Creating competition & mastering markets; New entrants, monopolists, and regulators in transforming public utilities across the Atlantic

This paper is on the transformation of network industries or public utilities in Western Europe and the United States (US). A network industry provides a public or basic service by operating a large infrastructure system whose main characteristics are strongly increasing returns to scale, high levels of capital intensity, deployment of long-lasting industrial assets, and of vital importance to the economy (e.g. telecommunication, energy, transportation systems, water distribution, postal services, broadcasting). The objective of this paper is to look at the transformation of utility markets and to investigate whether the (re-)engineering of utility markets has effectively produced new industrial structures and has generated alternative outcomes. And secondly, whether this deliberate process to stir up the competitive dynamic is thwarted by the combination of industrial predation (e.g. legacy systems and installed customer base) and incumbency power (market leadership, closeness to government, cross-subsidisation, information monopoly) favouring only modest and gradual change or by emergent and unexpected radical forces that have surprised both the omniscient market makers and those favouring the status quo. Introducing deregulation and liberalisation and engineering market dynamics in a utility world that is still characterised by partial competition and a persistent quasi-monopoly, is no easy matter. The process of de-monopolisation can be seen as the result of ongoing strategic and tactical interactions among incumbent operators and insurgent market players, tough bargaining between those firms and supervisory regulators, and difficult negotiations at the federal level of Washington and Brussels between the state administrations, their regulators and the transnational institutions. In order to create some form of dynamic rivalry in those "monopolistic" network-based industries, the emergence of new entry/exit and competition needs to be nourished and closely monitored and supervised: the emergence and persistence of competition needs to be engineered. The concept of engineering competition is somewhat ambiguous, since we should be both aware of the shortcomings of designing and managing markets and the limitations on and problems with self-organisation in regulation. Competition is a spontaneous process and is in the domain of human action, while "regulation" is a product of human design and contains instruments and toolboxes to intervene in a dynamic environment, and those two should not be mixed. Hence, despite the popularity of the term engineering competition, "engineering regulation", with a clear and intentional focus on devising an appropriate framework facilitating competition, is probably a better term

The importance of innovation adoption and generation in linking entrepreneurial orientation with product innovation and farm revenues

The growth of modern agrifood markets, especially in Indonesia, has stimulated entrepreneurially oriented farmers to seize business opportunities through innovation. This paper aims to investigate in a dynamic agrifood market if entrepreneurial orientation enhances innovation adoption and generation and if both of these actions enhance product innovation and, eventually, farm revenues of vegetable farmers in West Java, Indonesia. The findings demonstrate that entrepreneurial orientation enhances innovation adoption and generation, which in turn enhance product innovation. Finally, product innovation enhances farm revenues. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of innovation in facilitating entrepreneurially oriented farmers to perform better when facing a dynamic market. Entrepreneurial orientation enables farmers to innovate by taking risks to anticipate future demand, through either adoption of available innovations or generation of their own innovations, and both options result in new or improved products and eventually enhanced farm revenues

Success and failure factors in agricultural cooperatives

The paper presents an integrated framework of success and failure factors of agricultural cooperatives and its applicability based on a review of recent literature and an illustrative case study. We identify six categories of success and failure factors: the societal environment, quality of management, strategy, member base, commitment, and product aspects. Contrary to expectations that failure factors mirror success factors, the framework shows that the two represent distinctive features in at least some of the distinguished categories. The analysis of an agricultural cooperative in Peru, selected and presented as an illustrative case study, shows the applicability of the framework for the analysis of success and failure factors of cooperatives