End-of-life vehicle (ELV) recycling management: improving performance using an ISM approach

With booming of the automobile industry, China has become the country with increasing car ownership all over the world. However, the end-of-life vehicle (ELV) recycling industry is at infancy, and there is little systematic review on ELV recycling management, as well as low adoption amongst domestic automobile industry. This study presents a literature review and an interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach is employed to identify the drivers towards Chinese ELV recycling business from government, recycling organizations and consumer’s perspectives, so as to improve the sustainability of automobile supply chain by providing some strategic insights. The results derived from the ISM analysis manifest that regulations on auto-factory, disassembly technique, and value mining of recycling business are the essential ingredients. It is most effective and efficient to promote ELV recycling business by improving these attributes, also the driving and dependence power analysis are deemed to provide guidance on performance improvement of ELV recycling in the Chinese market

Big business with Chinese characteristics: two paths to growth of the firm in China under reform

This paper presents a case study of two large firms which emerged from among the ranks of traditional state-owned enterprises and new entrants: Shougang (steel) and Sanjiu (pharmaceuticals). Rather than being irreconcilable with the market economy, the experience of these two firms suggests that the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army possessed a rich legacy of organisational and motivational skills. Moreover, Shougang and Sanjiu both grew rapidly through mergers and acquisitions in the absence of privatisation and a developed stock market. Furthermore, the main reason for Shougang and Sanjiu's success is not special help from the government or the army, but rather the fact that its leadership used their autonomy to construct a highly effective business organisation

The Hierarchical System of Planning in a Socialist Society

For better understanding of the actual system of planning namely the vertical functioning of the hierarchical management, it is necessary to explain briefly some characteristics of it's evolution. The planning system in the period of the past twenty years concerning the supplies of iron and steel, changed the form according to the development of methodology, increased production and demand. Characteristics of the period are a strict concentration, concerning production and sale, mainly in the beginning and after nationalizing all steel and iron plants in Czechoslovakia

The Neo-Schumpeterian Model of Economic Development in the Basque Country: The role of Social Economy

In this paper we analyse the neo-schumpterian model of economic development applied to the economy of the Basque Country during the last few years and the three pillars that account for the development of a region following this model are rooted in the Basque economy in which there are company organizations that promote competition, financial institutions prepared to run risks and public authorities geared towards modernising and boosting the economy by means of tax incentives and other types of aid. However, we firmly believe that, apart from the three pillars established by the neo-schumpterians, another two should be added to this model: innovation and worker participation both in capital and profits and in management. Worker participation in enterprise is another factor which accounts for economic development in the Basque Country. In short, the cooperatives are a model of the integration of innovative and participative culture and commercial companies could apply certain elements of these cooperatives with a view to becoming more dynamic and more social.Cooperatives, innovation, management, neo-schumperian model, participation.

From bust to boom: towards a strategic cognition perspective on Australian mining firms' adaption

While the role of executives’ cognition in organisations’ responses to change is a central topic in strategic cognition research, changes in firms’ environment are typically not measured directly but described either as an event (for example, new industry legislation) or represented by a time period (e.g. when a new technology impacted an industry). The Australian mining sector has witnessed a historically significant change in demand for its products and we begin by developing measures of changes in supply and demand for key commodities during the period 1992-2008. We identify sub-groups of firms based on their activities and commodity sector and examine the relation of these variables to executives’ cognition and to firms’ CapEx. We find industry, firm and cognitive variables are related to both strategic cognition and firms’ CapEx

Italy and the Antitrust Law: an Efficient Delay?

The paper examines the reasons that induced Italian Parliament not to approve an antitrust law at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth, while in the United States, the first national antitrust provision, the Sherman Act, was adopted in 1890. Was the American decision to legally enforce competition not optimal? Or was Italians' laissez-faire policy on this issue inefficient? Or, still, were there significant enough differences in the underlying structure of the economy between the two States to justify two different, yet both efficient, paths in the adoption of the law? The results, albeit controversial, seem to support the last hypothesis. The thread of the argument is the following: The United States economy was solid, so competition enhanced social welfare by eliminating the distorsions generated by positions of market power by firms. On the other hand, Italian economy was more diverse. The most developed industries were smaller and more competitive, in the analyzed time interval, than their Northern American counterpart. The heavy industry, which lagged well behind both American and other European competitors, needed instead to operate in a non competitive market to catch up. Enforcing competition would have been useless for the former group, even harmful for the latter. As a consequence, the various lobbies whose special interests have collided with the public interest do not appear to have significantly affected the pattern of adoption of Antitrust.Antitrust Italy History