Evaluating export promotion programmes: UK overseas trade missions and export performance.

Exporters generally agree that, in spite of communication technology, visiting foreign markets remains a necessity to acquire relevant information and to expand overseas business. For TJK exporters, these visits can be made either on an individual basis or by joining collective overseas trade missions organised by Chambers of Commerce or Trade Associations. Trade missions are part of the subsidised Export Promotion Programmes offered by the UK government to encourage SMEs to expand into foreign markets. Due to their small size, their lack of resources, and their managerial style, SMEs need external assistance to overcome the risks of internationalisation. This thesis focuses on the evaluation of a specific Export Promotion Programme, the overseas trade missions organised primarily for SMEs by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The present research investigates more specifically the factors that have an impact on trade mission outcomes and the influence on export performance of the acquisition of experiential knowledge through trade mission participation. This research intends to fill the gap that exists in the export literature regarding the evaluation of overseas trade missions. Trade missions have been used by exporting SMEs to facilitate their entries into remote markets. Little knowledge is available on the contribution of trade mission participation to SMEs' export performance or on the factors that are most likely to influence trade mission outcomes. In light of an increasing number of governments' trade and budget deficits and the importance of the SMEs sector in a country's economy, there is a need for a systematic evaluation of government subsidised programmes and their influence on subsequent trade patterns. One hundred and ninety SMEs participating in twelve trade missions organised by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry were surveyed in 1996 and 1997, using a longitudinal design. The executives participating in the trade missions received a first questionnaire upon their return from the visits and a second one six months later to assess changes in behaviour and trade patterns as well as knowledge acquired during the period. The findings show that SMEs that follow a diversification export strategy and that acquire specific knowledge about the targeted markets prior to the trade missions are more likely to generate outcomes during the trade missions. This study also demonstrates that trade mission participation is instrumental in gaining a thorough understanding of overseas markets and in contributing positively to the relationship building process between foreign buyers and sellers. Following the trade missions, generation of incremental sales in the targeted markets is facilitated by keeping in close contact with customers and agents and by paying them regular visits. These findings point to the fact that successful exporting SMEs are characterised by being learning organisations where the acquisition and transfer of knowledge is facilitated within the firms themselves and between firms which are part of their business network. SMEs' export-orientation is enhanced by cross-cultural awareness, international negotiation, and foreign languages skills. This acquisition of export knowledge and skills could be encouraged by close cooperation between SMEs, the public sector and educational institutions. The primary contribution of this thesis is the development of a framework showing the interrelationships between firms' specific characteristics, trade mission participation, and export performance over time. The findings also provide a thorough understanding of the trade mission process, which could be used profitably by policy makers, trade mission managers, and export managers to increase their effectiveness in the design, organisation, and use of international trade promotion schemes

Contributions of the low-latitude boundary layer to the finite width magnetotail convection model

Convection of plasma within the terrestrial nightside plasma sheet contributes to the structure and, possibly, the dynamical evolution of the magnetotail. In order to characterize the steady state convection process, we have extended the finite tail width model of magnetotail plasma sheet convection. The model assumes uniform plasma sources and accounts for both the duskward gradient/curvature drift and the earthward E × B drift of ions in a two-dimensional magnetic geometry. During periods of slow convection (i.e., when the cross-tail electric potential energy is small relative to the source plasma\u27s thermal energy), there is a significant net duskward displacement of the pressure-bearing ions. The electrons are assumed to be cold, and we argue that this assumption is appropriate for plasma sheet parameters. We generalize solutions previously obtained along the midnight meridian to describe the variation of the plasma pressure and number density across the width of the tail. For a uniform deep-tail source of particles, the plasma pressure and number density are unrealistically low along the near-tail dawn flank. We therefore add a secondary source of plasma originating from the dawnside low-latitude boundary layer (LLBL). The dual plasma sources contribute to the plasma pressure and number density throughout the magnetic equatorial plane. Model results indicate that the LLBL may be a significant source of near-tail central plasma sheet plasma during periods of weak convection. The model predicts a cross-tail pressure gradient from dawn to dusk in the near magnetotail. We suggest that the plasma pressure gradient is balanced in part by an oppositely directed magnetic pressure gradient for which there is observational evidence. Finally, the pressure to number density ratio is used to define the plasma “temperature.” We stress that such quantities as temperature and polytropic index must be interpreted with care as they lose their nominal physical significance in regions where the two-source plasmas intermix appreciably and the distributions become non-Maxwellian

Relative occurrence rates and connection of discrete frequency oscillations in the solar wind density and dayside magnetosphere

[1] We present an analysis of the occurrence distributions of statistically significant apparent frequencies of periodic solar wind number density structures and dayside magnetospheric oscillations in the f = 0.5–5.0 mHz range. Using 11 years (1995–2005) of solar wind data, we identified all spectral peaks that passed both an amplitude test and a harmonic F test at the 95% confidence level in 6-hour data segments. We find that certain discrete frequencies, specifically f = 0.7, 1.4, 2.0, and 4.8 mHz, occur more often than do other frequencies over those 11 years. We repeat the analysis on discrete oscillations observed in 10 years (1996–2005) of dayside magnetospheric data. We find that certain frequencies, specifically f = 1.0, 1.5, 1.9, 2.8, 3.3, and 4.4 mHz, occur more often than do other frequencies over those 10 years. Many of the enhancements found in the magnetospheric occurrence distributions are similar to those found in the solar wind. Lastly, we counted the number of times the same discrete frequencies were identified as statistically significant using our two spectral tests on corresponding solar wind and magnetospheric 6-hour time series. We find that in 54% of the solar wind data segments in which we identified a spectral peak, at least one of the same discrete frequencies was statistically significant in the corresponding magnetospheric data segment. Our results argue for the existence of inherent apparent frequencies in the solar wind number density that directly drive global magnetospheric oscillations at the same discrete frequencies, although the magnetosphere also oscillates through other physical mechanisms

Are periodic solar wind number density structures formed in the solar corona?

[1] We present an analysis of the alpha to proton solar wind abundance ratio (AHe) during a period characterized by significant large size scale density fluctuations, focusing on an event in which the proton and alpha enhancements are anti-correlated. In a recent study using 11 years (1995–2005) of solar wind observations from the Wind spacecraft, N. M. Viall et al. [2008] showed that periodic proton density structures occurred at particular radial length-scales more often than others. The source of these periodic density structures is a significant and outstanding question. Are they generated in the interplanetary medium, or are they a relic of coronal activity as the solar wind was formed? We use AHe to answer this question, as solar wind elemental abundance ratios are not expected to change during transit. For this event, the anti-phase nature of the AHe variations strongly suggests that periodic solar wind density structures originate in the solar corona

Magnetospheric influence on the Moon\u27s exosphere

[1] Atoms in the thin lunar exosphere are liberated from the Moon\u27s regolith by some combination of sunlight, plasma, and meteorite impact. We have observed exospheric sodium, a useful tracer species, on five nights of full Moon in order to test the effect of shielding the lunar surface from the solar wind plasma by the Earth\u27s magnetosphere. These observations, conducted under the dark sky conditions of lunar eclipses, have turned out to be tests of the differential effects of energetic particle populations that strike the Moon\u27s surface when it is in the magnetotail. We find that the brightness of the lunar sodium exosphere at full Moon is correlated with the Moon\u27s passage through the Earth\u27s magnetotail plasma sheet. This suggests that omnipresent exospheric sources (sunlight or micrometeors) are augmented by variable plasma impact sources in the solar wind and Earth\u27s magnetotail

Inherent length-scales of periodic solar wind number density structures

[1] We present an analysis of the radial length-scales of periodic solar wind number density structures. We converted 11 years (1995–2005) of solar wind number density data into radial length series segments and Fourier analyzed them to identify all spectral peaks with radial wavelengths between 72 (116) and 900 (900) Mm for slow (fast) wind intervals. Our window length for the spectral analysis was 9072 Mm, approximately equivalent to 7 (4) h of data for the slow (fast) solar wind. We required that spectral peaks pass both an amplitude test and a harmonic F-test at the 95% confidence level simultaneously. From the occurrence distributions of these spectral peaks for slow and fast wind, we find that periodic number density structures occur more often at certain radial length-scales than at others, and are consistently observed within each speed range over most of the 11-year interval. For the slow wind, those length-scales are L ∼ 73, 120, 136, and 180 Mm. For the fast wind, those length-scales are L ∼ 187, 270 and 400 Mm. The results argue for the existence of inherent radial length-scales in the solar wind number density

Communiqué No. 16: Escalating Pension Benefit Costs -- Another Threat to Nonprofit Survival?

Provides findings from a national survey of nonprofits that examines the benefits of nonprofit retirement programs, explores the financial stress the plans are under, and describes the coping strategies developed by organizations

Communiqué No. 15: Health Care and Nonprofits: The Hidden Dimension of America's Health Care Crisis

Providings findings from a national survey that examines how nonprofits and their employees are affected by rising health care costs

Global energetic neutral atom (ENA) measurements and their association with the Dst index

We present a new global magnetospheric index that measures the intensity of the Earth\u27s ring current through energetic neutral atoms (ENAs). We have named it the Global Energetic Neutral Index (GENI), and it is derived from ENA measurements obtained by the Imaging Proton Spectrometer (IPS), part of the Comprehensive Energetic Particle and Pitch Angle Distribution (CEPPAD) experiment on the POLAR satellite. GENI provides a simple orbit-independent global sum of ENAs measured with IPS. Actual ENA measurements for the same magnetospheric state look different when seen from different points in the POLAR orbit. In addition, the instrument is sensitive to weak ion populations in the polar cap, as well as cosmic rays. We have devised a method for removing the effects of cosmic rays and weak ion fluxes, in order to produce an image of “pure” ENA counts. We then devised a method of normalizing the ENA measurements to remove the orbital bias effect. The normalized data were then used to produce the GENI. We show, both experimentally and theoretically the approximate proportionality between the GENI and the Dst index. In addition we discuss possible implications of this relation. Owing to the high sensitivity of IPS to ENAs, we can use these data to explore the ENA/Dst relationship not only during all phases of moderate geomagnetic storms, but also during quiescent ring current periods