Asian Competition Research Articles

Market Positioning of Varieties in World Trade: Is Latin America Losing Out on Asia?

There is increasing empirical evidence that trade specialisation and competition takes place in varieties rather than in products or industries. This paper examines recent changes in the export specialisation of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and their Asian competitors by looking at their vertical specialisation through prices. Three price (or quality) segments are distinguished to compare export performance between the two regions using our BACI database, which provides harmonised bilateral unit values for most countries in the world at the most disaggregated product-level (5,000 products) for the period 1995 to 2004. The technology-content of products is also taken into account. The evidence suggests that LAC is losing out on China which is gaining large market shares, notably in the low-quality segment and low-tech segment. However, LAC has retained its initial overall market share, by slightly upgrading the quality and technology content of its exports. Our estimates of similarities in export structures confirm that varieties exported by the two continents are very different. Moreover, LAC export prices are much higher than those of China, but relatively similar to the ones of other Asian nations. Finally, we analyse the determinants of unit values of Latin American and Asian exports. Econometric tests confirm that the type of global competition differs between the two regions: prices play a bigger role in the case of Asian exports, whereas Latin America competes more on quality in world markets.

Evaluation of the service quality of container ports by importance-performance analysis

The present study applied importance-performance analysis (IPA) to investigate the relationship between the importance level and satisfaction of port service quality and to enable port authorities to draw port managerial and operational policies for improving service quality. This IPA approach is based on the port service quality characteristics drawn by the Kano two-dimensional quality model, and examines the Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Busan, and Kaohsiung ports from the viewpoints of 15 container shipping lines deploying container ships at the above ports. The results demonstrate that the shipping lines were most satisfied with the Singapore port, while the Shanghai and Busan ports had a lower satisfaction level than the others. The IPA matrixes of the five ports confirm that, from the viewpoint of resource allocation efficiency, resources should be shifted from quadrant D to quadrant A to improve overall performance of service attributes. Therefore, port managers have to ‘keep up the good work’ regarding these attributes. Terminal operators can use the results to develop port strategies improving port service quality, to design better service quality control systems, and to capture more container cargoes in the fierce inter-port competition in Asia.

Indonesia: Telling Lies

Indonesia: Telling Lies

The competitive challenge of emerging markets: the case of medical tourism

Purpose – Increasing globalisation of the healthcare sector suggests that there may be new competitive opportunities for emerging economies in this price‐sensitive sector. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which emerging economies, and in particular the four major Asian competitors – Thailand, India, Malaysia and Singapore – can compete successfully in the medical tourism (MT) sector.Design/methodology/approach – The authors evaluate this sector in terms of Porter's Diamond of National Competitiveness, as well as considering the challenges that competitors must address. The primary challenges relate to attracting consumers, proving assurances of quality for a credence good, increasing scale while maintaining quality, addressing ethical issues and moving beyond simple price‐based competition.Findings – The authors conclude that the major Asian competitors in MT benefit from strong government support, rely heavily on overseas linkages and accreditation, and are competing in very similar ...

The Preferred Leadership Personality Type Among the Training Staffs of National Basketball Teams During the West Asian Competition Based on the Training Certificate

The Preferred Leadership Personality Type Among the Training Staffs of National Basketball Teams During the West Asian Competition Based on the Training Certificate

Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations (review)

Reviewed by: Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations Duncan Andrew Campbell (bio) Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations. By Howard Jones. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Pp. 416. Cloth, $30.00.) In many respects this volume is at once a compressed, expanded, and updated version of Howard Jones's two earlier studies, Union in Peril: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War (1992) and Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War (1999). Jones is indisputably a major scholar of the international dimensions of the American Civil War, and this work, a combination of synthesis and scholarly monograph, is an important addition to the subject. Concentrating particularly on 1861–63, Jones considers the interaction of personalities and politics as the North attempted to prevent foreign intervention in the Civil War even as the South sought it. Looking most closely at the interplay among the Union, the Confederacy, Britain, France, and Russia, this primarily diplomatic history seeks to explain why the North was essentially left alone to use its overwhelming material and manpower advantage to crush the South. Arguing that foreign intervention was always a distinct possibility, Jones for the most part credits the Union's diplomatic efforts to keep the Civil War precisely that—a civil war. Given the justified superlatives this work has received elsewhere and that Jones's reputation is far above the poor power of this reviewer to add to or detract from it, the criticisms are a reminder of the difficulties inherent in comprehensively accounting for the motives and interactions of multiple nations in international events. In terms of potential British involvement in the Civil War, despite many ingenious arguments, Jones fails to provide much persuasive evidence that Lord Palmerston's ministry ever came close to intervening [End Page 277] militarily—the Trent affair notwithstanding. At most, the British government came close to offering mediation. This, however, would not likely have led to a conflict that both the Union and Britain were determined to avoid. Nor would intervention have been in tune with the general tenor of British foreign policy. The American conflict was one of numerous wars of independence, secession, and unification from 1845 to 1870, and the British avoided becoming embroiled in all of them. This includes the Polish rebellion, in which involvement offered more benefits (and would have been more popular) than intervention in the Civil War. Finally, this reviewer continues to believe that Jones underestimates Palmerston's role in thwarting Lord John Russell's and William Ewart Gladstone's desire for intervention. What would have happened had Gladstone or Russell been the prime minister instead? Gladstone eventually became prime minister, while Russell had already held the position and would soon do so again. In some respects, the Union was as lucky to have Palmerston as prime minister as it was to have Lincoln as president. Similarly, the discussion of relations among the other powers is not of the same high quality as the account of the goals and ambitions of the Union and the Confederacy. For example, Anglo-Russian relations were almost exclusively determined by their imperial rivalry in Asia—the so-called Great Game—something not properly discussed here. Likewise, no mention is made of British fears of a potential French invasion, which resulted in the volunteer movement in 1859. There was no entente cordiale in the 1860s, but rather more of a cold war between Britain and France. Nor is any mention made of how Louis Napoleon's options in North America were limited by his military involvement in the Indochina peninsula in 1862–67 (in some ways, the Vietnam War was Napoleon III's posthumous revenge on the United States). Oddest of all, there is little discussion of either the Polish rebellion of 1863–65 or the Prussian-Danish War in 1864, both of which attracted significant attention away from events in America. Despite Jones's commendable amount of research, there are a significant number of gaps in the bibliography. Dated works such as Herbert Bell's 1936 work on Palmerston...

Can Hong Kong export its higher education services to the Asian markets?

Internationalization becomes increasingly important in higher education in a globalized world. Exporting higher education services by recruiting overseas students is an integral facet of internationalization of higher education. It not only helps develop the place as an education hub but also facilitate internationalized environment of higher education. Alongside this global trend, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong are of no exception and have embarked on the process of internationalizing their higher education campuses by recruiting more international students, striving for achieving the policy goal of developing themselves into regional education hubs. Hong Kong has no doubt had some comparative advantages over other Asian competitors in the region but there are several major hurdles it needs to overcome before it can successfully export its higher education services. This paper reports part of a territory wide study in order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of exporting Hong Kong’s higher education to the Asian markets. In addition, to counteract the economic driven imperatives in restructuring higher education, the author would like to caution the importance of going beyond income generation and put forward a question of what the real aim and mission of internationalization of higher education are in the Asian region.

From the age of asymmetry to the great reconvergence: securing order in the Asian century

Hugh White has advanced a lucid, provocative but ultimately unduly pessimistic assessment of the region's strategic trajectory in his latest Quarterly Essay. While White argues that American primacy has underwritten the past forty years of peace, and that shifting power relativities will likely catalyse a revival of regional strategic contestation, I contend that Asian states have themselves played a critical role in consolidating and deepening the post-1972 peace through their adoption of self-strengthening strategies that link their continued security and prosperity to the preservation of the existing international order. Whereas the region's demographic giants (China, India and Indonesia) once pursued self-strengthening strategies involving a mixture of autarky at home and revisionism abroad, they have each since progressively abandoned these policies in favour of self-strengthening programs that seek to enhance states' security and prosperity through their deeper integration within a predominantly liberal international order. This seismic reorientation in self-strengthening strategies-from isolation and confrontation to integration and conciliation—has left Asian states both stronger and more satisfied with the status quo than they were in the immediate post-colonial period. In so doing, this shift has cultivated a powerful constituency for peace encompassing the region's great and middle powers that should militate strongly against the revival of violent Great Power competition in Asia as American primacy gradually declines.

Trade Regionalism in a Realist East Asia: Rival Visions and Competitive Bilateralism

This article explores the ways in which trade bilateralism, the Sino-Japanese rivalry, and cross-regional free-trade agreements (FTAs) could push East Asia closer to an FTA among China, Japan, and South Korea. Bilateral FTAs may not advance regionalism in a coherent way, but as the stale mate continues between regional visions championed by China and Japan, they will shape the path along which any regional agreements might develop. Bilateral FTAs are a more important force in pushing Asia toward regionalism than negotiations for a China-Japan-Korea FTA or an FTA involving those countries and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Reflecting the strategic nature of FTA competition in Asia, the cross-regional FTAs that South Korea has negotia ted with the European Union and the United States are two of the most important factors moving Northeast Asia in this direction.

The Development of Synergy Model on Internal and External Suppliers for Asian Airlines Industry

This paper examines the airline industry to develop a synergy model in internal and external suppliers for Asian airlines industry. An extensive literature review is conducted to present a synergy model to develop Asian airline competitiveness, safety and service quality. The literature review is highlighted to seek the relationships between internal marketing and internal service quality and identify whether the relation of supplier can moderate them. The review reveals that a synergy model based on internal marketing, internal service quality and supplier relations can overcome the Asian industrial phenomenon, especially in maintaining the service consistency and competitiveness. This model is needed for developing airline service and safety. Research in airline business is critical, as the quality of the airline service is declining in contrast with this industry’s growth. This paper provides insight into two important suppliers needed for the success of the airline industry.

The emerging European defense market

The paper deals with prospects of the developing common EU defense procurement market and policy with a view to strengthening the defense identity of the European Union as well as to promoting its external profile and international role. Despite of the European Union?s overall GDP, the Union is not considered a serious military power. The EU processes of market integration and rationalization have bypassed European defense industries, which are fragmented and increasingly losing ground to their American and some Far East Asian competitors. This has prompted calls for introducing the supranational defense procurement and defense industry policies. The analysis focuses on functioning of the European Defense Equipment Market via application of the EU Code of Conduct on Defense Procurement and reviews EU prospects for establishment of a single defense market from the policy, organizational and commercial perspectives. The authors conclude that in the long run, the voluntary intergovernmental defense procurement regime established between some EU members will open prospects of cutting national defense spending, fostering the global competitiveness of the defense industries of EU member states and building up a respectable military capacity to additionally support the Common Defense and Security Policy.

Can Belgian Firms Cope with the Chinese Dragon and the Asian Tigers? The Export Performance of Multi-Product Firms on Foreign Markets

Exporting firms are affected in many ways by competition on foreign markets. This paper focuses on the impact of Asian competition on the bilateral export performance of Belgian firms, controlling for firm level as well as destination-market characteristics. Export performance is measured in several ways, including the export intensity, the variety and quality of trade as well as the export intensity growth. Export performance appears to differ substantially across firms, across sectors and across destination markets. Our overall results indicate that both the export intensity and variety of Belgian firms’ exports are reduced by Asian competition. Especially the competitive pressure caused by mainland China and Hong Kong is strong. The competitive pressure is intense in labour-intensive sectors but also felt in a wide range of activities with a higher value added. Belgian exporters cope with foreign competition by following a variety-expansion or a quality-upgrading strategy.

China’s exports in information communication technology and its impact on Asian countries

This paper analyzes the export growth of China’s information communication technology (ICT) products in two major markets Japan and the US from 1995 to 2008 and its competition with six East Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Korea. The analysis shows that China has emerged as the largest single supplier of ICT products to both markets. By 2008, China’s exports accounted for 44 and 38% of total Japanese and the US ICT imports respectively. On the other hand, market shares of the six East Asian countries either remained stagnant or decreased substantially. The analysis by destination markets and by product categories indicates that, there exist significant negative correlations between market shares of China and that of the six East Asian countries, implying that the rapid expansion of China’s ICT exports crowded out exports of its East Asian competitors.

Upgrading and Competitiveness Within the Export Manufacturing Industry in Central America, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic

ABSTRACT The competitiveness of the export manufacturing industry (EMI) in Central America, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic has been significantly eroded by increasing competition from Asian countries in the past decade. This paper examines technological upgrading strategies followed by export-oriented manufacturing firms that operate under various investment attraction and export promotion schemes such as maquila and free zones in order to face the increasing Asian competition. In particular, it aims to study why the strategies followed in the two main sectors of the EMI—electronics and apparel—have had significantly different impacts on export competitiveness. Although the empirical evidence shows that both sectors have mainly followed process upgrading strategies, and to a lesser extent functional and inter-sectoral upgrading, the type of governance of the global value chain, sector-specific characteristics, and corporate strategies help explain their diverging impacts on competitiveness.

INSTITUIÇÕES E COMPETITIVIDADE NO ARRANJO CALÇADISTA DO VALE DO SINOS

Setores intensivos em mão-de-obra no Brasil como os de calçados, de móveis e de confecções passam por fortes pressões concorrenciais, em decorrência da presença em seus mercados de atuação de competidores asiáticos com ambiente produtivo mais favorável à competitividade. Concorrer em preços torna-se cada vez mais problemático a esses setores e há a necessidade de transitar para outros atributos de competitividade. Em atividades produtivas povoadas por micro e pequenas empresas, a presença de instituições que forneçam serviços reais adequados a novos atributos competitivos é fundamental para a sobrevivência desses portes de empresas. Pesquisa realizada em 2006 com instituições e pequenas empresas do arranjo de calçados do Vale do Sinos mostra que a articulação entre esses agentes nessa direção ainda é relativamente limitada. O grau de associativismo empresarial é baixo, particularmente entre pequenas empresas. Já as empresas de grande porte apresentam maior grau de autonomia para estabelecer estratégias próprias de ajuste à nova situação.

Modelling the reciprocal and longitudinal effect of return on sales and R&D intensity during economic cycles

Given that both the U.S. and EU have lost some of their edge in manufacturing to emerging Asian countries, the profitability and competitiveness of U.S. and EU firms depend more and more on innovation-based businesses. For example, while the steel industry lost 300,000 jobs in the USA between 1980 and 2000, four companies Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco and Dell, who did not have a single employee in 1980, had 200,000 highly paid employees by 2005. The switch to innovation-based businesses has been going on for nearly thirty years in the USA. In these companies, the role of RD this is the focus of this study both across all industries, as well as between selected industries with diverse RD the effect is not consistent across the two cycles studied. This exploratory study's findings lead us to conclude that RD the same is true for public policy addressing company/industry needs during economic cycles - fit the policy to each cycle. We consider this to be an exploratory study that opens a new avenue for more deeper investigation into the known relationship between profitability and R&D spending during the ups and downs of economic cycles at the level of the economy, selected industries, and individual corporations (for responding with appropriate corporate strategy during economic swings).

The Developmental Impact of Asian Drivers on Kenya with Emphasis on Textiles and Clothing Manufacturing

(1251) Paul Kamau with Dorothy McCormick and Nicolas Pinaud Kenya has enjoyed a relatively diversified economy (at least by SSA standards), with light manufacturing industries in particular playing a significant growing role. The rise of Asian competition (locally, regionally and on third-country markets), partly due to the erosion of trade preferences for clothing and footwear, has raised fresh policy challenges. The specific relevance of the clothing industry in the analysis of China’s and India’s impact on Africa is manifold: this is a low-skilled labour-intensive industry, and hence an avenue for African economies’ diversification; the competition from Asian producers vis-a-vis the SSA clothing industry is felt at the local, regional and global level (on third-country markets): it is therefore direct and indirect; also, the Asian Drivers’ impact on African clothing industries has both a trade and investment dimension while being competitive and complementary.

Guest Editors' Note: Asian Competition Laws

Guest Editors' Note: Asian Competition Laws

Impact of intellectual capital on organisational performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper, which is written in two parts, is to investigate empirically if intellectual capital (IC) has an impact on the financial aspects of organisational performance as well as attempting to identify the IC components that may be the drivers for the leading financial indicators of listed companies. The study sought evidence from the companies of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.Design/methodology/approachUsing data of all the constituent companies of the Hang Seng Index of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange from 2001 to 2005 and the VAIC™ methodology used in the measurement of IC by Pulic, regression models were constructed to examine the relationships between IC and the selected financial performance measures of these companies. The research hypotheses and research method are detailed in Part 1 of the paper. In this paper – Part 2, the results and findings of the investigation are analysed and discussed.FindingsThe results of the analysis revealed no conclusive evidence to support a definitive association between IC, as measured by VAIC™, and the four measures of financial performance in the sample companies surveyed in Hong Kong. At best, only a moderate association was recorded between IC and the profitability measures. The study further revealed that physical capital is highly regarded by the companies surveyed for enhancing market valuation, productivity and profitability.Research limitations/implicationsEvidence from Hong Kong shows that there is an overall lack of association between IC and financial performance, which contradicts some prior studies conducted overseas. This may suggest that Hong Kong may be lagging behind, for example, some Asian competitors such as Taiwan and Singapore in IC development. In addition, the empirical results suggest that physical capital continues to play a prominent role in the territory, which may be an indication of Hong Kong's ongoing reliance on “tangibles” as the strategic asset to generate corporate performance. These findings may, however, illustrate that the association between IC and financial indicators such as market valuation may not be a universal and uniform one. Rather, the association may vary from market to market, probably depending on the level of IC awareness in the investors.Originality/valueIt is believed that this is the first study conducted in Hong Kong involving the use of VAIC™ for the measurement of IC. It not only contributes to the knowledge of IC research, but adds to the existing literature of the progress of IC development in relation to financial performance in companies internationally.

China's Global Search for Energy Security: cooperation and competition in Asia–Pacific

China has adopted a state-centered approach towards energy security to deepen political and commercial relationships with all energy producing nations and to aggressively invest in oil fields and pipelines around the world. Applying this approach to its relations with its Asia–Pacific neighbors has produced mixed results. While China's energy diplomacy has brought about opportunities for cooperation with some of its neighbors, notably some countries in Central Asia and continental Southeast Asia, it has become a source of conflict with some other neighbors, especially those with border disputes over maritime territories which may have rich natural resources. This paper examines China's state-led search for energy security and its implications for China's relations with Asia–Pacific countries.