Strategic alliances, organisational learning and new product development: the cases of Rover and Seat.

The importance of the automotive industry in the global economy is widely recognised. The sector has undergone enormous changes in order to prepare for the fierce competition of the 21st century. Among these transformations, the most relevant are those technologies developed for the rapid evolution of activities linked to new designs, new products, and new manufacturing processes and systems. Innovative Japanese carmakers have stimulated international performance comparisons in these activities. International technology alliances may be one way of gaining access to new competitive technologies. Risks and costs associated with new product development can be shared among the partners and more effective use can be made of manufacturing facilities and production capabilities. Sometimes, an alliance agreement may lead to the deployment of new capabilities. However, in spite of this potential, the literature presents the success rate of alliances at less than 50%. Our study considers two examples of companies that developed international joint ventures (IJVs): Rover with Honda, and Seat with Volkswagen. Since these two European peripheral companies, Rover and Seat, no longer remain as independent firms, we are interested in identifying the reasons leading to the success or failure of these IJVs as regards the New Product Development (NPD) process. In particular, in both cases the paper looks at the problems of the weaker partner becoming increasingly dependent on the other partner and the need for a well-defined strategy to benefit from IJVs.Alianzas estratégicas; desarrollo de productos; Rover; Seat;

Evaluation of the neo-glottal closure based on the source description in esophageal voice

The characteristics of esophageal voice render its study by traditional acoustic means to be limited and complicate. These limitations are even stronger when working with patients lacking minimal skills to control the required technique. Nevertheless the speech therapist needs to know the performance and mechanics developed by the patient in producing esophageal voice, as the specific techniques required in this case are not as universal and well-known as the ones for normal voicing. Each patient develops different strategies for producing esophageal voice due to the anatomical changes affecting the crico-pharyngeal sphincter (CPS) and the functional losses resulting from surgery. Therefore it is of fundamental relevance that practitioners could count on new instruments to evaluate esophageal voice quality, which on its turn could help in the enhancement of the CPS dynamics. The present work carries out a description of the voice of four patients after undergoing laryngectomy on data obtained from the study of the neo-glottal wave profile. Results obtained after analyzing the open-close phases and the tension of the muscular body on the CPS are shown

Las tribulaciones de un ortodoxo ruso "in partibus infidelium"

El relato de Afanasi Nikitin Viaje allende los tres mares no es un libro de viajes al uso. Este trabajo estudia la característica más importante de este texto: la creación de un original «lenguaje secreto», mezcla de persa, turco y árabe transcrito en alfabeto cirílico. Mediante este recurso, el autor, expresa sus dudas acerca de la fe religiosa que teme haber perdido después de pasar seis años en tierras de infieles, Persia, Golfo Pérsico y la India sin ningún contacto con cristianos.The Afanasij Nikitin's Journey beyond the Tree Seas is not a usual travel book. This paper focuses the most important feature of the Nikitin's text: the creation of an original 'secret language', mixing of Persian, Turkish and Arabic transcribed in Cyrillic alphabet and embedded in the Russian text. Through this resource, the author, expresses his doubts about the religious faith that feared losing after spending six years in the land of infidels, Persia, Persian Gulf, and the India without any contact with Christians

Un poema cretense de Yorgos Seferis

La concesión en 1963 del Premio Nobel de Literatura a Yorgos Seferis supuso personalmente para mí el primer contacto con una realidad hasta entonces incomprensiblemente desconocida: el griego seguía estando vivo y además tenía sus poetas. Por aquellos años, ni siquiera a quienes estudiábamos Letras en el Bachillerato se nos había hablado de la transformación y pervivencia de la lengua griega moderna. Por eso, para algunos de entre los que entonces pensábamos encaminar nuestros estudios hacia la Filología Clásica, la lengua y literatura neogriegas poseían un atractivo especial, mezcla de preocupación exótica y cómplice por algo tenido desde arriba como último eslabón degradado y tardío, incapaz de competir con la perenne lozanía de lo clásico.Peer reviewe

The improvements of power management for clustered type large scope wireless sensor networks2010

Fuente Aragón, PDL. (2010). The improvements of power management for clustered type large scope wireless sensor networks2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/10244.Archivo delegad

Confidence-Building Measures in the Southern Cone

This article deals with perceptions between countries. It deals with the substance of those perceptions, and ultimately with the creation of trust. Confidence-building measures (CBMs) are practical actions aimed at creating attitudes of cooperativeness. Their purpose is to generate, between former enemies or between nations in competition, the sense that cooperation is possible and is better than confrontation. They also establish the understanding that national interests can still be promoted when acting with another party instead of against it