Industrial competitiveness of the auto parts industries in four large Asian countries : the role of government policy in a challenging international environment

Rationalization and stabilization following the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s combined with the expansion and liberalization of regional and global trade to create significant parts industries in China, Indonesia, and the Republic of Korea. Conventional policies of stabilization and liberalization, however, cannot fully explain growth patterns. Japan and Korea grewinto major players before liberalizing trade and investment, while even after extensive liberalization Indonesia has yet to move from extensive to intensive growth. These anomalies suggest that to explain success in the auto parts industry we need to move beyond liberalization to look at policies and institutions promoting economies of scale, skill formation, quality upgrading, supplier-linkage cooperation, and innovation. In Japan, the regional and global leader, innovative assemblers led industrial development and supported key suppliers, but the government also supported diffusion of quality control techniques and new technology to small and medium enterprises, and encouraged stable employment among core employees. Korea remains weaker on both small and medium enterprise and employment fronts, but government-encouraged consolidation around a small number of business groups, an extended period of protection, and support for export promotion led to economies of scale. Liberalization of foreign investment after the financial crisis helped ameliorate the excessive statism of earlier policies and strengthened the parts industry. In China, liberalization for WTO entry, rapid expansion in demand, and strong support by local governments encouraged a wave of foreign investment in both assembly and parts. In contrast, institutional weaknesses continue to constrain development opportunities in Indonesia.Technology Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Water and Industry,Markets and Market Access,Non Bank Financial Institutions

Evolution of Supply Chain Collaboration: Implications for the Role of Knowledge

Increasingly, research across many disciplines has recognized the shortcomings of the traditional “integration prescription” for inter-organizational knowledge management. This research conducts several simulation experiments to study the effects of different rates of product change, different demand environments, and different economies of scale on the level of integration between firms at different levels in the supply chain. The underlying paradigm shifts from a static, steady state view to a dynamic, complex adaptive systems and knowledge-based view of supply chain networks. Several research propositions are presented that use the role of knowledge in the supply chain to provide predictive power for how supply chain collaborations or integration should evolve. Suggestions and implications are suggested for managerial and research purposes

Determinants of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Adoption and Integration in the US and Japanese Automobile Suppliers

This paper examines determinants of EDI adoption and integration in the US and Japanese automobile suppliers. The paper constructs several hypotheses based on the transaction-cost and resource- dependence approaches, and tests these hypotheses by using data from the automobile suppliers. Our study shows: (1) the resource-dependence approach seemed more effective in explaining EDI adoption, while the transaction-cost approach seemed more effective in explaining EDI integration; (2) the transaction-cost approach seemed more suited to the US context, while the resource-dependence approach seemed more suited to the Japanese context; (3) EDI adoption and EDI integration had positive impacts on EDI performance in the US, suggesting the higher validity of our framework in the US.Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce, Automotive Industry, Automobile Suppliers, Technology Adoption

Individual Attitudes toward the Impact of Multinational Corporations on Domestic Businesses: How Important are Individual Characteristics and Country-Level Traits?

We study the importance of individual characteristics and national factors influencing individual attitudes towards the impact of multinational corporations on local businesses. Our sample includes more than 40 000 respondents in 29 countries from the 2003 National Identity Survey conducted by the International Social Survey Programme. We find that individual demographic factors and socioeconomic status, such as gender, age, income and education, are strong predictors of their attitudes. For example, income and education are positively associated with favourable attitudes towards the impact of multinational corporations (MNCs) on local businesses while age is negatively associated with individual attitudes towards MNCs. In addition, hierarchical ordered logit model results show that approximately 8% of total variations in individual attitudes around our sample mean are not explained by differences in personal traits. Instead, they are due to country-level heterogeneity such as, but not limited to, different degrees of openness or different aggregate income

The parser generator as a general purpose tool

The parser generator has proven to be an extremely useful, general purpose tool. It can be used effectively by programmers having only a knowledge of grammars and no training at all in the theory of formal parsing. Some of the application areas for which a table-driven parser can be used include interactive, query languages, menu systems, translators, and programming support tools. Each of these is illustrated by an example grammar

A NASA family of minicomputer systems, Appendix A

This investigation was undertaken to establish sufficient specifications, or standards, for minicomputer hardware and software to provide NASA with realizable economics in quantity purchases, interchangeability of minicomputers, software, storage and peripherals, and a uniformly high quality. The standards will define minicomputer system component types, each specialized to its intended NASA application, in as many levels of capacity as required

“Low-wage Employment and Mobility in Spain”

The issue of low-wage workers has received increased interest during last decades in many European countries. In this paper I analyse the patterns of low-wage employment in the Spanish labour market. Using a sample of Spanish workers extracted from the European Community Household Panel for the period 1995-2001, I first analyse the earnings distribution as a whole, looking at the characteristics of low, medium and high paid jobs. I also look at the evolution of these jobs over the period 1995-2001. Furthermore, I examine the determinants of being in a low-paid job using an analytical framework that is characterised by the ability to account for the endogeneity of initial conditions. Finally, I explore the effects of low pay on job mobility. For this purpose I adopt an approach based on competing risks in order to allow for different risks of failure.Low-wage employment; job mobility; competing risks

Occupational matching: the case of job seekers inscribed at Public Employment Offices

Using administrative records from Public Employment Offices, this paper studies the main factors determining occupational matching between labour supply and demand. This is measured by matching the demanded occupation by job seekers and the occupation they finally secure. The results show that occupational matching is greater among women, young workers and least-educated people. Higher rates of occupational matching are also found in medium-sized companies and among temporary workers. The results also show that certain occupations are strongly associated with a high degree of professional versatility, or instead that their corresponding tasks may be adequately performed by professionals from distinct background

Ownership and Technological Capabilities: Evidence from Automotive Firms in Brazil, India and South Africa

This paper examines the strength of embedding systemic and institutional support,firm-level technological capabilities and the relationship between the two in Brazil, India and South Africa. Despite Brazil and South Africa enjoying stronger exposure to external markets, firms in these countries enjoyed slightly lower technological capabilities than those in India. Stronger human capital endowments and network cohesion have helped firms in India to offset a lack of integration in external markets to drive higher technological capabilities compared to firms in Brazil and South Africa. The systemic pillars are positively correlated with firm-level technological capabilities. Foreign ownership was positively correlated with human resource practices and R&D, demonstrating the potential for strong technological spillovers from foreign to local firms. Export-intensity was positively correlated with R&D,demonstrating that the latter is critical for firms to compete in foreign markets.- automotives, Brazil, clusters, India, institutions, South Africa, technology