Organizing International Technological Collaboration in Subcontractor Relationships An Investigation of the Knowledge-Stickyness Problem

Technological knowledge is often claimed to be context-bound and sticking to local surroundings. This paper investigates how technological knowledge can be exchanged in international subcontractor relationships, using relationship-oriented organizational practices. Five hypotheses concerning such practices are tested. It is shown that the use of relationshiporiented practices varies with exports and the active development of subcontractors in product and process development activities. Moreover, international development-oriented subcontractors are more likely to use interpersonal exchange, electronic data interchange and formalized contracts than other types of subcontractors. Research implications as well as managerial implications are derived.Subcontracting, knowledge, international division og labour

mWater Prototype 3

This report concerns the application of a regulated open Multi-Agent System (MAS), mWater, that uses intelligent agents to simulate a flexible water-right market. Our simulator focuses on demands and, in particular, on the type of regulatory (in terms of norms selection and agents behaviour), and market mechanisms that foster an efficient use of water while also trying to prevent conflicts among parties. In this scenario, a MAS plays a vital role as it allows us to define different norms, agents behaviour and roles, and assess their impact in the market, thus enhancing the quality and applicability of its results as a decision support tool.Botti Navarro, VJ.; Garrido Tejero, A.; Giret Boggino, AS.; Noriega, P.; Gimeno, J. (2013). mWater Prototype 3. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/3212

Stakeholders’ views on improving the organic certification system: Results from an EU level workshop

The FP7 CERTCOST project has the overall objective to give recommendations to the public authorities and private actors in the whole organic certification chain on how to improve the organic food certification systems in terms of efficiency, transparency and cost effectiveness. According to the project description (the Description of Work, or DoW) this will be done based on a scientific economic in depth analysis of the certification systems from the farmer to the consumer in 5 EU countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom), plus Switzerland and the candidate country, Turkey. To safeguard that the CERTCOST objectives, work plan and methodology is in line with the expectations of key stakeholders from all levels of the certification chain the DoW foresaw a Stakeholder workshop to be organised in the beginning of the project. The current report documents the main points of the discussions and recommendation given by the stakeholders at this CERTCOST Stakeholder workshop, which took place on November, 13-15, 2008 in Izmir, Turkey, 2.5 months after the project had started. A total of 20 stakeholders were invited, of whom 16 could participate in the workshop. The participant profile included both users and providers of the certification system at different levels such as representatives of farmers’ organizations certification/control bodies, government authorities, EU Commission, processors/ traders, private experts/consultants. Together with the representatives of the partner institutions in the CERTCOST project, the total number of workshop participants was 35 representing 12 European countries. Given the diverse backgrounds of the workshop participants, a working group approach (World Café approach) was applied in order to give the participants the opportunity to reflect their experiences and ideas on the implementation of the project in a synergetic, comfortable and free environment. After a brief presentation of the project, outlining the tasks of the work packages and describing the proposed links between the project and the stakeholders by the project coordinator, the stakeholders were divided into four groups according to their level in the organic certification chain, as farmers, processors/traders, certification bodies and consumers. Two working group sessions were carried out around the questions provided to the stakeholders before the workshop through electronic mails. The questions had been compiled based on input from the managers of the four work packages which were relevant to the workshop discussion. After the first working group session, a plenary discussion session for clustering of the output given by the working groups, their validation and assessment was carried out. In the second session of the working groups, it was rather aimed to harmonize the understanding between the diversified opinions mentioned in Session 1. The working group approach concluded in a final plenary discussion. On the second day, the CERTCOST work package managers presented how the discussions, comments and inputs of the working group sessions could impact on their working plans. In the final session the stakeholders were addressed directly for providing further ideas both on the project and on future collaboration options. The workshop was strongly focused on the identification of key characteristics of cost factors along the supply chain in relation to their impact on the quality of the given service. However a broad range of related subjects were discussed. The Stakeholder workshop put forward that, the ‘cost’ was among the most important topics relating to the certification system performance. The focus of the project aiming at cost effectiveness and not cost minimization was confirmed by the stakeholders. All of the stakeholders present in the workshop demonstrated elevated levels of interest on several outputs of the project. The workshop revealed very positive expectations among the stakeholders towards the risk based approach to be followed in the CERTCOST project. The detailed picture of the organic certification sector obtained through the workshop will constitute an important input to the CERTCOST project and the workshop is considered to be a successful first step in the project-stakeholder interaction. The Stakeholder workshop provided important insight into the many discussion subjects of the organic certification systems in the EU and worldwide, among others the following should be mentioned. Farmers expect to have, clear rules, fair implementation, and high skilled guidance in the inspection and certification process, and underline the need for training of farmers and certifiers and for better communication between all parties in the certification chain. Processors point out the need for a good relationship with the inspectors and certifiers as well as the fact that there existed different schemes in different countries regarding the inspection process and the related cost structure. They also highlighted the difficulty of managing the relations with increasing number of different standards and different certification bodies. It is agreed that consumers expect something they can trust and they can easily recognize, a label, a logo, a certifier, a brand, a farmer or the word ‘organic’; at local, regional, national, or EU-level. It is also concluded that whether, why and how much some consumers might be willing to pay more for particular logos was unknown and was needed to be investigated. Authorities/certification bodies stress that the issue of knowledge and education is extremely important and that there are complex legislations, no common standards, and differences within and between countries. They underline that there are different catalogues in different countries to deal with irregularities which should be harmonized. They emphasize that a clear definition of certification should be made covering its objectives, principles and tools. While on some of the issues there has been a highlighted consensus among the groups, on some others contrasting ideas became evident. Among those subjects of absolute agreement were the importance of and the need for a more clear understanding of the certification system, its components and rules by all the parties involved. Education and elevated levels of necessary skills from farmer to inspector and to consumer; increased transparency and information exchange, well defined relationships between parties were considered to be an indispensable basis for a well functioning and more efficient certification system. The inspection concept came into prominence, with a discussion on policing vs. development approaches. While an efficient and comparable control system was judged to be crucial, promising private governmental formulations were agreed to be based on country conditions. Complexity of the legislation and lack of transparency were the remarkable barriers to a more efficient control system. The EU logo and the new EU Regulation for organic certification were also discussed among stakeholders. It was suggested that the EU logo might have the potential to boost demand in the ‘less developed’ organic markets, but more promotion then currently planned would be needed. It was agreed that most consumers do not look for logos of particular standards but for the word ‘organic’ and/or an organic logo they are familiar with. This might be different for ‘committed’ organic consumers in more mature markets. Overall, it was agreed that ‘trust’ is the most crucial aspect of organic certification regarding the consumer side. The issue of multiple certification and standards appeared to be a factor deserving more attention in the certification world. Harmonization in certification of the same characteristic of a product was deemed necessary. On the other hand, exchange of experiences and cooperation with markets like ‘Fair Trade’ was agreed to be potentially beneficial

E-finance-lab at the House of Finance : about us

The financial services industry is believed to be on the verge of a dramatic [r]evolution. A substantial redesign of its value chains aimed at reducing costs, providing more efficient and flexible services and enabling new products and revenue streams is imminent. But there seems to be no clear migration path nor goal which can cast light on the question where the finance industry and its various players will be and should be in a decade from now. The mission of the E-Finance Lab is the development and application of research methodologies in the financial industry that promote and assess how business strategies and structures are shared and supported by strategies and structures of information systems. Important challenges include the design of smart production infrastructures, the development and evaluation of advantageous sourcing strategies and smart selling concepts to enable new revenue streams for financial service providers in the future. Overall, our goal is to contribute methods and views to the realignment of the E-Finance value chain. ..

Steps in the development of the Romanian financial system and the corellation with the level of economical growth

Along the history it has been asserted that among the determinant agents of the economical growth can be also cited the conservation and the endowment with physical, technological and human capital. This thing involves the realization of certain investigations in the infrastructure, development, and innovation, as well as in the education and the formation, that can raise the existent level of these resources in every country and to lead to a growth in the productivity, and in the competition of that country materialized through a higher GDP of a capital. But there is an extremely important factor like the way of financing, the degree of development of the financial system of the economy that leads to economical growth. On a microeconomic level, in what concerns the economical agents, financing is the most important for the development. All in all, no matter how good the product or how efficient the commercialization channels or the correlation level between technology and the human factor may be, if the business does not have an efficient financing politics, regarding the liquidity as well as the solvency and the profitableness, it will crash minimizing the other successfully realized aspects. Except the fact that it offers an efficient allocation and a reduced cost of the financial services, a well developed financial compartment identifies the potential investors, monitors and gives information regarding the behavior of the beneficiaries of the chartered capital. The financial system unifies the capital demand and the offer through banks, capital markets, and other financial mediates like mutual funds or pension funds. An efficient financial system mobilizes the collected saving by the unities that, after they satisfy their own objectives of investment and consumption, have a financing capacity for channeling it towards those units that, for realizing their investing objectives, need financing, offer an efficient payment and clearing system, in this way facilitating the financial transactions. An efficient system is the one that realizes an optimum getting in and allocation of the resources, that it has realized in a satisfying manner the remuneration conditions, assurance, and liquidity of the equivalent deposits or the instruments of collecting the resources, and on the other hand, the cost conditions and financing term for the allocated resources. Until short time ago, it was believed that the financial system develops after the contracting sector, channeling towards investments, at the request of the undertaker, the over pluses obtained as a consequence of the economies of the population. Following what Schumpeter first expressed in 1912, recent theories showed that an efficient financial system is a stimulus for the technological innovation identifying and financing the undertakers capable to successfully innovate the product and the production process. One of those who have opted for this kind of thought is Ross Levine who assures the fact that “a theoretical as well as an empirical constant work volume tends to make even the most skeptical to believe that the development of the financial system is a determinant of the economical growth, and not only a passive answer to this growth.” Levine and the others that share his opinion believe that there are inherent relations between financial intermediate and productivity and , as the amelioration of the productivity level produces on a long term benefic effects on the level of economic development, it can be said that also the financial intermediate generates economical growth. Moreover, Levine suggests that the development of the financial system has an important positive effect over the economical growth saying that “it can be eliminated a third of the already existent inequality between the countries with an important growth and those with a slow growth through the development of the financial intermediation for the latter ones until they reach a developing level comparable with the one of the countries with a quick development”. The positive association between the degree of development of the financial system and economical growth was at large analyzed also by Demirguc-Kunt (2006), Levine and King (1993), and Levine and Beck (2004). They get to the conclusion that this correlation stays significant even when other factors of influence are taken into consideration. Moreover, they prove that regarding a country with a developing financial system, the degree of financial development is correlated not only with the current growth, but also with the future economical growth. In order to do a thorough analysis of the way in which the Romanian financial system evolved, being correlated with the economical growth of the financing structure of the Romanian economy between 1990 and 2006, we leveled this analysis depending on the mutations that took place during the time in the Romanian economical and financial landscape. We have taken one by one the mutations that took place during this period regarding the Romanian banking system and capital market, as main financial agents, then the macro economical politics and their impact on the development of the financial system, and, least but not last, recent evolutions experienced by the Romanian financial system and regional level (Central and Eastern Europe) and European Union comparisons.Romanian financial system, capital market, development

When and Why Does it Pay to be Green?

According to widely held beliefs, environmental protection is associated with an increase in costs for businesses imposed by the government. Over the last decade, this view has been challenged by a number of analysts. They have identified many possibilities, from a conceptual or theoretical point of view, whereby firms could offset the costs of sustaining the environment with higher profits. First, a better environmental performance can lead to an increase in revenues through the following channels: i) a better access to certain markets; ii) the possibility to differentiate products, and iii) the possibility to sell pollution-control technology. Second, a better environmental performance can lead to cost reductions in the following categories: iv) regulatory costs; v) cost of material, energy and services; vi) cost of capital, and vii) cost of labour. The purpose of this report is to provide empirical evidence supporting the existence of these opportunities and to assess their magnitude. For each of the seven possibilities identified above, we provide a discussion of the mechanisms involved and a systematic view of the empirical evidence available. The objective of this paper is not to show that a reduction of pollution is always accompanied by a better financial performance, it is rather to argue that the expenses incurred to reduce pollution can sometimes be partly or completely compensated by gains made elsewhere. Through a systematic examination of all the possibilities, we want to identify the circumstances most likely to lead to a “winwin” situation, i.e., better environmental and financial performance.

The Global Platform Economy: A New Offshoring Institution Enabling Emerging-Economy Microproviders

Global online platforms match firms with service providers around the world, in services ranging from software development to copywriting and graphic design. Unlike in traditional offshore outsourcing, service providers are predominantly one-person microproviders located in emerging-economy countries not necessarily associated with offshoring and often disadvantaged by negative country images. How do these microproviders survive and thrive? We theorize global platforms through transaction cost economics (TCE), arguing that they are a new technology-enabled offshoring institution that emerges in response to cross-border information asymmetries that hitherto prevented microproviders from participating in offshoring markets. To explain how platforms achieve this, we adapt signaling theory to a TCE-based model and test our hypotheses by analyzing 6 months of transaction records from a leading platform. To help interpret the results and generalize them beyond a single platform, we introduce supplementary data from 107 face-to-face interviews with microproviders in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Individuals choose microprovidership when it provides a better return on their skills and labor than employment at a local (offshoring) firm. The platform acts as a signaling environment that allows microproviders to inform foreign clients of their quality, with platform-generated signals being the most informative signaling type. Platform signaling disproportionately benefits emerging-economy providers, allowing them to partly overcome the effects of negative country images and thus diminishing the importance of home country institutions. Global platforms in other factor and product markets likely promote cross-border microbusiness through similar mechanisms