Large Conglomerates Research Articles

The Impact of Ownership Structure on Internal Business Transactions and the Moderating Effect of Foreign Investors

This study aims to explore the relationship of large business conglomerates in Korea betweencorporate governance and internal business transactions as well as the moderating effect offoreign block ownership. Using sample firms with internal business transactions with affiliatesin large business conglomerates, this study examined the impact of corporate governancefactors including controlling shareholders' ownership and control-ownership disparity oninternal transactions. This study focused on the role of foreign block shareholders in particularas outside monitor in order to investigate their moderating impact on internal businesstransactions. The empirical result shows that controlling shareholders' ownership has a positiveeffect on internal transactions while control-ownership disparity has a negative effect. Foreignblock ownership is likely to negatively moderate the positive relationship between controllingshareholders' ownership and internal transactions and to positively moderate the negativerelationship between control-ownership disparity and internal transactions, suggesting thatexpropriation of wealth by controlling shareholders is mitigated by the impact of foreign blockshareholders. The empirical findings of this study imply that sound corporate governancedecreases the likelihood of tunnelling which could be induced by controlling shareholders'opportunities for wealth transfer.

The History, Geography, and Economics of America’s Early Computer Clusters, Part 2: Explanations

This article is the second part of a comprehensive study on the rise of America’s early computer clusters from the perspective of evolutionary economic geography. That is, we attempt to identify the historical processes that led to the formation of the early clusters of computer production in the United States. Here we explore explanations for the genesis of the agglomerations identified in part 1. We suggest that the clusters we observe in the early 1970s arose from the locational decisions of three waves of companies: the computer start-ups of the late 1940s and early 1950s, the large conglomerates that entered the computer industry during the 1950s, and the minicomputer and peripheral-making companies that entered later on. We argue that a combination of preexisting conditions and Marshallian externalities generated the clustering patterns for computer production we observe in the early 1970s.

Диверсификация промышленных производств с использованием новых технологий в постиндустриальную эпоху: анализ моделей действий

The article analyses business processes and actions models, based on the utilization of new sciencedriven technologies used for the production of products and services that are implemented by large international industrial conglomerates within the framework of realizing the diversification strategies. As a research sample, we have chosen models of managing technological innovations, which formed the basis of the diversification strategy of Fujifilm Holdings Corporation in 2000–2015. The article notes that the company expedited the widening of new technological areas for development since the beginning of the 2000’s. High technology products manufactured using new technologies are no longer launched by the company every 7–10 years as in 20th century but instead, much more rapidly, every 3–4 years. There is noted a significant change in the company’s approach to reducing the life span of innovations. Today, Fujifilm prefers to enter new markets by purchasing innovations already used by medium sized fast growing high tech companies, and not form new research departments in their holding company. Attention is drawn to the fact that more often Fujifilm uses the strategy of unrelated diversification, by demonstrating whereby the readiness to widen the scope of its activities in any sphere with the good return on investments perspectives. The article emphasizes the significant importance of Russian industrial companies to be able to purchase innovative solutions and partner with providers of science-driven technologies and products, including small and medium-sized enterprises.

Limits of VoC and institutional complementarities in the semi-periphery: comparative analysis of reforms in Brazil and India

In VoC theories, adopted in OECD countries, the state does not fulfill an important role in the productive system. On the other hand, by analyzing the trajectory of the semi-periphery countries, there is no way to describe the mechanisms of institutional complementarity without holding the state in the center of the model. That’s the trajectories of Brazil and India. To evaluate the role of the state as a strategic actor in semiperipheral institutional complementarity this proposal suggests analyze the role of the state in the commanding heights of economic liberalization. In particular, the role of public banks and pension funds as anti-cyclical and coordinators actors of the new corporate ownership restructuring and external insertion adopted by large conglomerates in Brasil and India in the past ten years. Understanding this is crucial to point out the limits of theories of varieties of capitalism, providing assistance to expand its analytical scope.

The Korean economy: from a miraculous past to a sustainable future

South Korea has been held out as an economic miracle as a country that successfully completed the transition from underdeveloped to developed country status and as an example of how a middle-income country can continue to move up the technology ladder into the production and export of more sophisticated goods and services. But with these successes have come challenges, among them poverty, inequality, long work hours, financial instability, and complaints about the economic and political power of the country s large corporate conglomerates, or chaebol.The Korean Economy provides an overview of Korean economic experience since the 1950s, with a focus on the period since democratization in 1987. Successive chapters analyze the Korean experience from the perspectives of political economy, the growth record, industrial organization and corporate governance, financial development and instability, labor and employment, inequality and social policy, and Korea s place in the world economy. A concluding chapter describes the country s economic challenges going forward and how they can best be met. The volume also serves to summarize the findings of companion volumes in the Harvard-Korean Development Institute series on the Korean economy, also published by the Harvard University Asia Center.

A Case of Extranodal Testicular Involvement in Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Detected through 18F-FDG PET-CT.

A 69 year-old patient was admitted for constipation and with a three days history of left lumbar pain radiating into the left iliac fossa. Contrast enhanced abdominal CT (not illustrated) demonstrated a large retroperitoneal conglomerate (7 × 10 cm) of lymph nodes developing around the abdominal aorta from the level of the renal hilum to the iliac arteries bifurcation. Additional chest CT (not illustrated) confirmed another large conglomerate of enlarged lymph nodes in the superior mediastinum. Smaller nodes were also found in the cervical thoracic angles. The definite diagnosis of diffuse large B cell non Hodgkin lymphoma suggested by CT was confirmed by surgical biopsy of a cervical node. Complementary 18F-FDG PET-CT not only confirmed the typical high FDG uptake of the cervical, mediastinal (black arrows on Fig. A) and retroperitoneal (white arrow on Figs. A & B) of lymph nodes but unexpectedly revealed a high FDG uptake of the right testis (black arrow Fig. B) suggesting associated extranodal testicular extension. Colour Doppler Ultrasound of the moderately enlarged but clinically painless right testis revealed a typical hypoechogenicity of the organ (white star on Fig. C) with massive hypervascularity. Associated swelling and hypervascularity of the epididymis (black star on Fig. C) and vas deferens (grey arrow on Fig. C) were found. The patient is actually treated with classical CHOP chemotherapy regimen and drastic reduction of testi cular hypervascularity was already found after 3 courses of chemotherapy (not illustrated)

An optimization approach to resolving circular shareholding in large business groups

Circular shareholding refers to a situation where a series of capital contributions made by companies in a family business group establish a chain of shareholdings. For example, a circular shareholding is formed when company A owns stock in company B, company B owns stock in company C, and company C owns stock in company A. In Korea, the practice of circular shareholding in large family-controlled business groups may give the principal families higher control over member firms and more opportunities to pursue their own interest at the expense of other shareholders. For this reason, the government of Korea has encouraged large conglomerates to gradually eliminate their circular shareholdings. However, there has been no research as to which shareholdings out of the complicated ownership structure should be cleared in order to resolve the issue of circular shareholding. In this paper, we propose optimization models to address the problem. Of the proposed integer programming models that can eliminate circular shareholding, one maximizes the sum of cash-flow rights while another maximizes the sum of voting rights. The proposed models have been applied to Korean family-controlled business groups, and the results are included herein. To the best knowledge of the authors, this research is the first study to apply optimization theory to the problem of resolving circular shareholding.

The Financial Industry's Plan for Resolving Failed Megabanks Will Ensure Future Bailouts for Wall Street

The Financial Industry's Plan for Resolving Failed Megabanks Will Ensure Future Bailouts for Wall Street

‘Helping Australia Grow’: supermarkets, television cooking shows, and the strategic manufacture of consumer trust

From farmers’ markets to primetime television cooking shows, notions of ‘knowing where our food comes from’ and ‘reconnecting’ with the sources of our food are now central to a range of contemporary cultural movements and popular media texts. While these ideas have primarily been mobilized by those with activist commitments to ethical and sustainable food production, they are also increasingly appearing in the media and marketing strategies of large agribusiness and retailing corporations, including those of the major Australian supermarkets. This paper explores some of the techniques currently used by major supermarkets to respond to criticisms about their food ethics, market control and relationship with producers. Using a case study of Australian supermarket Coles and its integration of its ‘Helping Australia Grow’ campaign into reality television cooking show, My Kitchen Rules, it will consider the textual practices of, and social media response to, Coles’ sponsorship and integrated advertising strategies of putting a ‘face’ to the farmers who produce the products found on supermarket shelves. By emphasizing to Coles customers that they, too, can ‘know where their food comes from’ and that their purchasing decisions support individual farmers and family farms rather than large conglomerates, these strategies help to locate Coles within a network of meanings that seek to both shift and contest negative perceptions of the supermarket chain’s corporate practices and food politics in ways that potentially complicate the activist discourses from which they draw.

When Buyer‐Driven Knowledge Transfer Activities Really Work: A Motivation–Opportunity–Ability Perspective

While supplier development has become a prominent strategy, it has also been shown to not always be successful. We take a contingency perspective in the present research to investigate why this may be the case. Unlike most prior studies, we examine the issue from the viewpoint of the supplier as the recipient of buyer‐driven knowledge transfer, and assess factors that may attenuate or hamper its effect on the supplier's operational performance. We suggest, basing our arguments on the theoretical framework of motivation–opportunity–ability (MOA), that while buyer‐driven knowledge transfer activities provide an opportunity for enhancing the supplier's operational performance, the degree to which this opportunity is realized depends upon both the relative absorptive capacity (ability), as well as the supplier's trust in the buyer, and the supplier's innovativeness (motivation). Specifically, we theorize that the supplier's perceived overlapping knowledge and its perceived cognitive congruence with the buyer (reflective of the supplier's relative absorptive capacity) and the supplier's trust in the buyer serve as positive moderators, and the supplier's own innovativeness as a negative moderator. We assess these hypotheses within a unique context, namely that of small‐ and medium‐sized suppliers of large South Korean conglomerates (so‐called chaebols), using hierarchical linear modeling. Our findings extend the academic literature in supplier development by providing insight into important contingencies influencing the effectiveness of buyer‐driven knowledge transfer activities for improved operational performance of suppliers, based on the MOA framework, and offer valuable lessons for practitioners in crafting more effective supplier development strategies.

Translation and Symbolic Capital in the Era of Globalization: French Literature in the United States

The discourse about the ‘death of French literature’ which has spread throughout the Anglo-American publishing industry since the 1990s raises the question of the conditions required for a dominant national literature to maintain its symbolic capital in the era of globalization. This discourse is a sell-fulfilling prophecy used as a weapon in the international competition and struggles within the world market of translation in a context of accrued economic constraints. The present article first confronts discourse to practice through ohHan empirical study of the circulation of French literature in the United States in the era of globalization, based on a quantitative analysis of all the literary titles translated from French in the United States between 1990 and 2003, on interviews with publishers and translators, and on archives. The symbolic capital of French literature appears to be founded not only on its past achievements (classics) but also on its present production, which accounts for 40% of the translations. Although most are novels, upmarket genres like poetry and theatre are better represented than commercial genres. The data also displays the growing diversity of translated authors, regarding gender and nationality. However, the high centralization of the publishing field in the Francophone area impacts the circulation pattern: most translated works were published in Paris. The article then turns to analyse the structure of the American publishing field, using Bourdieu’s opposition between small-scale and large-scale production: French literature is located at the pole of small-scale production, a factor that explains its growing invisibility. A network analysis displays three clusters of publishers: large conglomerates who prefer to reprint classics, university presses engaged in the canonization of modern French literature, and small independent publishers investing in living writers. A by-product of the stiffening of commercial constraints on the publishing industry, the discourse on the ‘death of French literature’ paradoxically contributes to nourishing the well-founded fiction of national literatures. On the theoretical level, using world system analysis, field theory and the concept of symbolic capital helps explain isomorphism by imitation in the global market of translation.

Multi-Level Corporate Responsibility: A Comparison of Gandhi’s Trusteeship with Stakeholder and Stewardship Frameworks

Mohandas Karamchand “Mahatma” Gandhi discussed corporate responsibility (CR) and business ethics over several decades of the twentieth century. His views are still influential in modern India. In this paper, we highlight Gandhi’s cross-level CR framework, which operates at institutional, organizational, and individual levels. We also outline how the Tata Group, one of India’s largest conglomerates, has historically applied and continues to utilize Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship. We then compare Gandhi’s framework to modern notions of stakeholder and stewardship management. We conclude that trusteeship has strong potential to help firms and their stakeholders achieve shared value by (a) considering the interactions between individual, organizational, and institutional factors, and (b) paying attention to a range of multi-level (reciprocal) stakeholder obligations.

Performance of European chemistry transport models as function of horizontal resolution

Air pollution causes adverse effects on human health as well as ecosystems and crop yield and also has an impact on climate change trough short-lived climate forcers. To design mitigation strategies for air pollution, 3D Chemistry Transport Models (CTMs) have been developed to support the decision process. Increases in model resolution may provide more accurate and detailed information, but will cubically increase computational costs and pose additional challenges concerning high resolution input data. The motivation for the present study was therefore to explore the impact of using finer horizontal grid resolution for policy support applications of the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) model within the Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) convention. The goal was to determine the “optimum resolution” at which additional computational efforts do not provide increased model performance using presently available input data. Five regional CTMs performed four runs for 2009 over Europe at different horizontal resolutions.The models’ responses to an increase in resolution are broadly consistent for all models. The largest response was found for NO2 followed by PM10 and O3. Model resolution does not impact model performance for rural background conditions. However, increasing model resolution improves the model performance at stations in and near large conglomerations. The statistical evaluation showed that the increased resolution better reproduces the spatial gradients in pollution regimes, but does not help to improve significantly the model performance for reproducing observed temporal variability. This study clearly shows that increasing model resolution is advantageous, and that leaving a resolution of 50 km in favour of a resolution between 10 and 20 km is practical and worthwhile. As about 70% of the model response to grid resolution is determined by the difference in the spatial emission distribution, improved emission allocation procedures at high spatial and temporal resolution are a crucial factor for further model resolution improvements.

Calcium oxalate crystals: an integral component of the Sclerotinia sclerotiorum/Brassica carinata pathosystem.

Oxalic acid is an important virulence factor for disease caused by the fungal necrotrophic pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, yet calcium oxalate (CaOx) crystals have not been widely reported. B. carinata stems were infected with S. sclerotiorum and observed using light microscopy. Six hours post inoculation (hpi), CaOx crystals were evident on 46% of stem sections and by 72 hpi on 100%, demonstrating that the secretion of oxalic acid by S. sclerotiorum commences before hyphal penetration. This is the first time CaOx crystals have been reported on B. carinata infected with S. sclerotiorum. The shape of crystals varied as infection progressed. Long tetragonal rods were dominant 12 hpi (68% of crystal-containing samples), but by 72 hpi, 50% of stems displayed bipyramidal crystals, and only 23% had long rods. Scanning electron microscopy from 24 hpi revealed CaOx crystals in all samples, ranging from tiny irregular crystals (< 0.5 μm) to large (up to 40 μm) highly organized arrangements. Crystal morphology encompassed various forms, including tetragonal prisms, oval plates, crystal sand, and druses. Large conglomerates of CaOx crystals were observed in the hyphal mass 72 hpi and these are proposed as a strategy of the fungus to hold and detoxify Ca2+ions. The range of crystal morphologies suggests that S. sclerotiorum growth and infection controls the form taken by CaOx crystals.

In Defense of, or Offensive to Farms? Hog Farming and the Changing American Agricultural Industry

American agriculture is inexorably concentrating into the hands of a small number of large conglomerates. Expanding farms pursuing scale economies would also normally have to abide by a system of environmental and other laws that would, in theory, require farms to account for negative externalities. If those laws were observed and enforced, they would help strike a balance between the greater profitability and the larger externalities of larger farms. But these laws are not widely observed and not rigorously enforced, upsetting this balance and giving large-scale farms a cost advantage while insulating them from corresponding responsibilities. Perhaps nowhere in agriculture is this more visible than in the hog industry, which has dramatically transformed itself from one based on small-scale, localized production to one based on large-scale and far-flung production. Ninety-six percent of all hogs raised in the United States are now raised on farms of 1,000 or more hogs. Lax enforcement of environmental laws against large hog farms has allowed them to grow and realize scale economies without accounting for their exponential increase in water and air pollution. The same can be said for state Right-to-Farm laws, which insulate many large hog farms from nuisance lawsuits. Reckless practices in concentrated animal feeding operations contribute to the development of dangerously antibiotic-resistant bacteria and heighten the risk of a transfer of zoonotic diseases to humans, potentially helping to set the stage for next pandemic. Finally, the concentration of hog farming imposes economic costs by reducing competition and by marginalizing small farmers. Large conglomerates should be held to account for these enormous costs, not only because these costs vastly outweigh the productivity benefits, but also because it is important to preserve an industrial capacity to produce food in an alternative manner that generates far fewer and lower costs.

Immune-enhancing effect of nano-DNA vaccine encoding a gene of the prME protein of Japanese encephalitis virus and BALB/c mouse granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor.

Plasmid-encoded granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is an adjuvant for genetic vaccines; however, how GM-CSF enhances immunogenicity remains to be elucidated. In the present study, it was demonstrated that injection of a plasmid encoding the premembrane (prM) and envelope (E) protein of Japanese encephalitis virus and mouse GM-CSF (pJME/GM-CSF) into mouse muscle recruited large and multifocal conglomerates of macrophages and granulocytes, predominantly neutrophils. During the peak of the infiltration, an appreciable number of immature dendritic cells (DCs) appeared, although no T and B-cells was detected. pJME/GM-CSF increased the number of splenic DCs and the expression of major histocompatibility complex class II (MHCII) on splenic DC, and enhanced the antigenic capture, processing and presentation functions of splenic DCs, and the cell-mediated immunity induced by the vaccine. These findings suggested that the immune-enhancing effect by pJME/GM-CSF was associated with infiltrate size and the appearance of integrin αx (CD11c)+cells. Chitosan-pJME/GM-CSF nanoparticles, prepared by coacervation via intramuscular injection, outperformed standard pJME/GM-CSF administrations in DC recruitment, antigen processing and presentation, and vaccine enhancement. This revealed that muscular injection of chitosan-pJME/GM-CSF nanoparticles may enhance the immunoadjuvant properties of GM-CSF.

Lessons from Tata's Corporate Innovation Strategy

Firms are increasingly using a wide variety of strategies and technology tools for managing their innovation ecosystems for competitive advantage. This article describes the experience of a large global conglomerate at managing its innovation ecosystem in the last decade and the lessons learned. The authors clarify the role of disciplined autonomy to meet innovation challenges across industries and geographies and describe the ADROIT framework for tailoring IT systems and assessing the true economic value of innovations.

The evolution of South Korea’s innovation system: moving towards the triple helix model?

The South Korea's innovation system has been transformed in tandem with rapid economic growth over the last three decades. In order to explore the evolution process of the innovation system in Korea, this study examines the trends and patterns in collaboration activities among the triple helix actors, such as university, industry, and government (UIG), using co-patent data. The triple helix framework is employed to analyze innovation dynamics within the networks of the bi- and trilateral relations embedded in patent collaborations. The analyses focus on how the triple helix dynamics have been shaped and transformed in the course of development of the innovation system. The results reveal that collaboration activities among UIG largely increased across three developmental phases from 1980 to 2012. In the early periods, strategic R&D alliances between industry and government sector were set up to strengthen enterprises' innovation capabilities. When the Korean large conglomerates, Chaebols, became a dominant driver of domestic innovation activities, the primary agents of the collaborations shifted from industry-government to industry-university. The network analysis shows that university-industry collaboration is the strongest within the triple helix in recent years, followed by industry-government relations and then UIG relations. The tripartite collaboration has emerged with the rise of entrepreneur universities, but its network has rather been weak and inactive. While Korea has experienced a transition from statist model to a triple helix, the full-fledged triple helix model has not been established yet.

The function of ultra-large von Willebrand factor multimers in high shear flow controlled by ADAMTS13.

The paradigm that platelet aggregation, which contributes to bleeding arrest and also to thrombovascular disorders, initiates after signaling-induced platelet activation has been refuted in past recent years. Platelets can form aggregates independently of activation when soluble von Willebrand factor (VWF) is present and the shear rate exceeds a certain threshold where active A1 domains become exposed in soluble VWF multimers and can bind to platelet glycoprotein Ib. Subsequently - fostering each other - VWF can self-assemble into large nets combining with platelets into large conglomerates, which are entirely reversible when they enter a flow region with shear rates below the threshold. In addition the threshold changes from approximately 20 000 s⁻¹ in wall parallel flow to approximately 10 000 s⁻¹ in stagnation point flow. VWF containing ultra-large multimers - as when just released from endothelial storage sites - has been shown to have the highest binding potential to platelets and to each other, thus facilitating rapid platelet accrual to sites of vessel injury and exposed subendothelial structures, i.e. collagen. The VWF nets as well as the platelet-VWF conglomerates are controlled by the cleaving protease ADAMTS13 within minutes under high shear flow. Therewith the hemostatic potential is delivered where needed and the thrombogenic potential is highly controlled twofold: by flow and enzymatic proteolytic cleavage.

Strategic Orientations and the mediating role of Entrepreneurial Orientation among Korean SMEs

Whether it’s Samsung Electronics or Kia automobiles, in terms of technology intensive industries, the Korean rise to the top of the class has been impressive. While the large conglomerates or chaeb...