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Competitive Pressures (competitive + pressure)
Selected AbstractsDeregulation, Competitive Pressures and the Emergence of IntermodalismAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 3 2002Sophia Everett Deregulation has dramatically altered the face of Australian industry and associated services throughout the last decade or so. In the transport sector, in particular, changes have been significant and deregulation has led to pervasive changes in market structure, to the actual ownership of infrastructure and to a shift in strategic focus from a public utility to one of commercial viability and market orientation. Competitive pressures in the transport sector as a result of deregulation have meant that traditional public sector organisations such as railways and ports have been transformed. A major impact of these developments has been that transport operators, in an endeavour either to maintain or capture market share, have been forced to restructure and refocus and, in the face of growing competition, have been forced to reinvent themselves and move increasingly towards the provision of an integrated intermodal service. Rail operators are now no longer simple linehaul operators in container or bulk freight markets but have become market,focused third,party service providers of a range of integrated functions. [source] Specialization across varieties and North,South competitionECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 53 2008Lionel Fontagné SUMMARY North,South competition quality Analyzing a new database that makes it possible to disaggregate trade flows across many countries according to unit values, we show that international specialization in terms of quality within industries and product categories plays an important role in the dynamics of North,South competition. The different specialization of countries at different levels of development within products and across varieties is mirrored in the recent shifts in world market shares, which are very different across quality segments: the South is not gaining market share in high-value portions of trade pattern. In this respect Europe's specialization pattern appears to be different from that of the US and Japan, and may allow it to better resist the competitive pressure of the South. , Lionel Fontagné, Guillaume Gaulier and Soledad Zignago [source] The Relationship between Categories of Non-Audit Services and Audit Fees: Evidence from UK CompaniesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AUDITING, Issue 1 2002M. Ezzamel Using survey data we examine the relationship between various categories of non-audit services and audit fees. Compared to previous research, we use a more refined classification of non-audit services both for incumbent and non-incumbent auditors, and control for the existence of an internal audit function and basis of disclosure. Our results suggest that the relationship between levels of audit fees and non-audit services varies by category of non-audit service. These results support explanations of the positive association between fees paid for non-audit services and audit fees in terms either of client specific differences, e.g. organisational complexity, or of events giving rise to the purchase of more audit and non-audit services rather than in terms of direct economic linkages between the cost functions for audit and non-audit services. We speculate that the presence of another auditing firm at the client in a consulting capacity may exert competitive pressure on the fee for external audit. [source] Competition and the Quality of Standard Form Contracts: The Case of Software License AgreementsJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2008Florencia Marotta-Wurgler Standard form contracts are pervasive. Many legal academics believe that they are unfair. Some scholars and some courts have argued that sellers with market power or facing little competitive pressure may impose one-sided standard form terms that limit their obligation to consumers. This article uses a sample of 647 software license agreements drawn from many distinct segments of the software industry to empirically investigate the relationship between competitive conditions and the quality of standard form contracts. I find little evidence for the concern that firms with market power, as measured by market concentration or firm market share, require consumers to accept particularly one-sided terms; that is, firms in both concentrated and unconcentrated software market segments, and firms with high and low market share, offer similar terms to consumers. The results have implications for the judicial analysis of standard form contract enforceability. [source] Competition between Eurasian otter Lutra lutra and American mink Mustela vison probed by niche shiftOIKOS, Issue 1 2004Laura Bonesi Interspecific competition is one of several constraints that might prevent an individual from maximising its energy intake. When an interspecific competitor is introduced, an individual is often forced to shift its diet according to the intensity of the competitive pressure. In this paper, we explore whether the introduced American mink (Mustela vison Schreber) shifts its diet when the density of its potential competitor, the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra L.), is increased. We compared the diets of otter and mink at the same location but at two moments in time when the relative densities of these two species were different while controlling for the abundance of aquatic prey. Mink and otters are semi-aquatic mammals belonging to the same guild of mustelids and otters are expected to be the dominant competitor because they are larger and better at hunting underwater. The diets of otters and mink overlap to a great extent but while otters specialise mainly on aquatic prey, mink are able to exploit both aquatic and terrestrial prey. These observations prompted the hypothesis investigated in this work that at higher otter densities the diet of mink should change to include a higher proportion of terrestrial items. This hypothesis was supported by the data and at higher otter densities mink diet was observed to consist of a higher proportion of mammals and birds while fewer fish were present, although this pattern was present only in winter while no changes were observed in spring. Meanwhile the diet of otters remained basically unchanged. In the second part of the study, we investigated whether niche breadth and niche overlap between otter and mink changed at different otter densities. We found that niche overlap declined as the density of otters increased, in agreement with the prediction of habitat selection theory. [source] Persistent Advantage or Disadvantage?: Evidence in Support of the Intergenerational Drag HypothesisAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 2 2001William Darity By utilizing the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) and a measure of occupational prestige (OCCSCORE) as a labor market outcome, the authors examine variations in the degree of labor market discrimination faced by several ethnic and racial groups in the United States between 1880 and 1990. Results demonstrate that the sharpest decline in labor market discrimination against blacks occurred between 1960 and 1980. For black males the extent of labor market discrimination was greater in all census years in IPUMS after 1880 until 1970, evidence contradicting the conventional expectation that market-based discrimination will decline progressively over time by dint of competitive pressure. Finally, after replicating George Borjas' "ethnic capital" exercise, the authors pool the 1880, 1900, and 1910 data to determine the relative magnitude of a group's gains and losses in occupational prestige due to group advantage or disadvantage in human capital endowments and due to favorable or unfavorable treatment (nepotism or discrimination) of those endowments in the labor market. The authors then examine statistically whether the group human capital advantage or disadvantage and group exposure to nepotism or discrimination at the turn of the century affects labor market outcomes for their descendants today. Results indicate strong effects of the past on present labor market outcomes. Hence, the essence of the study is the statistical demonstration that there are significant and detectable effects on current generations of the labor market experiences of their racial/ethnic ancestors. [source] Impact of feral water buffalo and fire on growth and survival of mature savanna trees: An experimental field study in Kakadu National Park, northern AustraliaAUSTRAL ECOLOGY, Issue 6 2005PATRICIA A. WERNER Abstract The impact of feral Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) and season of fire on growth and survival of mature trees was monitored over 8 years in the eucalypt savannas of Kakadu National Park. Permanently marked plots were paired on either side of a 25-km-long buffalo-proof fence at three locations on an elevational gradient, from ridge-top to the edge of a floodplain; buffalo were removed from one side of the fence. All 750 trees ,,1.4 m height were permanently marked; survival and diameter of each tree was measured annually; 26 species were grouped into four eco-taxonomic groups. The buffalo experiment was maintained for 7 years; trees were monitored an additional year. Fires were excluded from all sites the first 3 years, allowed to occur opportunistically for 4 years and excluded for the final year. Fires were of two main types: low-intensity early dry season and high-intensity late dry season. Growth rates of trees were size-specific and positively related to diameters as exponential functions; trees grew slowest on the two ends of the gradient. Eucalypt mortality rates were 1.5 and 3 times lower than those of pantropics and of arborescent monocots, respectively, but the relative advantage was lost with fires or buffalo grazing. Without buffalo grazing, ground level biomass was 5,8 t ha,1 compared with 2,3 t ha,1, within 3 years. In buffalo-absent plots, trees grew significantly slower on the dry ridge and slope, and had higher mortality across the entire gradient, compared with trees in buffalo-present plots. At the floodplain margin, mortality of small palms was higher in buffalo-present sites, most likely due to associated heavy infestations of weeds. Low-intensity fires produced tree growth and mortality values similar to no-fire, in general, but, like buffalo, provided a ,fertilization' effect for Eucalyptus miniata and Eucalyptus tetrodonta, increasing growth in all size classes. High-intensity fires reduced growth and increased mortality of all functional groups, especially the smallest and largest (>35 cm d.b.h.) trees. When buffalo and fires were excluded in the final year, there were no differences in growth or mortality between paired sites across the environmental gradient. After 8 years, the total numbers of trees in buffalo-absent plots were only 80% of the number in buffalo-present plots, due to relatively greater recruitment of new trees in buffalo-present plots; fire-sensitive pantropics were particularly disadvantaged. Since the removal of buffalo is disadvantageous, at least over the first years, to savanna tree growth and survival due to a rebound effect of the ground-level vegetation and subsequent changes in fire-vegetation interactions, process-orientated management aimed at reducing fuel loads and competitive pressure may be required in order to return the system to a previous state. The ,footprint' of 30 years of heavy grazing by buffalo has implications for the interpretation of previous studies on fire-vegetation dynamics and for current research on vegetation change in these savannas. [source] Regulation, productivity and growth: OECD evidenceECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 36 2003Giuseppe Nicoletti SUMMARY Liberalization and privatization have made the regulatory environment more market-friendly throughout the OECD. However using a large new dataset on product market regulation, we show that regulatory policies in OECD nations have become more dissimilar in relative terms, even as all nations have liberalized. This seemingly contradictory finding is explained by different starting points and different reform speeds. Our data also show that this divergence in the regulatory settings lines up with the divergent growth performance of OECD nations, in particular the poor performance of large Continental economies relative to that of the US. The data, which tracks various types of product market regulation in manufacturing and service industries for 18 OECD economies over the past two decades, allows us to explore this link in detail. We find that productivity growth is boosted by reforms that promote private corporate governance and competition (where these are viable). Moreover, our detailed findings suggest how product market regulation and productivity growth are linked. In manufacturing, the productivity gains from liberalization are greater the further a given country is from the technology leader. This indicates that entry-limiting regulation may hinder the adoption of existing technologies, possibly by reducing competitive pressures, technology spillovers, or the entry of new high-tech firms. These results offer an interpretation of poor Continental performance. Strict product market regulations , and lack of regulatory reforms , appear to underlie the meagre productivity performance of some European countries, especially in those industries where Europe has accumulated a technology gap (e.g. industries producing or using information and communication technologies). , Giuseppe Nicoletti and Stefano Scarpetta [source] Reconfiguring ,post-socialist' regions: cross-border networks and regional competition in the Slovak and Ukrainian clothing industryGLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 3 2008ADRIAN SMITH Abstract The global garment industry is currently being reshaped in dramatic ways through processes of trade liberalization, delocalization and interfirm and interregional competition. There has been much speculation about the increasing importance of factor (especially labour) costs in fuelling further rounds of de-localization of garment production towards low-cost production locations, such as China and India. However, the extent to which these processes mean the end to garment production in higher factor-cost locations, including those neighbouring the major clothing markets of the USA and the EU, is open to question. In this article we interrogate the interregional shifts in garment sourcing taking place in Europe and its surrounding regions. While factor costs (including labour) are important determinants of the geography of sourcing, a range of other costs (logistical and policy costs) are important in structuring the geographies of global and regional production. Firms in the Slovak Republic are responding to increasing competitive pressures and we assess how trans-border sourcing, subcontracting and FDI are being integrated into strategies to sustain European production networks. We highlight the emergence of cross-border production relocation to Ukraine as one specific strategy. We examine the product specificity of these changes and the ways in which they are embedded within already existing production networks, forms of cross-border contracting and central European trade regimes. In other words, we explore some of the forces that shape the somewhat tentative continuation of garment production for export to EU markets in central Europe despite the ,spectre of China'. [source] Knowledge Networks in an Uncompetitive Region: SME Innovation and GrowthGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2009ROBERT HUGGINS ABSTRACT Knowledge networks are now recognised as a crucial element underlying the economic success and competitiveness of geographic locations, in particular regions. The aim of this paper is to assess the types of knowledge networks utilised and formed by knowledge-based small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the relatively uncompetitive regional setting of Yorkshire and Humberside in the UK. It explores the relationship between knowledge networking activity and the levels of innovation and growth achieved by these SMEs. It is found that SMEs tend to utilise and value more knowledge networks with actors outside the region. However, more innovative SMEs possess a balance of inside and outside the region knowledge networks. Knowledge networking activity is sometimes negatively associated with growth, suggesting that networks with certain actors, such as public sector support agencies, may be formed by SMEs when they are facing competitive pressures. In terms of policy implications, the paper recommends a shift from the cluster policies implemented by many regional authorities to a regional innovation systems approach, focusing equally on the regional and more global dimensions of knowledge networks. It is concluded that regional public policy makers need to renew their efforts to support SMEs in creating and sustaining their knowledge networks. [source] Consolidations and closures: an empirical analysis of exits from the hospital industryHEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 5 2007Teresa D. Harrison Abstract This paper investigates the pre-exit characteristics of hospital mergers, acquisitions, and closures. We estimate competing risk hazard models using an 18-year national data set that spans the wave of closures in the 1980s and of mergers in the 1990s. Evidence shows that weak productivity of the hospital is a strong determinant for closures while competitive pressures are more influential in the decision to consolidate. Thus, increased market power, relative to cost reductions, appears to play a larger role in the merger decision. Our results also provide insight into possible correlations between mergers and closures. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Convergence in human resource systems: A comparison of locally owned and MNC subsidiaries in TaiwanHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2005Shyh-Jer Chen This article investigates issues of convergence in human resource systems in Taiwan, with reference to the similarities and differences between locally owned companies and subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs). Traditionally, management in Taiwanese companies has been largely influenced by Confucian values and is quite distinct from approaches common to MNCs. However, globalization has engendered significant competitive pressures, coupled with cultural and institutional change within Taiwan. This article provides a theoretical framework for understanding such changes and provides empirical evidence indicating that Taiwanese companies are acting very much like MNCs with regard to the adoption of flexible, highperformance work systems. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Beyond the Anglo-Saxon and North European models: social partnership in a Greek textiles companyINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2006Elias Galinos ABSTRACT Much of the literature examining social partnership focuses on either Anglo-Saxon or North European countries, differentiating between liberal market economies (LMEs) and coordinated market economies (CMEs). These studies argue, quite correctly, that the institutional forces shaping partnership in the two types of economy differ markedly, with the consequence that partnership takes somewhat different forms at the workplace. By contrast, there is only limited research on social partnership in Mediterranean economies,such as Greece,even though there are strong reasons to suggest it may be quite different from both LMEs and CMEs because of relatively recent military influence at state level and less well-developed systems of industrial relations at organisational level. This article examines the forces operating both at national and at local level that facilitate or hinder the development of social partnership. It is based on the results of interviews with government, industry and union officials and a case study of partnership in a textiles company in northern Greece. It concludes that institutional forces provided workers with more protection than they would have achieved in an LME but that ultimately competitive pressures and a lack of effective workplace representation limited the degree to which the state can influence the processes and outcomes of social partnership at local level. [source] Profitability adjustment patterns in international food and consumer products industriesAGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2004Yvonne J. Acheampong The study encompasses an analysis of the variation in speeds of profitability adjustment and accounting bias by developed country and firm size for two important agribusiness industries. Evidence of speeds of profitability adjustment and accounting bias varying by firm size was found in the beverage and tobacco industry and by country in the food and consumer products industry. This suggests that the competitive pressures of integrated international markets are less of a factor in the food and consumer products industry [EconLit citations: L100, L150, L660]. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 20: 31,43, 2004. [source] Transition to self-directed work teams: implications of transition time and self-monitoring for managers' use of influence tacticsJOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, Issue 1 2004Ceasar Douglas In the face of heightened competitive pressures, elevated quality expectations, and calls for worker empowerment, more and more organizations have turned to self-directed work teams (SDWTs). A review of the literature devoted to SDWTs suggests that managers often struggle with the transition to SDWTs because of the required shift in control to SDWT members. To promote the development of work teams, managers must modify their use of influence tactics in direct response to the control shift. In this study, we explore changes in managers' usage of influence tactics during the transition to SDWTs within a large aluminum manufacturing plant. Analyses of longitudinal data show that despite the new team environment, managers' use of influence tactics was focused at the individual level. We also found that transition time accounts for variance in managers' choices of influence tactics. Finally, an exploratory analysis suggests that high as opposed to low self-monitoring managers may be more prone to increase their usage of soft influence tactics and decrease their usage of hard influence tactics over the course of the transition; the influence behavior of low self-monitoring managers remained unchanged. Implications for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Hard Bargains: The Impact of Multinational Corporations on Economic Reform in Latin AmericaLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2010Patrick J. W. Egan ABSTRACT This article promotes the idea that multinational corporations have independent agency in the process of economic reform in Latin American host countries. Through a number of pooled cross-sectional time series analyses, it shows that accumulated foreign direct investment can affect policy reform in ways unanticipated by earlier theories predicated on the obsolescence of firms' influence after initial investment. The influence of firms varies across different reform areas, and competitive pressures lead firms to press alternately for liberal and illiberal reform measures. The study also considers sectoral issues, and argues that a preponderance of natural resource,oriented FDI can alter the impact of multinational investment on policy reform. Indexes of economic reform are measured against stocks of FDI and a number of political and economic control variables. Evidence shows that the dramatic increase in FDI in the region in recent years has bolstered firms' bargaining power and concomitant policy leverage. [source] RELATIONSHIPS AND UNDERWRITER SPREADS IN THE EUROBOND FLOATING RATE NOTE MARKETTHE JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2006Michael G. Kollo Abstract We examine the role of issuer-underwriter relationships in determining underwriter spreads for Eurobond floating rate notes from 1992 to 2002. Financial and nonfinancial firms with long-term relationships pay a higher underwriter spread. Financial issuers that switch underwriters receive a discounted spread that is invariant to the underwriter's reputation and quality of the issue. However, the discount is not evident for nonfinancial firms. For both financial and nonfinancial firms, spreads are higher for noninvestment grade issues and, within investment grade, increase as quality declines. We also find higher spreads when underwriting is syndicated, and a strong negative time trend consistent with increasing competitive pressures. [source] LIMITS TO COMPETITION AND REGULATION IN PRIVATIZED ELECTRICITY MARKETSANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2009Hulya Dagdeviren ABSTRACT,:,Privatization of electricity has been extensive both in the developed and the developing world. Failures in various areas have led to the emergence of a new consensus which regards competitive pressures and regulation as crucial for utility privatizations to work. This review paper presents a critical evaluation of this newly found wisdom with reference to the developing economies. The experience in the developed world, especially in the USA and the UK, has been used to draw conclusions for the developing economies. Overall, the paper highlights the problems associated with the ,competitive model' both in the developed and developing world and points to the potential instability in private competitive power supply systems. It also examines the degree to which regulation can be a panacea for market failures and structural problems under private provision. [source] Front and Back Covers, Volume 22, Number 5.ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 5 2006October 200 Front and back cover caption, volume 22 issue 5 Front cover Kayapo men of Brazilian Amazonia dance at a meeting of all Kayapo villages held in March 2006 with the aim of forging a united movement against the encroachment of agribusiness and large-scale development projects into the Xingú river valley. Up to the time of this meeting the widely dispersed Kayapo communities had never joined together as a single political organization under a common leadership. That they were able to do so at this meeting owed much to their ability to draw upon their shared tradition of collective ritual dance performances, which serve as the principal means of reproducing the social and political structures of their separate villages. At the meeting, held at the Kayapo village of Piaraçu on the Xingú, members of rival communities with mutually suspicious leaders joined in dances such as this one, drawn from the ritual for war, that expressed their solidarity in opposition to the common external threat. For the general audience, periodic interludes of dancing also provided a dramatic way of showing solidarity with one another and jointly expressing support for the orators, who were mostly leaders of the different communities. The meeting closed with a new ritual created for the occasion that began with a collective dance and culminated in a rite symbolizing the new level of common chiefly authority and leadership, encompassing Kayapo society as a whole, that had been created at the meeting. Back cover COMPETITIVE HUMANITARIANISM The back cover of this issue shows a detail from a map of ,Humanitarian actors involved in tsunami-related activities in Sri Lanka'. This excerpt lists but a few dozen of the many hundreds of agencies competing to provide relief in the wake of the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in December 2004. In most disasters, a major problem facing relief agencies is a lack of resources. In the case of the 2004 tsunami, however, agencies were forced into competition with each other for effective distribution of an embarrassment of riches. Yet this distribution had to be in line with international standards, and needed to meet the requirements of those who had donated to the various appeals in other parts of the world and had specific ideas of what constituted relief. The result was an over-concentration on the visible and the photogenic rather than the arguably more important work of rebuilding institutions and social networks. As well as needing to meet international standards, relief agencies were subject to the bureaucratic requirements that they should expend their resources in an accountable fashion. Their slow reaction opened the way for a plethora of small and inexperienced organizations (and individuals) to enter the relief business. The aid they dispensed was often poorly directed and technically inferior, but the visibility of their operations prompted an easy criticism of the more ponderous activities of the larger relief organisations. While ready availability of resources marked out the tsunami relief effort from most other disasters, what seems to characterize aid operations in the wake of such disasters is a high degree of competition between relief agencies, and a continual call for a greater degree of co-ordination between relief organizations. Yet competitive pressures mean that co-ordination is unlikely to be attainable over more than the short term. From an anthropological point of view the following paradox is worthy of study: while philanthropy can be seen as the antithesis of self-interest, philanthropic organisations are inherently part of a self-interested, market-orientated social order. What starts out as a ,free gift' from the public of Europe, Asia or elsewhere ends up as a commodity in the marketplace of competitive humanitarianism. [source] Remaking Work, Remaking Space: Spaces of Production and Accumulation in the Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1865,1920ANTIPODE, Issue 2 2002Jason W Moore The era of US capitalist development between 1865 and 1920 offers a good opportunity to analyze the relational nature of social change at multiple scales precisely because it was a time of transition, for US and world capitalism alike. Existing accounts of the transition to monopoly capitalism in the US have focused on one or two geographical scales, such as the national economy or the shop floor. In this literature, scales are essentially treated as "containers" within which social change occurs. The possibility that the containers themselves may be fundamentally altered is not addressed. In contrast, this paper views labor process transformations, and transformations of the social division of labor, as dialectically bound. In particular, I seek to explain how the American transition to monopoly capitalism shaped, and was shaped by, class conflict and competitive pressures at multiple scales,the shop floor, the region, and the national and global divisions of labor. [source] Exploring individual and institutional drivers of proactive environmentalism in the US Wine industryBUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 2 2005R. Scott Marshall Abstract Industry transformation related to environmental stewardship proceeds through multiple stages, and there is as of yet no clear understanding of the importance of certain drivers of transformation at different stages. We bring together previous environmental management research regarding individual- and institutional-level drivers of environmental stewardship to develop a model and series of questions regarding proactive environmental behavior in the US wine industry. A qualitative research method, including interviews and focus groups, is used to test the model. At the early stage of environmental transformation in the wine industry, we find that managerial attitudes and norms, existing regulations, employee welfare and competitive pressures are all strong drivers of proactive environmental behavior. However, our multi-level analysis suggests that drivers of environmentalism vary in relevance and relative importance and that future environmental management research needs to consider the relationship between drivers of environmentalism and the stage of an industry's environmental transformation. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||