Businesses Struggle Research Articles

Perceptions of tourism promotion and business challenges: A survey-based comparison of tourism businesses and promotion organizations

Tourism is an important economic development driver in the U.S. especially in rural areas. Most US regions have tourism-related economic development organizations to assist the local industry. Despite such assistance, however, many tourism-based businesses struggle. One possible reason is a disconnect between business needs and the activities of related organizations. This study uses survey data from tourism-based businesses and tourism promotion and economic development organizations in rural western Pennsylvania and West Virginia to compare how the various actors perceive the most pressing tourism promotion efforts and business challenges. In general, tourism businesses and support organizations agree on the promotional needs of tourism-based businesses and hold similar perceptions about industry problems. However, tourism promotion agencies underestimate the role of the internet in promotions and perceive workforce issues differently than do businesses. Better alignment of priorities within tourism partnerships should enhance promotional and educational efforts as well as the integration of tourism into overall economic development efforts.

A Waste of Space: Bodies, Time and Urban Renewal

A Waste of Space: Bodies, Time and Urban Renewal

A logic of management and technological transfer for evolving capabilities : Studies on Mitsubishi from 1915-35.

This is a study that focuses on the relation between institutional and organizational process in terms of evolutionary economics. This paper is interested in the application of evolutionary concepts to the empirical study of the firm. Historical and institutional studies required different approaches and methods than docomparative statics. In the presentation, comparing several cases of technological transfers or developments which happened in one firm, in Mitsubishi, will help to explain how the institutions function for evolving capabilities, because new transferred technologies are expect to require the development of managerial infrastructure that provides working rules, administrative structures and collective legitimacy. Mitsubishi, the biggest unitary firm in Japan with the established collective ideas and rules, developed capabilities for new industries by the internal growth with no mergers and acquisitions. Principally, there are two type of evolving business capabilities; the one is through establishing a new firm, and the other one is through starting a new business within the existing firm. This paper would deal with the empirical cases of the latter type of evolving capabilities and shed light on the factors that condition successes or constrains. The sequential cases of the diversification strategies in Mitsubishi, particularly after the end of the First World War, not only showed how a Japanese big business struggle with the challenges that the second industrial revolution brought to, but also gave the example of a realisation of this type of entrepreneurial actions in Japan. This study deal with one firm, but compare the multiple cases of technology transfers and developments. The firm Mitsubishi already had the established rules and routines of thinking and executing how to evolve capabilities. From 1915 to 1935, Mitsubishi developed the capabilities for electric appliances, airplanes, chemistry submarine boat, chemistry and oil refinery. Before describe how the existing institutions functioned across these cases, it is necessary to review the concepts for observing the firms. Through comparing these cases, In this paper the architecture of the firm is defined as the constitutional part of institutions and collectiveness for evolving capabilities. Mainly in the presentation, I will describe each case and compare with them.

Pilot error: Are you setting your organization on a crash course?

AbstractMost companies have undergone and survived a major management initiative over the past decade, only to be swamped by another fad that demands they rush full speed in the opposite direction. Although their intent is to improve business performance through quality, productivity, and service enhancements, the vast majority of management initiatives never attain their goals. The reasons for failure have little to do with top management strategy or with the effort expended among the rank and file. Businesses struggle in attaining desired results because they do not deploy the strategy of top management through the rank and file of the organization. This article describes the shortcomings of the traditional methods employed by companies to attack their day‐to‐day operating problems, and suggests a more progressive means of attaining competitive gains in productivity and quality.

Mandating Social Change: The Business Struggle Over National Health Reform

This article explores the conditions under which business managers endorse human resource investment policy drawing from the recent national health reform episode. In order to generate corporate support, a business community must develop corporate policy capacity, or the ability to grasp complicated social issues and to act in support of this social agenda. Corporate support is also influenced by the business–related strategies of government leaders who can encourage businesses to organize around legislative issues. The bid for national health reform met neither condition. Corporate policy capacity was inadequate to sustaining business support for health reform at the point of translating general corporate anxiety into specific legislation. Because U.S. business groups are weak, fragmented, and compete for members, they tend to cater to strong, vocal minorities and are often unable to act on majority positions. In health reform although a majority of business groups’ members wanted reform, minority objections prevailed. In addition, where the Clinton administration’s business mobilization efforts were complicated by its campaign for mass support, the Republicans organized a formidable corporate lobby against the bill.

Reaction: The New Combines Investigation Act

On December 17, 1985, Federal Consumer and Corporate Affairs Minister Michel Cote tabled in the House of Commons a bill to amend Canada's present competition law. Although Mr. Cote claimed that the new legislation will "protect the marketplace" and "give consumers the widest selection of goods at the lowest possible price," this is extremely unlikely. A Combines Investigation Act which interferes with our system of competitive enterprise will instead stifle business rivalry, and lead to economic inefficiency. This, in turn, will reduce the welfare of the Canadian consumer. The main drawback in Mr. Cote's initiative is that it is predicated on an untenable and outmoded economic theory. This is the view that business concentration and rivalrous competition are incompatible. It, in turn, stems from the textbook model of "perfect competition," which declares ideal a scenario in which firms are small and numerous, goods are homogeneous and unchanging, information is costless and profits are always zero. But in the real world which Canada for better or worse inhabits, these conditions are irrelevant to rivalrous business struggle. In the marketplace, large scale enterprises, even gigantic ones, are not exempt from competition. They, too, can fail if they cease to satisfy consumer demands for quality, low price, efficiency, new products, good service and reliability.