Managing Firm Competitiveness in Global Markets

The globalization profile of US food firms is mixed. US sales from foreign direct investment is now over six times the level of exports, while US processed food trade balance has moved from +$9 billion in 1995 to -$7 billion in 2004. Competitive forces drive firms to seek new areas of growth, with either portfolio expansion or penetration and expansion in new markets. Although the forces that weigh heavily on a firm are recognized, their influence in determining a firm’s action in choosing a particular strategy is not well understood. As the nature of food manufacturing is evolving and the operational scope of a food manufacturing firm has grown from local, to regional, national, and global, is there a new role for policy? What we do know is that a firm trades with other firms and that aggregate trade patterns do not fully reflect how firms view prospects, make decisions and factor in policies as they organize themselves for trade. Addressing the potential characterizations of competitiveness for the industry and the firm followed by the conflicting influences of R&D on competitiveness, we focus on what is meant by a global food firm with the use of the experiences of three industry case studies.Competitiveness, Food Manufacturing, Globalization, Case study

Strengthening Out-of-School Time Nonprofits: The Role of Foundations in Building Organizational Capacity

Placing nonprofits in the larger context of city, state, and national policy, explores the capacity-building support nonprofits running afterschool and summer programs need to provide high-impact networks of learning and developmental opportunities

Clinical quality improvement and medicine

Medical practice is facing many pressures, all requiring ever-higher standards and better 'quality' in the provision of clinical care. Medicine is not alone in facing such forces, and it may be appropriate to apply the methodology used in other disciplines to address this issue; common problems are generally amenable to common solutions. The 'quality' approach was initially applied to health care in the USA, presumably because of the accent on market forces and the relationship with market share. In recent years, other health care systems have invested in this approach, applying lessons learned from management disciplines and the aviation industly. The Institute of Medicine's report on health care quality noted that 'every system is perfectly designed to obtain the results it gets' fll The European Union has thus far not included quality as a formal item on its agenda; however, with increasing mobility of patients and health professionals, there is pressure for legislative action addressing risk management and quality improvement. The development of a European approach to ensure the highest quality standards, free movement in the European Union, as well as the medical devices industry, are all areas that are raising interest. Overall, it behooves the individual clinician to be aware of developments in the area.peer-reviewe

Go Back to the Beginning: Career Development and the Challenges of Transitioning From the Military to Civilian Employment

This chapter examines the transition challenges facing military personnel to moving to civilian employment, a major issue for nations like the USA that have large armed forces. For such personnel, they seek to establish a career after a period of service and often without the credentials required for existing or future job vacancies. This chapter discusses the challenges of career transition from military to civilian employment, largely in the context of the US-based literature. The chapter proceeds to outline the range of obstacles to transition and then considers remedial measures to support transition ranging from pre transition to post transition support programs

Competition and Quality: Evidence from the NHS Internal Market 1991-1999

Payer-driven competition has been widely advocated as a means of increasing efficiency in health care markets. The 1990s reforms to the UK health service followed this path. We examine whether competition led to better outcomes for patients, as measured by death rates after treatment following heart attacks. Using data on mortality as a measure of hospital quality and exploiting the policy change during the 1990s, we find that the relationship between competition and quality of care appears to be negative.competition, health care, mortality, quality of care