Impact Of Geographic Distance Research Articles

Exploring music geography beyond the West: Clustering and mobility of Chinese musicians in the digital era

This study explores music geography beyond the Anglo-American circle through an investigation of the spatiality and mobility of musical workers in a Chinese context. Drawing on a dataset containing the information of 3,689 influential musicians in China’s music market, we investigated the (1) geographical landscape of China’s music industry, (2) spatial mobility of musicians at different stages of their careers, and (3) impact of digital technologies on the clustering of creative musical workers. Our study discovers a conspicuous clustering of post-work musicians in large metropolises, which reflects both the dynamics of scale and scope economies and the influence of state on the offering of cultural infrastructures and institutions in China. Most Chinese musicians have high trans-regional mobility and target locations (increasingly on the Chinese mainland) with large consumer markets or important art education institutions. The impact of geographical distance and agglomeration economies on musicians’ mobility varies at different stages of their careers. In addition, while digitalisation generates certain decentralising effects, enabling more musicians in formerly peripheral areas to enter the market and reducing the need for long-distance mobility, it also strengthens the advantages of dominant music clusters and produces precarious and volatile consequences in China’s music industry.

43 Far from Home: The Impact of Geographic Distance from Tertiary Paediatric Hospitals on Family Expenses and Experiences

Abstract Background Many individuals living in rural and remote communities are required to travel to urban centres to receive essential health care. These experiences may be especially complex for children and their families. Despite this, there is a lack of available literature on the experiences of children and families travelling to receive care at tertiary paediatric hospitals in Canada, specifically regarding associated costs and psychosocial impacts. 1.Objectives: Analyze tertiary hospital-based administrative data to quantify the number of admissions and length-of-stay for families living > 50 km from the hospital. 2.Describe the costs and psychosocial impacts of hospitalization on families living > 50 km from the hospital. Design/Methods Ethics approval was obtained. Family partners were involved in all aspects of the study design. We obtained a de-identified data set describing the length of stay and home community of paediatric patients admitted to our paediatrics unit. Descriptive statistics were produced to determine the relevant study population and inform subsequent data analyses. A cross-sectional survey was distributed to interested caregivers admitted to our paediatrics team. Participants were offered a $20 gift card as remuneration. The survey included optional questions to assess participant demographics, costs associated with hospitalization, and subjective stress levels. Descriptive statistics were reported. Results Administrative data analysis described 2,758 admissions to a paediatric tertiary hospital from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021. Patients from rural and remote communities were 9.54% of total admissions. Regression models found a strong statistical relationship between length of stay and distance from the tertiary centre (Pearson chi2 coefficient 58.9, p < 0.001). A total of 39 caregivers filled out the cross-sectional survey. 75% (n=29) of participants were from local communities and 25% (n=10) were from rural and remote communities. 82% (n=32) of hospital stays were unplanned. 54% (n=21) of participants paid out-of-pocket transportation costs and 13% (n=5) paid out-of-pocket accommodation costs. 82% (n=32) of participants had co-travellers. 20% (n=8) of participants reported difficulty paying for hospital-associated costs and 10% (n=4) had to borrow money to do so. Conclusion To our knowledge, this study is the first to look at the psychological and socioeconomic barriers facing families travelling to a tertiary paediatric hospital in Canada. Patients from outside the local area had increased odds of longer length of stay and participants described a variety of stressors associated with hospitalization. We hope to translate this data into evidence-based interventions to better support these families.

Does Tobler's first law of geography apply to internet attention? A case study of the Asian elephant northern migration event.

One of the basic assumptions of spatial theory is formulated in Waldo Tobler's first law of geography: "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." However, as internet space is a complex virtual space independent of the real world, whether this law is applicable to things in the internet space remains to be explored in depth. Therefore, this study takes the event of Asian elephant northern migration as an example, attempts to investigate the issue of the applicability of Tobler's first law of geography to internet attention by integrating geographic methods such as spatial visualization, spatial correlation analysis, and Geo-detector. The results show that Tobler's first law of geography does not fully apply to internet attention, which does not decay with increasing distance. Geographical distance, within certain boundaries, is influenced by "identity" and "relevance", and still plays a large role in internet attention. However, once the boundaries are exceeded, the impact of geographic distance on internet attention is weakened by the intervention of influencing factors such as the degree of information technology, population, and the strength of news media publicity. Overall, the strength of news media publicity has the greatest impact on internet attention. And when it interacts with geographic proximity, it has the most significant effect on internet attention.

Impact of Geographical Distance from Quaternary Treatment Center on Clinical Trial Participation, Intensive Induction Chemotherapy, and Outcomes in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Introduction: Care for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is centralized in the Ontario single-payer public healthcare system, with intensive induction chemotherapy and clinical trials only offered at specialized cancer centers with large catchment areas. Methods: We therefore conducted a retrospective single-center review of all AML patients assessed at a large specialized cancer center in Ontario, Canada. Results: Between 2012 and 2017, 1,310 patients were assessed by our center for upfront AML therapy. The median distance was 33.1 km, with 29% of patients living more than 50 km away from the center. There was no significant difference in probability of intensive induction chemotherapy or clinical trial by distance from center, both in univariate and multivariable analysis adjusting for age, sex, cytogenetics and molecular testing, and performance status. There was no significant difference in overall survival by distance from center on univariate and multivariable analysis. Conclusion: In conclusion, geographic distance from treatment center does not appear to impact choice of upfront therapy, participation in clinical trials, or clinical outcomes in this study of newly diagnosed patients with AML treated in a single-payer environment.

The impact of geographical distance on learning through collaboration

There is little question that new communication and transportation technologies have effectively “shrunk the world” for a great many activities. At the same time, the “death of distance” has been greatly exaggerated, especially in fields such as academic scholarship and knowledge development where the positive benefits of knowledge spillovers remain highly distance dependent. We analyze 17.6 million publications authored by 1.7 million scholars to examine how knowledge spillovers between scholars collaborating at different geographical distances impacts their future knowledge portfolios. Our results show that in 1975, scholars collaborating locally were 57 % more likely to learn from knowledge spillovers than similar scholars collaborating non-locally. We identify four factors that structure these findings. Individuals deriving the greatest learning premiums from local collaboration tend to be (1) in earlier stages of their career; (2) associated with lower-ranked institutions; (3) working with fewer collaborators; and (4) in STEM fields. The probability of learning drops with geographical distance and correspond to the number of institutional boundaries crossed during collaboration. We conclude that even in the 21st century, geographical distance still negatively impacts knowledge spillovers through collaboration. These findings have implications for debates in innovation and management studies concerning knowledge spillovers, the spatial organization of (knowledge-intensive) economic activity, regional innovation policies, structuring team-work and working-from-home vs. returning to office.

The Impact of Geographical Distance on Survival in Adult Cystic Fibrosis Lung Transplant Recipients

<h3>Purpose</h3> Cystic fibrosis (CF) remains one of the most common indications for bilateral lung transplantation (LTx) worldwide. Worse outcomes are seen after other organ transplantations than lung, for those living further from transplant centers. To date, the role of distance in lung transplantation outcomes in the United States (US) among people with CF has not been previously studied. The objective of this study was to assess the association of geographical distance with survival among adult CF LTx recipients in the US. <h3>Methods</h3> A retrospective nationwide cohort study of 2,838 adult CF LTx patients from 2005-2019 was conducted using the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Geographical distance was determined between the recipients' zip code and their transplant center zip code. Patients were stratified into 3 groups based on their distance (<50, 50-150, and >150 miles). The outcome of interest included time from transplantation to death or re-transplantation. All-cause mortality was examined with multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression, and the Kaplan-Meier method was used to model survival after LTx. <h3>Results</h3> Of the 2,838 CF LTx recipients, 1,218 (42.9%) traveled <50 miles; 814 (28.7%) traveled 50-150 miles; and 806 (28.4%) traveled >150 miles. During the study period, 1,170 (41.2%) patients died. There was a significant difference in survival by distance traveled (log-rank p=0.003). Compared to the recipients living within 50 miles of a transplant center, those traveling 50-150 miles (HR=1.20; 95% CI=1.02-1.41) and >150 miles (HR=1.29; 95% CI=1.10-1.52) had a higher risk of death. Younger age, being African American, having lower BMI, and less education had statistically significant negative associations with patient survival. Health insurance and year of transplantation were also found to have statistically significant associations with patient survival. <h3>Conclusion</h3> This study represents the largest cohort evaluating the effect of distance from transplant center on survival in adult CF LTx recipients. Worse survival was seen in patients living further away from their transplant center. Further investigation of the causes that contribute to this observed disparity may aid in improving survival rates of CF LTx recipients, including evaluating the number of clinic visits, transportation issues, cost of travel, or other financial concerns.

Beyond Distance Decay: Discover Homophily in Spatially Embedded Social Networks

Existing studies suggest distance decay as an important geographic property of online social networks. Namely, social interactions are more likely to occur among people who are closer in physical space. Limited effort has been devoted so far, however, to quantifying the impact of homophily forces on social network structures. In this study, we provide a quantitative understanding of the joint impact of geographic distance and people’s socioeconomic characteristics on their interaction patterns. By coupling large-scale mobile phone, income, and housing price data sets in Singapore, we reconstruct a spatially embedded social network that captures the cell phone communications of millions of phone users in the city. By associating phone users with their estimated residence, we introduce two indicators (communication intensity and friendship probability) to examine the cell phone interactions among places with various housing price values. Our findings suggest that, after controlling for distance, similar places tend to have relatively higher communication intensity than dissimilar ones, confirming a significant homophily effect as a determinant of communication intensity. When the analysis is focused on the formation of social ties, though, the homophily effect is more nuanced. It persists at relatively short distances, whereas at higher distances a tendency to form ties with people in the highest social classes prevails. Overall, the results reported in this study have implications for understanding social segregation in cities. In particular, the physical separation of social groups in a city (e.g., residential segregation) will have a direct impact on shaping communication or social network segregation. The study highlights the importance of incorporating socioeconomic data into the understanding of spatial social networks.

China’s FTA Trade Partner Selection from the Perspective of Global Value Chain: Base on the Data of Trade Value Added

The construction of free trade areas （FTAs） is an important strategic measure to promote China’s opening up since the 21st century. By the end of January 2021, China had signed 19 FTAs, and the construction of FTAs had begun to take shape. From the perspective of global value chain, how does the development of FTAs affect China’s foreign trade and economic growth? How should China choose the next FTA country objects? Based on the trade value added data of domestic and foreign countries in ADBMRIO and OECDICIO, this paper studies the impact of the number and level of FTAs on China’s trade value added through the expanded trade gravity model.The research shows that the establishment of FTAs has further enhanced the level of trade liberalization and trade facilitation between China and its members. At present, the role of the quantity of FTAs in China’s foreign trade is mainly driven from extensive margin, and the intensive effect of the depth of FTAs on the trade value added needs to be further deepened. Compared with the traditional trade activities, FTAs play a more prominent role in the global value chain activities of China and its member countries. Further studies on the heterogeneity find that, from the perspective of global value chain, the establishment of FTAs between China and developed countries and regions has the greatest driving effect on China’s foreign trade; the countries and regions with a high degree of FTA participation and established FTAs with China after the 2008 financial crisis have also significantly contributed to the improvement of China’s participation and competitiveness in the global value chain; the establishment of FTAs with neighboring and similar countries is still conducive to the improvement of China’s trade value added; but with the development of science and technology, the impact of geographical distance on foreign trade is gradually decreasing. Therefore, China should speed up the global strategic layout of FTAs, further improve the depth of FTA construction while increasing the number of FTAs, and accelerate the pace of FTA negotiations with major economies in the world.The main contributions of this paper are as follows: （1）Based on the traditional literature on the impact of FTAs, it reexamines the impact of FTAs on China from the perspective of global value chain, and analyzes the relationship between FTAs and the global value chain.（2）It expands and improves the existing methods and indicators of FTA hierarchy division, applies them to the analysis of China’s FTA construction, and explores the development and evolution path of China’s FTAs from the text interpretation of each FTA.（3）Based on the global input-output database and global value chain accounting database, it points out the direction of China’s next FTA trade partner selection through the heterogeneity analysis on the impact of the quantity and level of FTAs on China, and makes up for the lack of research in the field of FTA strategic choice.

Bayesian method for inferring the impact of geographical distance on intensity of communication

Spatially-embedded networks represent a large class of real-world networks of great scientific and societal interest. For example, transportation networks (such as railways), communication networks (such as Internet routers), and biological networks (such as fungal foraging networks) are all spatially embedded. Both the density of interactions (presence of edges) and intensity of interactions (edge weights) are typically found to decrease as a function of spatial separation of nodes in these networks. Communication and mobility of groups of individuals have also been shown to decline with their spatial separation, and the so-called gravity model postulates that this decline takes the form of a power-law holding at all distances. There is however some evidence that the rate of decline might change as the distance increases beyond a certain value, called a change point, but there have been few statistically principled methods for determining the existence and location of change points or assessing the change in intensity of interactions associated with them. We introduce such a method within the Bayesian paradigm and apply it to anonymized mobile call detail records (CDRs). Our results are potentially useful in settings where understanding social and spatial mixing of people is important, such as in the design of cluster randomized trials for studying interventions for infectious diseases, but we also anticipate the method to be useful for investigating more generally how distance may affect tie strengths in general in spatially embedded networks.

Masculinity, Intimacy, and Mourning: A Father’s Memoir of His Son Killed in Action in World War II

Emotional restraint was the norm for the bereaved during and after the Second World War. Displays of individual grief were discouraged, and overshadowed by a wider concern for mass bereavement. There is limited archival evidence of the suffering that fathers of sons killed in action endured. This article draws upon and analyses a powerful memoir written by my grandfather, lamenting the death of his only son killed in action near the end of the War. While most men contained their emotions in such circumstances, this extended lament expresses a range of deep feelings: Love and care for the departed son, tenderness towards other family members, guilt at sending his son away to boarding school, loss of faith in (Christian) religion, and a sense of worthlessness and personal failure. Of particular interest is the impact of geographical distance over which this narrative is played out, and what it reveals about the experience of one white British middle-class family living overseas, but strongly interconnected with ‘home’ (and specifically Scotland). It also documents the pain of prolonged absence as a result of war; often boys sent ‘home’ to board were separated from their parents for much of their childhood, and were forced to ‘become men’—but not as their parents had envisaged. The article concludes by exploring the implications of this private memoir and what it reveals about memoir, masculinity, and subjectivity; gender and grieving; connections with ‘home’; and constructing meaning after trauma.

Geographic distance and goodwill impairment

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of asymmetric information, estimated as the geographic distance between the acquiring firm and the target firm, on goodwill impairment following a merger or acquisition.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses regression analysis to investigate the research questions of this study.FindingsThis study finds that geographic distance is positively related to the magnitude of current and cumulative goodwill impairment. The results of this study still hold even after robustness checks for other factors that affect mergers and acquisitions and sources of asymmetric information.Originality/valueThis study extends and links two distinct research streams: asymmetric information related to geographic distance studies in finance and goodwill literature in accounting. Specifically, this study extends literature on the impact of geographic distance on various firm characteristics and contributes to research regarding the determinants of goodwill impairment, a major research stream in goodwill accounting (Li and Sloan, 2016). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that performs a direct empirical test on the relation between geographic distance (between the acquiring firm and the target firm) and goodwill impairment.

Exploring dependence structures in the international arms trade network: A network autocorrelation approach

In this article, we analyse dependence structures among international trade flows of major conventional weapons from 1952 to 2016. We employ a Network Disturbance Model commonly used in inferential network analysis and spatial econometrics. The dependence structure is represented by pre-defined weight matrices that allow for correlating flows from the network of international arms exchange. Three dependence structures are proposed, representing sender-, receiver- and sender–receiver-related dependencies. The appropriateness of the presumed structures is comparatively assessed using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). It turns out that the dependence structure among the arms trade flows is complex and can be represented best by a specification that relates each arms trade flow to all exports and imports of the sending and the receiving state. Controlling for exogenous variables, we find that the trade volume increases with the GDP of the sending and the receiving state while the impact of geographical distance, regime dissimilarity and formal alliance membership is rather small.

Impact of geographic distance on appraisal delay for active TB treatment seeking in Uganda: a network analysis of the Kawempe Community Health Cohort Study

BackgroundAppraisal delay is the time a patient takes to consider a symptom as not only noticeable, but a sign of illness. The study’s objective was to determine the association between appraisal delay in seeking tuberculosis (TB) treatment and geographic distance measured by network travel (driving and pedestrian) time (in minutes) and distance (Euclidean and self-reported) (in kilometers) and to identify other risk factors from selected covariates and how they modify the core association between delay and distance.MethodsThis was part of a longitudinal cohort study known as the Kawempe Community Health Study based in Kampala, Uganda. The study enrolled households from April 2002 to July 2012. Multivariable interval regression with multiplicative heteroscedasticity was used to assess the impact of time and distance on delay. The delay interval outcome was defined using a comprehensive set of 28 possible self-reported symptoms. The main independent variables were network travel time (in minutes) and Euclidean distance (in kilometers). Other covariates were organized according to the Andersen utilization conceptual framework.ResultsA total of 838 patients with both distance and delay data were included in the network analysis. Bivariate analyses did not reveal a significant association of any distance metric with the delay outcome. However, adjusting for patient characteristics and cavitary disease status, the multivariable model indicated that each minute of driving time to the clinic significantly (p = 0.02) and positively predicted 0.25 days’ delay. At the median distance value of 47 min, this represented an additional delay of about 12 (95% CI: [3, 21]) days to the mean of 40 days (95% CI: [25, 56]). Increasing Euclidean distance significantly predicted (p = 0.02) reduced variance in the delay outcome, thereby increasing precision of the mean delay estimate. At the median Euclidean distance of 2.8 km, the variance in the delay was reduced by more than 25%.ConclusionOf the four geographic distance measures, network travel driving time was a better and more robust predictor of mean delay in this setting. Including network travel driving time with other risk factors may be important in identifying populations especially vulnerable to delay.

Personality Homophily and Geographic Distance in Facebook.

Personality homophily remains an understudied aspect of social networks, with the traditional focus concerning sociodemographic variables as the basis for assortativity, rather than psychological dispositions. We consider the effect of personality homophily on one of the biggest constraints to human social networks: geographic distance. We use the Big Five model of personality to make predictions for each of the five facets: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Using a network of 313,669 Facebook users, we investigate the difference in geographic distance between homophilous pairs, in which both users scored similarly on a particular facet, and mixed pairs. In accordance with our hypotheses, we find that pairs of open and conscientious users are geographically further apart than mixed pairs. Pairs of extraverts, on the other hand, tend to be geographically closer together. We find mixed results for the Neuroticism facet, and no significant effects for the Agreeableness facet. The results are discussed in the context of personality homophily and the impact of geographic distance on social connections.

Does distance to a cystic fibrosis center impact health outcomes?

This paper considers the impact of geographic distance from cystic fibrosis centers on lung function in children, young adults, and adults with cystic fibrosis. Clinical patient-level data on 20 351 patients from 1986 to 2011 were evaluated from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation National Patient Registry. We measure distance using a patient's zip code centroid to the center where they received care. A heteroscedastic mixed effects model was used to capture the association of distance with longitudinal variation in patients' lung function. Children, young adults, and adults in lower socioeconomic categories had a %FEV1 between 3 and 10 percentage-points lower than those living in higher income areas and those privately insured. For patients who changed distance categories, high distance was associated with lower lung function in young adults (P-value <0.001). For older patients we observed the reverse, suggesting that the choice to move farther away is associated with better health (P-value <0.001). For patients who did not change distance categories, only medium distance in children was significant (P-value = 0.01). Known confounding factors including age and CFTR mutation class were statistically significantly associated to health outcomes (P-value <0.001). This study shows distance is not found to be associated with health lung function among patients whose distance category remained unchanged during the analysis. For patients who move, the association of health with distance depends on the age of the patient; adult patients further from their care center are healthier. Overall, we find that socioeconomic and genetic factors appear to impact health outcomes to a greater extent.

The Impact of Geographic Distance on Online Social Interactions

Online social networking services entice millions of users to spend hours every day interacting with each other. The focus of this work is to explain the effect that geographic distance has on online social interactions and, simultaneously, to understand the interplay between the social characteristics of friendship ties and their spatial properties. We analyze data from a large-scale online social network, Tuenti, with about 10 million active users: our sample includes user profiles, user home locations and online social interactions among Tuenti members. Our findings support the idea that spatial distance constraints whom users interact with, but not the intensity of their social interactions. Furthermore, friendship ties belonging to denser connected groups tend to arise at shorter spatial distances than social ties established between members belonging to different groups. Finally, we show that our findings mostly do not depend on the age of the users, although younger users seem to be slightly more constrained to shorter geographic distances. Augmenting social structure with geographic information adds a new dimension to social network analysis and a large number of theoretical investigations and practical applications can be pursued for online social systems, with many promising outcomes. As the amount of available location-based data is increasing, our findings and results open the door to future possibilities: researchers would benefit from these insights when studying online social services, while developers should be aware of these additional possibilities when building systems and applications related to online social platforms.

Do Social Networks Shape the Geography of Crowdfunding?

By relaxing the constraint of proximity to the investor, crowdfunding platforms promise to reshape the geography of small business and entrepreneurship. A necessary condition is that distance is no longer an impediment to the flow of funding between backers and project developers in different geographical areas. Information plays a central role, especially as the decision to invest in a project depends on information that seems to be highly sensitive to distance (trustworthiness and seriousness of the founder, experience of those involved). This specificity makes the existence of social ties between backers and founders a powerful way to convey information across space. The aims of this article are twofold. First, to estimate the role of distance in the geographical flow of crowdfunding and, secondly, to show how the existence of social ties between geographical areas can shape the flow of funding in a local context. Our analysis draws upon a unique database provided by the French leader in rewards-based crowdfunding. With a dataset containing 12 887 projects and 452 850 contributions, representing a value of €19 million over the period 2012–2015, we estimate, for each pair of the 94 French regions, the number and the amount of bilateral funding actions and their determinants in a gravity-like equation model. Social ties between regions are based on regional migration data from the 2013 French national census. The main result is that the elasticity of distance remains important (around 0.5) in the context of rewards-based crowdfunding platforms. We also show that the existence of social ties between regions not only determines the flow of funding – doubling the number of immigrants in a particular region increases the number of investments by 25% – it also strongly reduces and even cancels out (under some specifications) the impact of geographical distance.

(1165) - Impact of Geographic Distance from Transplant Center on Pediatric Heart Transplant Outcomes

Many families live a significant distance from their transplant center, prompting outside physicians without formal transplant training to assume aspects of their routine care. Distance from surgical center has proven important in congenital heart disease outcomes; however, the impact of this distance after heart transplantation is unknown. We aimed to determine the impact of geographic distance from transplant center on mortality after pediatric heart transplantation. The SRTR database was queried for all pediatric (<18 years) heart transplants performed at PHTS centers from 1987 to 2014. Recipients were stratified by distance from transplant center (DistTxC) using their home zip code with three cutoffs (≤20, 50, 100 miles). Survival curves were generated and compared using the log rank test. Cox proportional hazards regression was performed to adjust for differences between groups. A total of 4825 patients were included in the analysis. No difference was detected between groups by gender, age at listing, diagnosis, or the need for preoperative ECMO. DistTxC groups varied by blood type, need for pre-operative ventilator support, race, and status at listing. There was no significant difference in post-transplant mortality based on DistTxC (p=0.20, p=0.37, and p=0.43 for 20, 50, and 100 mile comparison groups) (figure), and this remained true after adjusting for differences in a multivariable model. There is no significant difference in mortality after pediatric heart transplantation based on geographic distance from the transplant center. Our data suggests the current strategy of transitioning some aspects of transplant care to local physicians does not increase post-operative mortality risk.

On the Linkage between FDI and Trade: Evidence from Vietnam

The purpose of this paper is to examine the linkage between FDI and trade in the case of Vietnam. To investigate this issue, firstly, we attempt to find out the causality relationship between FDI and trade of Vietnam, including exports and imports. Secondly, we try to find out the determinants of Vietnam’s bilateral trade by individually applying gravity models for trade, exports and imports. Our main results indicate that there is one way causality linkage between trade and FDI. Concerning the linkage between FDI and import, there is 2 ways causality linkage between these variables: import causes FDI and vice-versa in Granger’s sense.The empirical result of gravity models shows that Vietnam’s bilateral trade flows were positively associated with economic size while the impact of geographical distance appeared to be rather modest. Interestingly, our empirical results show that the effective contribution of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows may be overestimated. Also, the real exchange rate did not play an important role in promoting Vietnam’s exports, while the positive sign associated with its coefficient on the import side is counter-intuitive.More importantly, our empirical results show that Vietnam was constrained by the external balance as its exports and imports reacted differently to the process of trade liberalization within the region. The value of coefficients on the partners’ Gross Domestic Output (GDP) suggests that Vietnam was more influenced by external demand shocks than supply shocks: hence, any global crisis will affect more demand for Vietnam’s exports than supply of imported commodities. Finally, the intra-regional factor played a significant role in Vietnam’s trade expansion. The deepening of sub-regional integration in East Asia contributed substantially to drive Vietnam’s export growth, at the expense of third markets like European Union (EU).

The devolution of the human resources function in South African multinational companies

Understanding how multinationals devolve decision-making within their human resources (HR) function to their subsidiaries in Africa is becoming increasingly important as the continent grows in significance in the global economy. The research examines the extent of HR devolution by South African multinational companies; how it is affected by the availability of capacity, skills and resources and the role that distance plays in this devolution. Qualitative research was conducted involving 13 South African multinationals operating in eight industries and multiple countries. We find that South African multinationals primarily devolve transactional functions to their foreign subsidiaries while retaining control of transformational ones. However, this appears to be in transition, with transactional items increasingly outsourced to third parties or in-sourced to shared service centres or employee self-service. Certain transformational items were gradually being moved to the subsidiaries, subject to skills and resource availability, along with the employment of more skilled HR professionals and the establishment of Centres of Excellence at headquarters (HQ). As regards the dimensions of distance, we find that the impact of geographic distance was minimized, but the greater the cultural, economic and administrative distance between HQ and the foreign subsidiary the greater the devolution of functions down to the subsidiary.