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Competitive Strength (competitive + strength)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Life Sciences50%

Selected Abstracts

Competitive dynamics in two- and three-component intercrops

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2007
METTE KLINDT ANDERSEN
Summary 1Intercropping is receiving increasing attention because it offers potential advantages for resource utilization, decreased inputs and increased sustainability in crop production, but our understanding of the interactions among intercropped species is still very limited. 2We grew pea Pisum sativum, barley Hordeum vulgare and rape Brassica napus as sole crops and intercrops under field conditions using a replacement design. We collected total dry matter data from sequential harvests and fitted the data to a logistic growth model. At each harvest we estimated the relative Competitive Strength (CS) of the three crops by fitting the data to a simple interspecific competition model. 3The pea monocrop produced the largest amount of biomass from the middle to the end of the growth period, but pea was not dominant in intercrops. 4Fitting data to a logistic growth model emphasizes the importance of initial size differences for interactions among intercrops. Barley was the dominant component of the intercrops largely because of its initial size advantage. The competitive effect of barley on its companion crops, measured as CS, increased throughout most of the growing season. 5The performance of each crop species was very different when it grew with a second species rather than in monoculture, but addition of a third crop species had only minor effects on behaviour of the individual crops. 6Synthesis and applications. Including sequential harvests in experiments on intercropping can provide important information about how competitive hierarchies are established and change over time. Our results suggest that increased understanding of the role of asymmetric competition among species and the resulting advantages of early germination and seedling emergence would be valuable in designing intercrops. More focus on understanding the mechanisms that govern interactions between intercropped species is needed for designing optimized intercropping systems. [source]

Biotech round the world: Focus on Canada

BIOTECHNOLOGY JOURNAL, Issue 7 2008
Article first published online: 15 JUL 200
Canada's biotech industry Competitive strengths and capabilities Key Canadian biotech clusters Canada as an investment destination [source]

Niche breadth, competitive strength and range size of tree species: a trade-off based framework to understand species distribution

ECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 2 2006
Xavier Morin
Abstract Understanding the mechanisms causing latitudinal gradients in species richness and species range size is a central issue in ecology, particularly in the current context of global climate change. Different hypotheses have been put forward to explain these patterns, emphasizing climatic variability, energy availability and competition. Here we show, using a comparative analysis controlling for phylogeny on 234 temperate/boreal tree species, that these hypotheses can be included into a single framework in an attempt to explain latitudinal gradients in species range size. We find that species tend to have larger ranges when (i) closer to the poles, (ii) successionally seral, (iii) having small and light seeds, and (iv) having short generations. The patterns can simply be explained by energy constraints associated with different life-history strategies. Overall, these findings shed a new light on our understanding of species distribution and biodiversity patterns, bringing new insights into underlying large-scale evolutionary processes. [source]

Flexibility-based competition: Skills and competencies in the new Europe

HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS IN MANUFACTURING & SERVICE INDUSTRIES, Issue 1 2005
Andrzej K. Kozminski
In this paper the competitive strength and weaknesses of unifying and enlarging Europe in the global economy are examined. The focus is on people at work, their skills, and competencies. The idea of flexibility-based competition is developed implicating product and services portfolios, technologies, volumes, quality standards, distribution networks, and development cycles. Flexibility calls for speed maximizing management and special work force and labor markets characteristics. A new employment policy should change European labor markets making them more flexible and enabling "high-speed management." People able to adjust to flexible labor markets are described as "niche finders." Those who are equipped to excel in such markets and to win the competition game are presented in this paper as "top performers." Educational systems and particularly management education and development have to undergo deep restructuring to meet the challenge. An outline of new management education is provided. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 15: 35,47, 2005. [source]

Industrial Specialization, Catching-up and Labour Market Dynamics

METROECONOMICA, Issue 1 2000
Michael A. Landesmann
This paper presents a dynamic model as a heuristic tool to discuss some issues of changing industrial specialization which arise in the context of catching-up processes of (technologically) less advanced economies and the impact which various scenarios of such catching-up processes might have on the labour market dynamics both in the advanced and in the catching-up economies. In analysing the evolution of international specialization, we demonstrate the twin pressures exerted upon the industrial structures of "northern" economies: competition from "type-A southern" economies, which maintain a comparative competitive strength in labour-intensive and less skill-intensive branches, and competition from "type-B catching-up" economies, whose catching-up increasingly focuses upon branches in which the initial productivity gaps and hence the scope for catching-up are the highest. The contrast between these two catching-up scenarios allows the explicit analysis of the implications of "comparative advantage switchovers" between northern and southern (type B) economies for labour market dynamics. [source]

Hybrid Branch Plants: Japanese Lean Production in Poland's Automobile Industry

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2008
Tomasz Majek
Abstract This article examines hybrid branch plants created by an interaction of the routines and conventions of the parent company with those of local institutions. We argue that hybridization is a search for an appropriate mix of practices that ensure viability in local circumstances, rather than necessarily the transfer of established "best" (parent-company) practices. Conceptually, hybridization is interpreted as learning-based (and bargaining) processes that are inherent in the evolution (internationalization) of firms in which alternative trajectories are possible. Empirically, the article examines the recent transfer of lean production to Poland's automobile industry and comparatively and qualitatively analyzes four hybrid branch plants in terms of six dimensions of shop-floor and factory management. Given the explosion of Japanese foreign direct investment in recent decades, its competitive strengths, and the importance that Japanese firms attach to learning processes, lean production is an important case study for hybridization. The four cases illustrate different types of hybrid behavior with different consequences for corporate and local performance. [source]