Endowment Factors Research Articles

Competence or flexibility? Survival and growth implications of competitive strategy preferences among small US businesses

Purpose– Research in strategic management has provided a wealth of contributions to the study of competition between firms, yet most strategic management theories were developed and refined for large firm contexts. This suggests the assumed theoretical relationships between strategy preference and performance may break down in the small business setting.Design/methodology/approach– The paper uses a data set from the National Federation of Independent Businesses to test hypotheses relating the strategy preferences of 754 small firms with the performance outcomes of survival and expected growth.Findings– Small businesses can focus on both survival and growth when they pursue competency-based strategies, but they risk their very survival when pursuing flexibility-based strategies. Virtually all small firms pursue strategies to compete, but some of the strategies they follow to pursue growth endanger their survival.Research limitations/implications– Because of life-cycle and resource endowment factors, researchers should carefully parse differences between large and small firms when studying the relationship between strategy preferences and organizational performance.Practical implications– Small business owners should be aware that their choices of strategies to pursue growth may lead to unintended consequences, such as the demise of their firms.Originality/value– The paper demonstrates to researchers and practitioners how strategic preferences that presumably allow larger firms both to survive and grow do not have the same effects for smaller firms. The paper establishes boundary conditions for the effectiveness of flexibility strategies on performance in terms of firm size.

Farmers Behavioural Attitudes towards WUA: An Empirical Investigation from Heihe River Basin of Northwest China

Water user association(WUA) was considered as an effective means of solving water shortage problem. Famers’ enthusiasms of participation in WUA were not high in inland arid regions of northwest China. The research sought factors influencing farmers’ behavioural attitudes to WUA. We took the middle basin of Heihe River as study area, by an empirical investigating method with questionnaire, used the analysis of logistic regression model, to explore factors affecting farmers’ behaviours toward WUA. The emperical results showed that following factors were most important for farmers to join a WUA: (1) The farmers personal characteristics such as education, being a village cadre, and health status; (2) The family factor was the decision making of planting structure; (3) The natural endowment factors were area of water right and land patch. Finally, recommendations were put forward to provide possible references for water authorities.

Drivers of Use of Information and Communication Technologies by Farm Households: The Case of Smallholder Farmers in Kenya

Smallholder farmers’ access to markets has traditionally been constrained by lack of market information. The desire to strengthen farmer access to market has seen the emergence of a number of projects that employ ICT tools in the provision of market information. This study assesses the conditioners of the use of ICT tools in general and mobile phones in particular by smallholder farmers for agricultural transactions. The study finds that several farmer, farm and capital endowment factors affect the use of ICT tools and mobile phones. Specifically, age, occupation, nearness to output market, number of crop enterprises, farming experience literacy and crop income explain the use of tools while gender, nearness to output market, household size, owning a phone, level of literacy, crop income and value of assets explain the intensity of use of the mobile for agricultural transaction purposes. It discusses the implications of these findings for policy.

Great Influence of the Economic Factors to Innovative Technology Utilization: International Experiences for China Telephony

Over the last decades, experiences have indicated that innovative technology played the vital role in telephony development. The purpose of this paper is to analyze other influential factors related to new technology utilization in Telecommunication Industry, for instance, government policy, institution endowment and other economic factors. By observing and analyzing some advanced Asian country experiences, the conclusion of the essay has be drawn that, it is imperative to fundamentally reform the political institutional endowment in china in order to accelerate the new technology utilization.

Great Expectations: Mexico's Short-Lived Convergence under NAFTA

Upon Mexico's entry into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), neo-classical trade theory assumed, first, that it had the greatest potential for higher rates of growth, productivity and overall welfare gains due to its relatively underdeveloped status; and second, that Mexico's adjustment to an integrated, liberal economy would be the most painful but also the most beneficial. It was envisioned that the blending of Mexico's endowment factors - cheap labour, natural resources, and proximity to the US market - with the abundant capital and advanced technology of Canada and the US would maximize on NAFTA's competitive potential over the long-term. However, these expectations have yet to fully materialize. This paper reviews the convergence/divergence debate with regard to NAFTA and Mexico, and analyzes the empirical data that have been used to tout both the benefits and the costs of asymmetrical integration. In light of the standstill in Mexico's per capita growth since 2001, this paper concludes with a critique of the potential role of NAFTA as a development tool and argues that the steep regional asymmetries call for a more proactive continental strategy.

Teaching or Research? What Affects the Efficiency of Universities

This study examines the impact of both university characteristics and regional endowment factors on the efficiency of universities at providing teaching and research. Evidence from 94 universities located in different areas of the UK provides compelling evidence that factors beyond the control of the university management shape technical efficiency. In particular, we analyze whether regional endowment can disadvantage universities and thus reduce their efficiency in producing their outputs. Our overall results show that (i) universities are more efficient providers of teaching than research; (ii) the variation in efficiency is larger for research than for teaching, and (iii) student ability negatively correlates with the degree of inefficiency. Finally, we find compelling evidence that regional endowment significantly matters for teaching and research efficiency. While (iv) university characteristics significantly matter for research efficiency, (v) environmental factors or regional endowment strongly influence teaching, research, and overall efficiency.

Contextual influences on international subsidiaries' product technology strategy

Abstract We seek to test a broad range of factors that influence the technology sourcing decision of international subsidiaries in acquiring product technology from outside the firm (i.e., outsourcing) versus internal development. A regression model, used to analyze data from 187 international subsidiaries in six industries and with parents based in 14 countries, identifies the environmental, strategic, configurational, and resource endowment factors that influence the technology sourcing decision. Specifically, the level of product dynamism in the subsidiary's industry and the distance between the subsidiary's primary marketing and R&D operations are associated with a greater reliance on outsourcing. A differentiation goal, a low-cost goal, along with the level of the subsidiary's human and financial resources are associated with a greater reliance on internal development.

The economic impacts of trade liberalization and factor mobility: the case of the Philippines

This study uses the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model and database to investigate the effects of trade policies in conjunction with factor mobility on the Philippines economy. A total of six experiments were conducted: three trade strategies, each with two degrees of factor mobility. The conclusions are: (1) factor mobility results in a more efficient use of endowments in the economy; (2) lowering trade barriers shifts the pattern of production toward the most competitive sectors; and (3) lowering trade barriers leads to a more efficient distribution of endowment factors among sectors of production, which in turn results in a higher level of real output.

TQM practices in Costa Rican companies

As regional import barriers fall and trading blocks are formed, small nations become viable options for sourcing components as part of multinationals’ value chain activities. Such countries can seek to gain competitive advantage either through complex or simple endowment factors. Analyzes several TQM domains (those used within the criteria for the Malcolm Baldrige Award) to identify whether Costa Rica has the capability to provide a key complex factor: the ability to absorb quality management methodologies. Concludes that Costa Rican organizations do focus more on quality than on low‐cost volume production and have appropriately trained personnel. Points out areas where Costa Rican firms need to improve performance and particularly the need to incorporate quality management at the design phase.

MENTAL REACTIONS AT THE CLIMACTERIUM

In the consideration of mental illness associated with the menopause, reference is often made to involution melancholia. But this is not the only reaction of the period; any of the functional psychoses may become apparent at this time, including schizophrenia, paranoic conditions, manic-depressive psychoses, the psychoneuroses and a number of border line states. Likewise, one cannot neglect early senile and arteriosclerotic pictures. If we limit our discussion to the cases of women showing psychicsomatic symptoms ordinarily pigeon-holed in the group of involution melancholias, we do not thereby deny that analogous factors, in part at least, may be at work in the others. Involution melancholia has existed throughout the ages. It is a condition accepted as inevitable in a small percentage of people. The general practitioner is familiar with the melancholic reactions of the involution period, and often sees women with numerous neurotic manifestations, tired feelings, hot flashes, and other sensations associated with the so-called “change of life.” Problems in relation to the menopause come up daily in general practice, treatment being commonly carried out in the home. With the psychiatrist, hospital treatment becomes rather constant advice. He insists that time is essential, and especially care with regard to the possibility of suicide. But is this all we really do with such patients? Do we not by a thorough-going study of somatic and the psychic organization together, taking into account constitutional endowment, life experiences and present epochal factors, endeavor to assess the individual assets and liabilities, which in many cases so easily get out of balance at this critical period. The climacteric period, as we all know, is one through which most women pass with little difficulty. It begins as a rule between the ages of 40 and 50 and may last from one to five years. The menopause, the actual cessation of the menses, may occur early or