. One possible mechanism for this is that the adoption of PRA may have increased learning rates, lowering the rate of recurring events by 42%. We find that operators that completed their PRA before Generic Letter 88‐20 continued to experience safety improvements during 1990–1995. This suggests that revisiting PRA or conducting it again can be beneficial. Our results suggest that even in a highly safety‐conscious industry as nuclear utilities, a more formal approach to quantifying risk has its benefits.     

International alliance formation and stock market responses:: Industry globalization as an environmental contingency

This study examines the effects of the degree of industry globalization on international alliance formation in terms of the type of alliance chosen by partner firms and stock market responses to the chosen type of alliance. Using a sample of 244 international alliances formed between U.S. and non-U.S. firms for the 1992–97 period, we find that nonjoint venture (joint venture) alliances take place relatively more frequently in global (multidomestic) industries than in multidomestic (global) industries. We also find that in global industries, abnormal returns to nonjoint venture partners are relatively greater than those to joint venture partners, whereas in multidomestic industries, abnormal returns to nonjoint venture partners are relatively smaller, though insignificant, than those to joint venture partners. Our findings suggest that the degree of industry globalization plays an important role in explaining which type of international alliance is likely to be chosen by partner firms when entering an alliance and how stock markets tend to respond to the chosen type of alliance.     

An exploratory analysis of global managerial mindsets: a case of U.S. textile and apparel industry

Increase in business across international borders has led to many studies demonstrating the need for “global” managers. However, few operational frameworks for a global mindset have been proposed. This paper discusses the characteristics of such a global mindset in terms of conceptualization/contextualization abilities. In particular, the paradigm developed by Kefalas [Thunderbird Int. Bus. Rev. 40 (6) (1998) 547-561] was used to determine whether managers in U.S. textile and apparel industries can be defined as “globally minded”. Empirical results indicate that U.S. managers scored higher on conceptualization than on contextualization. The study demonstrates the importance of training on the development of global mindsets and the need for U.S. managers to improve their abilities in adapting to the local context, i.e., contextualization. It is recommended that global corporations should place more emphasis on the training of these skills prior to international assignments of their managers.     

Chemical Manufacturing and Refining Industry Legitimacy: Reflective Management,Trust, Precrisis Communication to Achieve Community Efficacy

Calls for emergency right‐to‐know in the 1980s, and, in the 1990s, risk management planning, motivated U.S. chemical manufacturing and refining industries to operationalize a three‐pronged approach to risk minimization and communication: reflective management to increase legitimacy, operational safety programs to raise trust, and community engagement designed to facilitate citizens’ emergency response efficacy. To assess these management, operational, and communication initiatives, communities (often through Local Emergency Planning Committees) monitored the impact of such programs. In 2012, the fourth phase of a quasi‐longitudinal study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of operational change and community outreach in one bellwether community. This study focuses on legitimacy, trust, and response efficacy to suggest that an industry can earn legitimacy credits by raising its safety and environmental impact standards, by building trust via that change, and by communicating emergency response messages to near residents to raise their response efficacy. As part of its campaign to demonstrate its concern for community safety through research, planning, and implementation of safe operations and viable emergency response systems, this industry uses a simple narrative of risk/emergency response—shelter‐in‐place—communicated by a spokes‐character: Wally Wise Guy.     

The Role of Hazardousness and Regulatory Practice in the Accidental Release of Chemicals at U.S. Industrial Facilities

This article presents the results of an analysis of the accident history data reported under section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act Amendments. These data provide a fairly complete record of the consequences of reportable accidental releases occurring during the time frame 1995-1999 in the U.S. chemical industry and covering 77 toxic and 63 flammable substances subject to the provisions of section 112(r). As such, these results are of fundamental interest to the affected communities, regulators, and insurers, as well as to owners and managers in the chemical industry. The results show the statistical associations between accident frequency and severity and a number of characteristics of reporting facilities, including their size, the hazardousness of the processes and chemicals inventoried, and the regulatory programs (in addition to section 112(r)) to which these facilities are subject. The results are interpreted in light of economic drivers of protective activity and regulatory priorities for monitoring and enforcement.     

DOES INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT NEED A SEPARATE PERSPECTIVE?

This essay argues that it is difficult to justify intellectually a separate subject of international operations management. Nevertheless, courses with titles like that abound and other professional activities are centered on international operations, at least in the United States. Of course, there are real differences in management activities in different parts of the world that must be contended with. A comparison of European and U.S. managers' exposure to international business suggests that there is a higher startup cost for U.S. managers to do so. Drawing an analogy between the management of operations and the solving of a huge mathematical programming problem implies that there are few new variables introduced by going international, but that the weights on existing variables can change substantially. Therefore, even though difficult to justify intellectually, continuing to treat international operations management separately may provide us some short-term advantages. By helping us focus our attention on the important variables that change, it may provide us the insights to help reduce the startup cost for U.S. managers entering international operations.     

Re-engineering high risk, high complexity industries through multiple level technological learning A case study of the world nuclear power industry

Applying lessons learned at the national, the utility, and the plant level, from selected segments of the world-wide nuclear power industry, might facilitate an environmentally acceptable renaissance of the U.S. nuclear power industry through re-engineering it. Elements of this learning from experience process can be found: (a) at the national level in Europe, Japan, and the U.S., (b) at the utility level in two New York State nuclear power utilities, Niagara Mohawk and New York Power Authority, the Tenessee Valley Authority, and Duke Power and Light in the U.S., in Ontario Hydro in Canada, and in the Electricité de France (EdF) in France, and (c) at the plant level in several of these utilities. At the core of all the continuous quality improvement and re-engineering programs, lies this twofold mission: (a) to insulate society from foreseeable and unacceptably high environmental risks, and (b) to continuously improve the design and management of nuclear technology (including nuclear waste management and environmental risk management systems) by learning, learning how to learn, and learning to learn-how-to-learn, both explicitly and tacitly, through feedback from individual and organizational experience.     

“U.S. Pharmaceutical Gray Markets: Why Do They Persist—and What to Do about Them?”

This article illustrates how a traditional U.S. pharmaceutical industry supply chain operates, beginning with pharmaceutical compounds and ending at patient‐dispensing hospitals or pharmacies. Furthermore, to place the problem of U.S. drug shortages in historical perspective, a review of the annual volume of such shortages over the last decade is undertaken. Following this review of recent drug shortages is an analysis of the market forces and business decisions that drive the creation of a pharmaceutical gray market, its attendant “price gouging” and product integrity issues, and the alterations in the traditional pharmaceutical industry supply chain model. In response to persistent drug shortages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently been empowered by the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government to actively address this issue. To reflect these FDA challenges, a thorough review of these new agency charges and responsibilities is undertaken. Lastly, an analysis of the results of recent FDA public policy actions on mitigating drug shortages, as well as recommendations tor market‐based solutions to the gray market problem that pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospitals and pharmacies could institute as industry‐wide standards of business practice, are discussed in the conclusion.     

Choosing between international technology licensing partners: An empirical analysis of U.S. biotechnology firms

This paper examines the potential factors that might influence U.S. biotechnology holders’ licensing decisions regarding whom to choose as foreign licensing partners in the context of a global environment. The important explanatory factors relate to the knowledge appropriability regime of the licensee country (i.e. strength of IPR protection), familiarity through prior interaction, business similarity between partners, and prior independent experience as a licensor. U.S. biotechnology firms also license technology more to partners who have joint manufacturing, marketing, and research and development (R&D) experience. The results show that transaction cost considerations weigh heavily when choosing international licensing partners.     

Operations research and bank planning

Starting with its use by the military in World War II, the Systems approach to problems solving and planning found its way into the business field. In the U.S.A. this was partly due to the filter-down effect into many firms entering into long term contracts with the Department of Defense. In examining the use of Systems Analysis in corporate planning, there appeared to be a prominent gap in its general use in the financial services industry of which commercial banks are the most important segment. Theoretically, banks are ideal economic units to use mathematically oriented Operations Research. Therefore, an in-depth study of such an existing planning system as used in a major U.S. commercial bank was undertaken. Such a case study, it was hoped, would yield important information as to how to introduce such a planning system into a bank, the types of programs in which it appeared to have strengths and weaknesses, and its applicability to planning processes in commercial banking generally. Consequently, a series of interviews with the director of this planning activity, his staff, and other officers of the bank were conducted. In order to obtain the data used in this study, a pledge to maintain anonimity of the bank was required. So, in the balance of this presentation, it shall be known as ‘The Bank’.