Intersectoral Competition Research Articles

AFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AND JOB SATISFACTION: A CROSS‐NATIONAL COMPARATIVE STUDY

AbstractPublic managers across countries are faced with challenges of attracting and retaining high‐quality employees in the context of widespread financial constraints and increasing inter‐sectoral competition. These changing circumstances have reinforced the need to enhance public employees' affective organizational commitment, which is related to important outcomes such as employees' performance and retention. However, we know little about the factors that can positively influence affective organizational commitment in a cross‐national context. This study applies a cross‐national comparative approach using data from four US states (Oregon, Florida, Washington, and Utah) and India to examine the factors influencing affective organizational commitment. We focus mainly on the effects of job satisfaction, which is considered to be the most important antecedent of affective organizational commitment. Our findings indicate that, in both countries' contexts, job satisfaction has a significant positive impact on affective organizational commitment. We also examine the US–India differences in the levels of affective organizational commitment. Findings indicate that, compared to the four US states of Oregon, Florida, Washington, and Utah, affective organizational commitment is significantly higher among Indian public managers.

Intra-Sector and Inter-Sector Competition in a Model of Growth

The role of patents is threefold: first, they are important to state the property rights of an invention; second, they are necessary to secure financing for starting a new venture; third, they are fundamental to recoup R&D investments. The main difficulty in preventing unauthorized use of an innovation is in the establishment of ranges and contexts of patents applicability. Noting the imperfections of the patent legal system, the authors are in a position to consider an economy with two levels of competition under different market structures: the inter-sector monopolistic competition and the intra-sector Cournot oligopoly. The explicit consideration of strategic interactions in a model of endogenous growth produces interesting results. Considering the sectorial market share as the indicator of patent system enforcement, the authors find that growth takes place, if and only if, there are some property rights of private knowledge produced by R&D activities. In turn, the patent system translates into a low degree of competition among firms. Its influence on the growth rate goes in a single unambiguous direction. As competition rises, few resources are available for R&D, so the growth rate goes down.

Water Resource Use and Competition in an Evolutionary Model

Over the last few years water scarcity and pollution have been rapidly growing at both regional and global level. This has generated in many cases increasing intersectoral competition over the use of a limited amount of water resources. To examine the dynamics that such competition may generate in the economy, the present paper proposes a simple dynamic evolutionary model in which two sectors (A and B) compete for the use of water and studies the impact of water pricing on the dynamics of the two sectors in the presence of a population of interacting economic agents characterized by imitative behaviors. As it emerges from the model, when water is underpriced a self-enforcing process may be observed driving the economy towards a Pareto-dominated equilibrium. In such equilibrium the economy fully specializes in sector A, characterized by the highest negative impact on the water resource, at the expenses of sector B. The paper shows that a policy of fine tuning that increases water price through the endogenous water pricing mechanism examined in the model can inhibit the convergence of the economy to such an equilibrium point and can progressively shift the system towards the less water-consuming sector. Finally, assuming a Leontief production function and performing numerical simulations, it is shown how a change in water price can affect the dynamics of the model, and that the same results hold also in a more general, three-sector context.

Are Nonprofits Obsolete

Can the nonprofit sector survive the barrage of government regulations, the fast changing environment, the changing priorities of donors and beneficiaries, the democratized nature of fundraising and a host of other internal and external factors? The nonprofit sector is threatened by its very nature, which is complex and seems to go against the established principles of successful organizations. At the same time the larger outer environment has continued to wreak havoc on a sector that is already internally weak. Can the nonprofit sector, as organized, continue to exist? This paper discusses the internal weaknesses inherent to the nonprofit sector including funding, legal organization, nature of nonprofit work, workers and clients, as well as the external threats to the sector including inter-sectoral competition, regulations and the changing global economic landscape. To stay relevant, nonprofits must adapt to the changing outer environment by evolving internally.

Employer-of-choice characteristics in the construction industry

In many countries, ageing populations, skills shortages and increasing inter-sector labour competition has made graduate recruitment and retention a priority in the construction industry. Understanding what constitutes an employer-of-choice in the eyes of graduates is important in meeting this challenge. A survey of 160 undergraduates across 26 international universities concluded that the top three most important workplace characteristics for university students on construction courses are: positive work relationships, being able to learn on the job, and a workplace that is passionate about work. Distinct gender differences were exposed between preferences as were differences in preferences compared to the preferences of graduates in other industries. These findings contribute to our understanding of how students make choices about employers, what factors are important in making those decisions and how these factors vary between different graduate groups. They also contribute to our understanding of how to design better recruitment strategies to attract talent to the construction sector in an environment where demand is anticipated to exceed supply for some time ahead.

How does trade-mediated technology transfer affect interregional and intersectoral competition? Exploring multi-sectoral effects in a global trade model

In this paper, all technology transfers are embodied in trade flows within a three-region, six-tradedcommodity version of the GTAP model. 4% Hicks-Neutral technical progress in heavy manufacturing in one region has uneven impacts on productivity elsewhere. Why? Destination regions’ ability to harness new technology depends on their absorptive capacity and on the structural congruence of the source and destination. Together with trade volume, these two factors determine the recipient’s success in capturing foreign technology. Sectors, intensive in heavy manufacturing, register higher productivity growth. Inter-regional competition coupled with changes in price relativities, loom large in general equilibrium adjustment. Hicks-neutrality of the TFP (total factor productivity) improvement implies that, at the initial configuration of inputs, the marginal products of land, labour, and capital, change by the same proportion in any region. However, for the experiment conducted, productivity changes and the spillover coefficients dominate the variable impact across sectors and regions.

Two Different Organizational Reactions: The University Sector in Argentina and Colombia and the Neoliberal Proposal

The neoliberal reform arrived at the market of higher education with the intention of introducing private dynamics into public organizations. Through this strategy, the objective was to improve efficiency by promoting intra- and intersectoral competition. The introduction of performance funding shifted the concept of accountability for expenditures, and now public universities will be accountable for results. The expansion of the private sector as a complementary service to public higher education, and the introduction of tuition fees in non-private institutions, implied a shift of the higher education cost burden that now is shared by parents and students. Argentina and Colombia are two cases that show that not all university sectors in South America have reacted alike when the neoliberal recipe proposed this ‘paradigm shift’. Even when the reform was formally declared in both countries, organizational forces inside the national university in Argentina prevented an in-depth reform. On the other hand, Colombia behaved as one of the best disciples of the neoliberal proposal, where the ‘privatization’ of the university sector found a better place to flourish.

Product variety, competition and economic growth

In this paper, we study the relationship between competition and economic growth using a model of economic development through the creation of new sectors. In our model, competition has both an intra- and an inter-sector component. We find that the best conditions for economic development are achieved when a suitable ratio of inter- to intra-sector competition is achieved. This ratio constitutes a compromise between providing a temporary monopoly to the first entrepreneur (low inter-sector competition) and creating enough imitation to expand the sector (intra-sector competition).

Balancing agricultural and environmental water needs in China: alternative scenarios and policy options

China is facing growing water scarcity in many river basins due to rapid economic development, an expanding population, growing urbanization, and limited scope to develop new supplies. Water overdrafts, both from surface and sub-surface sources, are causing serious environmental problems ranging from the degradation of deltaic ecosystems of major rivers to aquifer depletion in North China. The attendant need to meet environmental water requirements is exacerbating the already tenuous problem of inter-sectoral water competition. The most widely advocated solution for the present and future environmental water management challenges of China involves the reallocation of water from agriculture to urban and environmental sectors. Such a solution can be myopic, unless potential repercussions on national food production and irrigating farmers are addressed. This paper identifies the role of increased water-use efficiency for enhanced environmental flows, and develops options for balancing environmental and food needs in China based on simulations using an integrated, global water–food projections model.

Streamlining environmental management legislation in Zimbabwe: the case of the new Environmental Management Act Chapter 20:27/2002

In 2003, Zimbabwe legislated the new EMA (Environmental Management Act). However, today, two years after it was promulgated, the EMA has yet to become operational, thus destabilizing the environmental management sector. Using literature review and document analysis, this paper critically assesses the adequacy of the provisions of EMA against the components of FAO's (Food and Agriculture Organization) legal framework of environmental management principles and standards, which emerged as a result of the Rio Declaration. Prior to the promulgation of EMA, the functions of environmental institutions were mired in conflict with overlapping and inter-sectoral competition. EMA rationalized, consolidated, and established a hierarchy in environmental legislation.

Intra-Sector and Inter-Sector Competition in a Model of Growth

The patents power is threefold: first, they are important to state the property right's appropriability of an invention; second, they are necessary in order to secure financing for starting a new venture; third, they are fundamental in order to recoup the positive R&D cost investment. The main difficulty, in preventing innovation's unauthorized uses, is in the establishment of ranges and contexts about patents applicability. Noting the legal system's imperfections, we are in a position to consider an economy with two levels of competition under different market structures: the inter-sector monopolistic competition and the intra-sector Cournot oligopoly. The explicit consideration of strategic interaction in a model of endogenous growth produces interesting results. Considering the sectorial market share as the indicator of patent system enforcement, I find that growth takes place, if and only if, there are some property rights of private knowledge developed by R&D activities. In turn, the perfectionism in the patent system means a low degree of competition among firms. Its influence on the growth rate goes in a single unambiguous direction. When the market is highly competitive few resources are available for R&D, so the growth rate goes down.

HORIZONTAL INNOVATION, MARKET POWER AND GROWTH

I build a generalised model of horizontal product innovation and economic growth taking explicitly into account the most relevant insights stemming from the recent literature on this topic. What results from the analysis is that, when innovation is both deterministic and horizontal, the relationship between market power and aggregate growth is not robust at all. It is also found that not only technology, but also the inter-sectoral competition for the same resource affects growth. This is particularly relevant in terms of public policies aimed at the strategic allocation of skilled workers to the different sectors of the economy. [D43, L16, O31, O41]

Changing competitiveness of the wheat sector of Kazakhstan and sources of future productivity growth

Economic incentives in Kazakhstan have been radically reshaped since the Soviet era ended in 1991. In the first phase of transition, the economy and agricultural sectors declined by 40-50%. Overall economic growth refused in 1996, and agriculture is likely to enter a recovery phase soon. The economy of Kazakhstan is undergoing rapid structural change, and agriculture is experiencing strong inter-sectoral competition. The change to market-oriented and commercially-driven agriculture has altered fundamentally the incentives faced by Kazakhstan's wheat farmers. They have reduced use of inputs sharply because of the need to pay market prices for fertilizer, fuel, and other inputs, while severely curtailing investment in machinery and their farms generally. There is considerable potential for productivity improvements and adoption of new technologies in the wheat production and marketing sectors. Farmers are likely to resume investment only slowly and are likely to adopt only those changes that are low cost and which are based on low-input methods of production. Assessed under 1998 conditions, these wheat growing methods are about 20% more competitive than the energy and input-intensive technologies of the Soviet era. Because of the new commercial pressures brought on by the opening of the Kazakhstan economy to global markets, the production methods of the Soviet era are no longer relevant to Kazakhstan's wheat farmers. A fundamental change of thinking and approach to the situation faced by farmers is required in research, extension, training and education. The new commercial circumstances of agriculture call for strategic analysis of the future for Kazakhstan's farming and of related policies, research and education. Action is required in these areas to reinvigorate Kazakhstan's agriculture, and programs should commence as soon as possible. The future for wheat in Kazakhstan is promising, providing there is concerted and strategic change in the mindsets, culture, and approaches of those working in and supporting the wheat industry.

Approaches to integrated water resource development and management

In southern Africa institutional capacity in the water sector is severely limited by diminishing regular budget and external assistance allocations. The result has been an overall decline in operational water resource management. This is ironic given the international community's current concern with ‘integrated’ or ‘comprehensive’ water resources management. Often, so‐called integrated attempts at river basin planning and development have been conceived within the framework of a river basin authority or regional master plans. Such large‐scale attempts have not necessarily been compatible either with the national capacity in water resources management or the existing institutional and legislative frameworks. In many cases the actual integration of a basin's physical resources and social, economic and environmental demands is poorly executed. To examine a way forward in resolving what is clearly an unsustainable state of affairs, a diagnostic study of the Kafue Basin, Zambia, was carried out in order to identify a set of water resource management options for a basin currently under stress. A physical framework for the Kafue Basin was established and principal subcatchments and hydro‐geological subsystems identified. Current water resource issues in the basin are discussed and a multiobjective approach is proposed to allow intersectoral competition for the basin's limited water resources to be reconciled.

Outwork and Restructuring Processes in the Australian Clothing Industry

Abstract It has been estimated that there may be as many as 60,000 outworkers in the Australian clothing industry, compared to a factory workforce of less than 50,000. These figures are all the more remarkable when one considers the fact that outworking was effectively dismissed as an industrial anachronism in the early twentieth century. The paper examines the international debates which have surrounded the re-emergence of outworking in the 1980s before going on to explore its role in the contemporary Australian clothing industry. Here, the renaissance of outworking is related to specific restructuring processes which are at work in the industry's product and labour markets. In addition to the imperatives of cost-cutting and flexibility-enhancement arising from product market changes, labour market problems such as skill shortages and inter-sectoral wage competition are argued to have been influential in the growth of outworking in Australia. Labour market-related factors have received comparatively litt...

Finacing Education in Developing Countries

SUMMARY Adverse macroeconomic conditions and keen intersectoral competition for public funds have reduced the ability of LDC governments to continue expanding education. This article discusses three broad policy options which address the current crisis in education: recovering the public cost of higher education and reallocating government spending toward the level with the highest social returns; developing a credit market for education, together with selective scholarships, especially in higher education; and decentralising the management of public education and encouraging the expansion of private and community supported suburbs. Resume Financement de l'enseignement dans les pays en voie de développement Des conditions macroéconomiques défavorables et une intensive compétition inter-sectorielle pour les fonds publiques ont reduit la capacité des gouvernements des pays sous développés à continuer l'expansion de l'éducation. Cet article discute trois options majeures qui adressent présentement la crise de l'enseignement: recouvrer le coût de l'enseignement supérieur et réalouer les dépenses gouvernementales vers le secteur offrant les résultats sociaux les plus satisfaisants; développer un marché du crédit pour l'éducation avec des bourses d'étude sélectives, tout spécialement dans l'enseignement supérieur; et enfin décentraliser l'administration de l'enseignement publique et encourager l'expansion des periphéries qui reçoivent le soutien du secteur privé et celui des communautés locales. Resumen El financiamiento de la educación en los países en desarrollo Condiciones macroeconómicas adversas y aguda competencia intersectorial por fondos públicos han reducido la habilidad de los gobiernos de los países menos desarrollados para continuar expandiendo la educación. Este artículo examina tres amplias opciones políticas para enfrentar la actual crisis educacional: recuperación del costo público de la educación superior y reasignación del gasto gubernamental hacia los niveles con retornos sociales más altos; desarrollo de un mercado de crédito para la educación junto con becas selectivas, especialmente en la educación superior; decentralización del manejo de la educación pública y estímulo a la expansión de los suburbios apoyados privada y comunitariamente.

TRENDS IN WESTERN UNITED STATES AGRICULTURE: IRRIGATION ORGANIZATIONS1

ABSTRACT: From 1940 to 1978, irrigated acreage in the Western United States increased by over 150 percent, irrigated acres per farm increased by 204 percent, and the number of irrigation organizations grew by 31 percent. Understanding the factors affecting these trends (in the structure of irrigated agriculture) is the key to formulating policies for efficient allocation and transfer of water in the west. Four variables that impact the composition of irrigation organizations are farm size changes, organizational efficiency, intersectoral competition for water, and governmental policies. The conclusions show that from 1940 to 1978, the total number of irrigated farms and organizations declined, and the average farm size increased, and larger management oriented organizations such as districts and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation have become more prevalent. With respect to total quantities of water delivered, districts have increased over 50 percent since the 1959 Census and over 100 percent since the 1950 Census, while unincorporated mutuals have declined by approximately 20 percent. Future organizational structure tends to be moving in the direction of more management control as opposed to user control. Changes in water use, delivery, investment, transfers, and laws will continue to change the structure of irrigation organizations and institutions in the west.

The global impact of information technology

The paper explores the impact of information technology on the worldwide distribution of income, employment and growth. A review of the empirical literature is used to quantify the impact of information technology on productivity in different sectors and groups of countries. An economic model of the global economy is then used to calculate the possible impact of information technology on international and domestic distribution and employment. A number of alternative possibilities are considered: (i) industrial countries are the most successful in introducing the new technology, (ii) the technology turns out to be capital-saving, rather than labor-displacing, (iii) the rate of diffusion to developing countries increases, (iv) the small-scale and decentralizing potential of information technology is exploited. The calculations suggest that indirect effects arising from international and intersectoral competition are at least as important as direct effects, and that the distribution of gains from information technology depends as much upon what technology is introduced as on where it is introduced.

Financing public higher education in developing countries

The financing of education has emerged as a major topic of discussion among policy makers in recent years. There is evidence that in many developing countries, governments can no longer continue to increase spending on education at the high rates characteristic in the 1960s and 1970s. The macroeconomic environment has worsened, and there is keen intersectoral competition for public funds. Thus unless educational development moves away from its present heavy dependence on public funds, the expansion of education would be frustrated. One policy option is to increase the private financing of education. In this paper, we evaluate the potential effectiveness of loans schemes as a cost recovery instrument in higher education. Essentially, loans permit students to finance the cost of their education from future income. So the effectiveness of loans would depend on the relation between costs and students' future income. It also depends on the incidence of repetition, dropout, and default, as well as on whether or not a grace period is incorporated in the loan scheme. Our simulations show that in Asia and Latin America, the potential rate of cost recovery is substantial under what appears to be bearable terms of repayment. In Francophone Africa and Anglophone Africa, however, loans schemes are unlikely to perform as well, but they would still permit a shift toward greater private financing of higher education.

The political economy of monopoly and competition: A critique of monopoly and stagnation theory

This paper examines critically the Kaleckian theory of monopoly capitalism proposed by Cowling (1982). The supply side of the model is shown to be incapable of providing an aggregate degree of monopoly and the neglect of inter-sectoral competition is highlighted. On the demand side, there is little indication of the source of stagnationary tendencies; it is the emphasis on collusion over conflict which underpins stagnation. The model is characterised by its emphasis on distribution and exchange at the expense of production relations, and is an inadequate representation of ‘monopoly capitalism’.