VLSI Revisited - Revival in Japan

This paper describes the abundance of semiconductor consortia that have come into existence in Japan since the mid-1990s. They clearly reflect the ambition of the government - through its reorganized ministry METI and company initiatives - to regain some of the industrial and technological leadership that Japan has lost. The consortia landscape is very different in Japan compared with EU and the US. Outside Japan the universities play a much bigger and very important role. In Europe there has emerged close collaboration, among national government agencies, companies and the EU Commission in supporting the IT sector with considerable attention to semiconductor technologies. Another major difference, and possibly the most important one, is the fact that US and EU consortia include and mix partners from different areas of the semiconductor landscape including wafer makers, material suppliers, equipment producers and integrated device makers.semiconductors, Hitachi, Sony, Toshiba, Elpida, Renesas, Sematech, VLSI, JESSI, MEDEA, ASPLA, MIRAI, innovation system

"Innovation and Growth: A Schumpeterian Model of Innovation"

Following Schumpeter we assume that innovation in specific firms, or groups of firms, can have economy-wide effects. Models based on this idea can be shown to have multiple equilibria. The idea of a positive feedback loop innovation system or POLIS is formalized by picking an appropriate sequence of equilibria over time. It is shown that POLIS has empirical relevance by applying the formal model to an actual economy. The 1997-98 financial crisis in many Asian countries, most notably South Korea, seemed to have reversed the conventional wisdom regarding the East Asian miracle". This paper applies the concept of a POLIS to the case of Taiwan to show that at least in this case, neither the view that the miracle was a mirage nor the view that the growth was a result of factor accumulation only is correct. Ultimately technological transformation - in particular the creation of a positive feedback loop innovation system is what makes the difference between sustained growth and gradual or sudden decline. Although various problems remain in both the real and the financial sectors, the successes of Taiwan in building the preconditions for an innovation system are worth examining. Upon careful examination of Taiwan's system of innovation within the above Schumpeterian model it is found that Taiwan has a fighting chance of building a POLIS in the near future. An interesting feature of the Taiwan POLIS is the modular organizational architecture of some of the high technology firms in Hsinchu science-based industrial park and other centers.

Management control in the transfer pricing tax compliant multinational enterprise

This paper studies the impact of transfer pricing tax compliance on management control system (MCS) design and use within one multinational enterprise (MNE) which employed the same transfer prices for tax compliance and internal management purposes. Our analysis shows immediate effects of tax compliance on the design of organising controls with subsequent effects on planning, evaluating and rewarding controls which reveal a more coercive use of the MCS overall. We argue that modifications to the MCS cannot be understood without an appreciation of the MNEs’ fiscal transfer pricing compliance process

The Role of Maintenance and Facility Management in Logistics: A Literature Review

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review on the different ways of carrying out Facility Management and related topics in order to uncover that there is limited research regarding the impact of Facility Management on the logistics and operational performance of warehouses. Design/methodology/approach - Four different focus areas have been identified and for each one different methodologies and streams of research have been studied. Findings - The study underlines the importance of Facility Management for the logistics operations; therefore it supports the notion that investments aiming at preserving the status of the building and service components of warehouses are crucial. Originality/value - This paper aims to suggest to Facility Management managers that they can contribute to enhance business performance by designing effective Facility Management strategie