Strategic Gain Research Articles

A friend indeed to friends in need? China's trade regime and Covid-19 vaccine diplomacy

Employing newly available data on Chinese Covid-19 vaccine deliveries for a cross-section of 157 countries, we examine if China's vaccine diplomacy is driven by altruistic, enlightened self-interested motives or by purely strategic motives. According to the enlightened self-interested logic, China's vaccine supply would coincide with helping countries dependent on China for trade, i.e. its trading friends, while the strategic logic would entail providing vaccines to countries important commercially to China. In other words, the gravity of the Covid situation would be leveraged by China for strategic gain. Utilizing the logit estimator on probability of receiving vaccines from China and Tobit estimator on vaccine purchases and donations, we find that developing countries that are important to China's trade, and thereby, China's own commercial interests were less likely to get vaccines compared with countries that are more dependent on China. Furthermore, we find that countries more dependent on China are also likely to receive vaccine donations rather than purchases, suggesting that vaccine diplomacy was unlikely to be for commercial and strategic gain. Our results taken together signify that vaccine deliveries by China were not manipulated by trade interests in Beijing. The results suggest instead that China supplied vaccines to countries needing them and with whom Chinese goodwill reflects a more normal course of diplomacy—to service friends in need.

An Investigation of Technology and E-Government Adoption in Guyana and Evaluate the Key Determining Factors for Strategic Gain

An Investigation of Technology and E-Government Adoption in Guyana and Evaluate the Key Determining Factors for Strategic Gain

From Russia with fear: fear appeals and the patterns of cyber-enabled influence operations

Abstract Much research on influence operations (IO) and cyber-enabled influence operations (CEIO) rests on the assumption that state-backed digital interference attempts to generically produce sociopolitical division favorable to the perpetrator’s own interests. And yet, the empirical record of malicious IO during the 2010s show that social media manipulation and messaging takes a number of forms. In this article, we survey arguments regarding the targeting tactics and techniques associated with digital age IO and suggest that existing accounts tend to ignore the strategic context of foreign interference. We propose that state-sponsored IO are not unlike conventional political messaging campaigns in that they are an evolving flow of information rooted in several key objectives and assumptions. However, the strategic position of foreign actors as an outside force constrains opportunities for effective manipulation and forces certain operational constraints that shape practice. These outside actors, generally unable to create sensation from nothing without being unveiled, rely on domestic events tied to a broad macrosocial division (e.g. an act of race violence or protest activity) to create the conditions wherein social media manipulation can be leveraged to strategic gain. Once an event occurs, belligerents tailor steps being taken to embed themselves in relevant social networks with the goal of turning that influence toward some action. We illustrate and validate this framework using the content of the Russian Federation’s coordinated trolling campaign against the USA between 2015 and 2016. We deploy an empirical testing approach centered on fear appeals as a likely method for engaging foreign populations relative to some domestic triggering event and find support of our framework. Specifically, we show that while strong associations exist between Russian ad emissions on Facebook and societal unrest in the period, those relationships are not statistically causal. We find a temporal ordering of social media content that is highly suggestive of a fear appeals strategy responsive to macrosocial dividing events. Of unique interest, we also see that malware is targeted to social media populations at later stages of the fear appeal threat lifecycle, implying lessons for those specifically interested in the relationship between CEIO and disinformation tactics.

Aircraft Autonomous Separation Assurance Based on Cooperative Game Theory

Transferring part of the separation assurance responsibilities from air traffic controllers to pilots during en route phases of flight can reduce the controllers’ workload while ensuring operational safety and improving operational efficiency in the airspace. For this new generation of distributed air traffic management mode, firstly use the conflict detection algorithm to determine whether a potential conflict exists between two aircraft, introduce cooperative game theory to autonomous separation assurance model for horizontal cross-conflict in a static wind field by forming a coalition of all aircraft involved in the potential conflict. The convex combination of minimum yaw angle and maneuver flight time is used as the strategic gain of the aircraft, and the welfare function of the coalition is maximized by changing the behavioral strategy of the aircraft. Finally, a horizontal cross-conflict scenario is set up for simulation experiments and compared with a centralized separation assurance strategy. The simulation results show the effectiveness of cooperative game theory, which is applied in distributed autonomous separation assurance.

Ice-locked huts, snow-buried cairns, and sunken ships: the prevailing discourse on heritage in antarctica

ABSTRACT Cultural heritage in Antarctica simultaneously represents vulnerable historic remains and powerful political resources curated by nation states, for nation states. Political actors transform dilapidated huts, piles of rocks, and submerged ships into opportunities for strategic gain within the practice of Antarctic affairs – but what is the nature of this political discourse? This paper proposes the existence of a prevailing discourse on cultural heritage found in Antarctica comparable to that of Smith’s Authorised Heritage Discourse (the AHD). This discourse embodies how nation states active in the region – the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties – think and talk about heritage in Antarctica, and subsequently determines how this heritage is managed in practice. The first two sections investigate how discourse on Antarctic cultural heritage is situated, and how it has been realised. The third and final section scrutinises the characteristics of the Antarctic discourse in relation to the AHD. Consideration of the situation, realisation, and characterisation of a discourse on Antarctic cultural heritage, produces an in-depth account of the discourse overall. Key findings reveal that this discourse behaves very similarly to pre-existing models for global heritage.

Fair cake-cutting algorithms with real land-value data

Fair division of land is an important practical problem that is commonly handled either by hiring assessors or by selling and dividing the proceeds. A third way to divide land fairly is via algorithms for fair cake-cutting. However, the current theory of fair cake-cutting is not yet ready to optimally share a plot of land and such algorithms are seldom used in practical land-division. We attempt to narrow the gap between theory and practice by performing extensive simulations of a classic cake-cutting algorithm on real land-value data. We improve the practical performance of this algorithm using heuristics we developed, and show their effectiveness on real land-value maps compared to actual assessment and sale data on various performance metrics. The cake-cutting algorithms perform better in most metrics. We further examined the cake cutting algorithm with respect to strategic gain of an agent relative to a truthful agent. The strategic gain was found to be insignificant effect in cake-cutting algorithms.

Information disclosure and the market for acquiring technology companies

AbstractResearch SummaryThe market for acquiring technology companies is rife with information frictions. Although such frictions can stifle trading activity, they also provide room for strategic gain. We investigate this dual role of information frictions by exploiting an institutional reform that releases technological information to the public domain. Leveraging cross‐sectoral variation in the magnitude of disclosure, we find an increase in acquisition activity and in the technological distance between matched pairings. In line with predictions from strategic factor market theory, however, we also find a disproportionate decline in acquirer returns on average. Our findings suggest that information disclosed through the reform‐facilitated exchange in the takeover market yet had a leveling effect on the returns to acquirers.Managerial SummaryFirms acquire technology‐oriented companies to complement internal R&D projects and accelerate the innovation process. But identifying promising targets is challenging, not least due to the lack of information about the value of acquired technologies. This study investigates an information shock and tests its effects on the market for acquiring technology‐intensive companies. We find that greater disclosure of technological information to the public domain intensifies trading activity and allows acquirers to better identify and assess targets outside their core technological domains. But it also reduces the returns to acquirers. In combination, our findings illuminate a dual role of information disclosure: placing more information into the public domain may facilitate trade in corporate takeover markets while simultaneously restricting acquirer opportunities for strategic gain.

Information Disclosure and the Market for Acquiring Technology Companies

The market for acquiring technology companies is rife with information frictions. Although such frictions can stifle trading activity, they also provide room for strategic gain. We investigate this dual role of information frictions by exploiting an institutional reform that releases technological information to the public domain. Leveraging cross-sectoral variation in the magnitude of disclosure, we find an increase in acquisition activity and in the technological distance between matched pairings. In line with predictions from strategic factor market theory, however, we also find a disproportionate decline in acquirer returns on average. Our findings suggest that information disclosed through the reform facilitated exchange in the takeover market yet had a leveling effect on the returns to acquirers.

Leveraging the “String of Pearls” for strategic gains? An assessment of the Maritime Silk Road Initiative’s (MSRI) economic/security nexus in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR)

ABSTRACT Since the launch of the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI), observers have witnessed the consolidation of a growing Chinese presence in ports around the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). This growing presence has caused alarm among skeptics who view the MSRI as a second coming of the String of Pearls (SoP). Indeed, China is seen as leveraging MSRI port investments in return for national strategic and geopolitical gain, such as ultimately gaining a military foothold in MSRI ports. Regardless of China’s purported intent, this paper seeks to add nuance to this debate by examining whether Beijing can actually achieve such strategic gains in the IOR via the deployment of its economic statecraft (via MSRI investments). As the paper shows, the MSRI’s current rollout – as well as the inherent resistance to the strategic dimensions of this rollout – offer little in the way of empirical support to the SoP concept.

From Monsanto to ‘Monsatan’: Ownership and control of history as a strategic resource

This historical case study of the multinational agribusiness Monsanto explores the challenges organizations face when attempting to translate a problematic past into strategic gain. We draw on Resource-Based Theory (RBT) to explain how the relative ability to own and control history as an intangible resource enables or constrains effective managerial deployments of history. Our analysis explores three modes of using the past strategically: learning from the past, selectively interpreting the past, and disowning the past – the latter of which we demonstrate is distinct from existing conceptualizations of ‘forgetting’, ‘rubbishing’, or ‘distancing’ the past. Our analysis builds on RBT to explain why some modes of deploying history are more effective than others at enabling a strategic use of the past. The ambiguous nature of owning and controlling history, we contend, conditions the extent to which each mode of deploying history can or cannot produce strategic gains.

Beyond tit-for-tat in cyberspace: Political warfare and lateral sources of escalation online

AbstractAt present, most scholarship on the potential for escalation in cyberspace couches analysis in terms of the technological dynamics of the domain for relative power maneuvering. The result has been a conceptualisation of the logic of operation in cyberspace as one of ‘tit-for-tat’ exchanges motivated by attribution problems and limited opportunity for strategic gain. This article argues that this dominant perspective overlooks alternative notions of how cyber tools are used to influence. This, in turn, has largely led scholars to ignore second-order effects – meaning follow-on effects triggered by a more direct outcome of an initial cyber action – on domestic conditions, institutions, and individual stakeholders. This article uses the case of cyber-enabled political warfare targeting the United States in 2016 to show how escalation can occur as a second-order effect of cyber operations. Specifically, the episode led to a re-evaluation of foreign cyber strategy on the part of American defence thinkers that motivated an offensive shift in doctrine by 2018. The episode also directly affected both the political positions taken by important domestic actors and the attitude of parts of the electorate towards interference, both of which have reinforced the commitment of military planners towards assertive cyber actions.

E-Business Processes and its Influence on Supply Chain performance: In the Context of Indian Automobile Industries

Supply chain encompasses the organized structure of institutions and organizations the purpose of which is to create products or provide services, raw material, work in progress material, and finally finished product to end users. This paper represents influence of e-business processes in improving performance of supply chain (SC) in context of Indian automobile Companies. This paper will help automobile companies to implement E-Business Processes to achieve better SC performance. This research tries to investigate impact of E-Business Processes on performance of SC of Indian automobile industries. In order to achieve this objective independent variable inventory management, logistics performance and information flow are tested over cost reduction and strategic gain as dependent variable. This study investigate that sample automobile companies attentive towards e-business processes, the sample automobile companies exercise e-business processes in operation of their supply chain and results shows that their supply chain is influence by development of e-business processes (inventory management, logistics performance and information flow). This research shows that practice of e-business processes is very important to achieve strategic gain and to cut of overall supply chain cost, which improves SC performance in context of Indian automobile Companies.

Investment Migration and Subnational Jurisdictions

This chapter sets out to explain the position of small islands, focusing on their economic and citizenship dependence on metropolitan states. These small jurisdictions argue that their market operations could be legitimately described as improving the institutional ‘efficiency’ of financial markets. Moreover, and quite realistically, they have limited development choices to consider and are effectively playing to their narrow competitive edge, as rendered by their sub-national status, small size and islandness. These acts, suitably ring fenced, are expressions of ‘creative governance’, a blatant and market driven exploitation of political geography for economic, fiscal or strategic gain. Furthermore, the ‘governmentality’ of the territorial state – its clout and reach over the behaviour of its citizens – is being sorely tested, with the proliferation of offshore banking and dual nationality/multi-passporting for various clients, ranging from transnational corporations to ‘cosmopolites’ to those unable or unwilling to tolerate particular leaders at home. Such practices are being also abetted by the politico-economic elite at the helm of small, often island, jurisdictions: these policy shapers sense – and are reminded by the international corporate world – that they have a rare competitive advantage in widening their jurisdiction’s tax base by reducing tax rates and offering citizenship schemes. Criticism and conceptual provocations, of course, abound, and especially since the 2008 global financial crisis, when leading economies have been naming and shaming individual and corporate tax offenders in attempt to collect their tax. The very principle of ‘offshore financial services’, for all its veneer of respectability, has been subjected to disrepute because the legal products being offered are tantamount to acts of ‘selling sovereignty’. The practice has been sometimes viewed as part of a suite of desperate measures taken by small and chronically vulnerable and cash strapped territories, often connived by external elites who can capture the state to do their bidding. That said, citizenship by investment programs have recently been proliferating and this trend is expected to continue. The extra-territoriality potential offered by such spaces as the high seas, the Moon and the Planet Mars renders them attractive locales for novel governance regimes that may wish to escape the clutches of rapacious, tax-seeking states. Meanwhile, here on Planet Earth and on solid ground, subnational jurisdictions are ‘territories sui generis’ that already offer their own opportunities for creative endeavour.

Desafios na implantação de um sistema de logística reversa de embalagens: estudo de caso em uma varejista de materiais para a construção civil

As indagações referentes à logística reversa têm ganhado atenção à medida que um conjunto de fatores de ordem estratégica, competitiva, econômica e ecológica ganham importância no contexto atual, pois apresenta soluções ou alternativas que corroboram com a ampliação da vida útil das embalagens no direcionamento para reciclagem, e que colaborem com ações sociais que visem a promoção da sustentabilidade. O objetivo principal do artigo foi analisar os desafios enfrentados na implantação de um programa de logística reversa de embalagens em uma empresa varejista de materiais de construção. Quanto aos procedimentos técnicos, foi realizada uma pesquisa de campo considerando-se como amostra não probabilística intencional uma empresa varejista localizada em João Pessoa-PB. A coleta de dados deu-se por meio da observação participativa, entrevistas não estruturadas e questionários fechados. As principais variáveis analisadas foram: Envolvimento de lideranças das empresas; A aceitação do programa de logística reversa pelas empresas clientes; Armazenagem dos materiais; Manuseio e transporte; Vendas, custo e geração de valor; impactos nas rotinas da empresa implantadora. Apresentou-se algumas dificuldades, onde se destaca a falta de comprometimento das construtoras e seus funcionários na segregação dos produtos. No entanto, evidenciou-se melhorias nas relações interorganizacionais devido ao envolvimento de gestores no programa de logística reversa.

The enemy votes: Weapons improvisation and bargaining failure

Belligerents could in principle avoid the ex post costs of conflict by revealing all private information about their violent capabilities and then calculating odds of success ex ante. Incentives to misrepresent private information for strategic gain, however, can cause miscalculations that lead to war. I argue some private information can lead to miscalculation not because it is purposefully misrepresented for strategic gain but because it is too decentralized to be easily revealed. The decentralized private information that produces improvised weapons requires a process of discovering suitable local resources and battlefield testing driven by local military entrepreneurs which frustrates information revelation. Decentralized private information used to improvise new weapons and capabilities like those which emerged in Afghanistan and Iraq show that it can take many years, decades, or even an indeterminate amount of time for fighting to reveal relevant information about violent capabilities.

Private Actors, Public Consequences

In its early days, social media was lauded as a tool that could bring down authoritarian regimes and usher in a new era of democratization. A decade later, these hopes have not only failed to bear fruit, but social media has helped repressive regimes surveil their citizens and manipulate popular opinion for their own strategic gain. Meanwhile, companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter—each of which have user bases larger than the population of most countries—remain largely unregulated in the United States, in part by opportunistically claiming or rejecting the role of "publisher." But as long as these tech giants are able to elude classification (and therefore regulation), savvy governments will continue to use social media to incite violence, sow chaos, and increase oppression.

The Enemy Votes: Weapons Improvisation and Bargaining Failure

Belligerents could in principle avoid the ex post costs of conflict by revealing all private information about their violent capabilities and then calculating odds of success ex ante. Incentives to misrepresent private information for strategic gain, however, can cause miscalculations that lead to war. I argue some private information can lead to miscalculation not because it is purposefully misrepresented for strategic gain but because it is too decentralized to be easily revealed. The decentralized private information that produces improvised weapons requires a process of discovering suitable local resources and battlefield testing driven by local military entrepreneurs which frustrates information revelation. Decentralized private information used to improvise new weapons and capabilities like those which emerged in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria show that it can take many years, decades, or even an indeterminate amount of time for fighting to reveal relevant information about violent capabilities.

Seven 'Corporate Venturing' Strategies to Foster Innovation (and Create an Environment for Long-Term Growth)

Seven “Corporate Venturing” Strategies to Foster Innovation tackles the question: What should companies do to accelerate innovation and remain relevant? Or, stated differently: What should companies do to avoid being disrupted by more agile and innovative startups? One answer is corporate venturing. Corporate venturing is often understood as a corporation making an investment in external startups either directly (off the balance sheet through a corporate venturing unit) or indirectly (through a venture capital fund) for strategic and/or financial gain. This kind of definition is limited, at least as a description of current “best practice” in corporate venturing. Based on the findings of an empirical review of the world’s most innovative companies’ venturing practices, we identified various other corporate venturing strategies that have been adopted. These strategies transform firms/corporations into open and inclusive “ecosystems” built, in part, around new forms of relationship with entrepreneurs, founders and startups. By “organizing-for-innovation” in this way, large firms give themselves the best opportunity of remaining relevant over the long-term and offer startups the best opportunity of successfully scaling.

Perceptions of Information Technology Processes Among IT Decision Makers in Thailand

Information technology (IT) has become an essential part of organizations and a pervasive element in all business processes. Because IT is so critical to business in today’s dynamic environment, it is essential that organizations align their business processes with IT strategy in order to facilitate business changes and to cope with other developments in the global economy. Complete synchronization calls for a business-IT alignment that can be achieved through effective IT governance. The adoption of proper IT governance processes can enhance an organization’s strategic gain. Among businesses in Thailand, however, fewer than half have fully adopted IT governance processes. This study explores the concerns of IT decision makers in Thailand with regard to these processes, using four stages of the perceptual process: exposure, attention, interpretation, and response. The study used a semi-structured interview to solicit the opinions of IT decision makers with experience in IT management and with the authority to make decisions relating to IT governance. The results indicate that, although not all governance processes are implemented because of time and cost factors, the governance processes that are implemented are those with a high impact and high importance level. The results show, furthermore, that the four factors influencing an organization’s selection processes are organization size, strategy, structure, and industry.

Hybrid Organizations as Shape-Shifters: Altering Legal Structure for Strategic Gain

Social entrepreneurs navigate a complex landscape of legal structures in which they need to select among forprofit, nonprofit, and mixed-entity structures. This study of 48 hybrid organizations identifies why social entrepreneurs chose one legal structure over another and explains what motivates half of them to change their legal structure as they build their enterprise. It highlights the critical desire for flexibility among social entrepreneurs, discusses the implications that changes to legal structure may have for companies and hybrids in partnerships, and explores how companies can leverage hybrid structures to go beyond their current scope of CSR initiatives.