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Books > Business & Economics > Industry & industrial studies > General
This book is about the way in which industrial production in Germany is conditioned by social and political factors. Herrigel emphasizes regional, organizational, and policy dimensions of the development of German industry from the seventeenth century to the present. The argument is distinctive because it pays so much attention to small and medium-sized firms, and because it suggests that Germany does not have a single coherent national system of industrial governance. This social constructivist point of view presents a direct challenge to the Gerschenkronian, Schumpetarian, and Chandlerian approaches to Germany's economic history.
One of the most important trends in post-war Britain was the extension of the number and variety of public service undertakings. Originally published in 1933, this title indicated the empirical nature and recent importance of British public utility development at the time, being the first study, which dealt with this trend in a comprehensive manner. For completeness to the book and also providing a suitable background, the local utility services water, gas, transport, docks, and harbors have been considered. The author felt the trends of recent years made a rediscovery of political economy imperative and urgent. This study was an effort to reunite economics, public administration, law, and philosophy in the consideration of British public utilities.
To what extent can governments supplement private venture capitalists and stimulate the economy by providing money to new entrepreneurs as well as existing enterprises? The UK's National Enterprise Board (NEB) attempted to do just this, and whilst it gained most publicity through its efforts to bail out ailing giants such as British Leyland and Rolls Royce Aerospace, much of its attention was actually directed to smaller ventures. Originally published in 1988 Professor Kramer reports that the NEB's record of success was surprisingly good, and that many flourishing undertakings would not be in business today had it not been for the NEB's efforts. The author goes further, and after discussing the political and economic issues involved in according public aid to private enterprises on a case by case basis, he argues that not only should the UK revive its NEB, but that other countries, notably the United States, could benefit by establishing their own versions of it. Indeed, throughout, the author's perspective as an outsider makes him peculiarly alive to the relevance of the UK example to a whole range of international cases. As the first scholarly, full-length study of the NEB, this book will be of value to those interested in the relationships between venture capitalists generally and the enterprises in which they take equity. It will also interest those studying the relationship between holding companies and their subsidiaries.
Social science theorists from various scholarly disciplines have contributed to a recent literature that examines how the finance industry has expanded and now wields increasing influence across a variety of economic fields and industries. In some cases, this tendency towards a more sizeable and influential finance industry has been referred to as "the financialization" of the economy. This book explains how what is referred to as the finance-led economy (arguably a more neutral and less emotionally charged term than financialization) is premised on a number of conditions, institutional relations, and theoretical propositions and assumptions, and indicates what the real economic consequences are for market actors and households. The book provides a theoretically condensed but empirically grounded account of the contemporary finance-led economy, in many cases too complicated in its design and rich in detail to be understood equally by insiders-empirical research indicates-and lay audiences. It summarizes the relevant literature and points at two empirical cases, the construction industry and life science venturing, to better illustrate how the expansion of the finance industry has contributed to the capital formation process, and how the sovereign state has actively assisted this process. It offers a credible, yet accessible overview of the economic conditions that will arguably shape economic affairs for the foreseeable future. The book will find an audience amongst a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policymakers, and management consultants.
The book provides a comprehensive application of narrative theory to video games, and presents the player-response paradigm of game criticism. Video Game Narrative and Criticism explains the nature of gameplay - a psychological experience and a meaning-making process in the fictional world of video games.
The book presents a stochastic analysis based on production risk and application of this method in the industrial sector under production risk where energy use is an input factor. Using South Korea as a case study, the book empirically models energy demand at the industrial level and analyzes the results to identify key determinants of energy demand, productions level, productions risk and energy usage efficiency. Particular attention is paid to the factors that enhance production risk or increase variations in energy input during production. A dynamic panel model is specified and applied to 25 Korean industrial sectors over the period 1970-2007. The determinants of energy usage are identified and their effects in the form of elasticities of energy usage are estimated. In addition the structural changes in the energy demand pattern are explored. Stochastic production technology is applied to create two primary models: A production model where the energy usage is a determinant of output and an energy demand model based on an inverted factor demand model where demand is a key determinant of the level of energy usage. The findings reveal that: First, there are large variations in the degree of overuse or inefficiency in energy usage among the individual industries and over time; second, ICT (information and communication technology) capital and labor are substituting energy; third, ICT capital and value added services are two input factors decreasing the variability of energy demand while non-ICT capital, material and labor are increasing the variability of energy demand. Finally, the results suggest that technical progress contributes more to the increase of mean of energy demand than to the reduction of the level of risk. An emerging recommendation is that industries increase the level of ICT capital and digitalization and invest more in R&D activities and value added services to reduce the uncertainty related to their demand for energy. This study forms the structure of the demand for energy under stochastic production risk for the South Korean industrial sector. Public research programs aimed at the industrial sector should be concerned about both mean and risk properties in research on new technologies and in the investigation of possible alternative energy inputs. This book describes the state of the art in energy usage analysis and production risk, applying factor requirement methodology. It will be of use as a main or supplementary text in the teaching of advanced graduate courses but also as a reference for those working on empirically advanced research. The book is an important addition to the existing literature on industrial development, with its focus on energy as a core production input.
In contemporary global capitalism, the most powerful corporations are innovation or intellectual monopolies. The book's unique perspective focuses on how private ownership and control of knowledge and data have become a major source of rent and power. The author explains how at the one pole, these corporations concentrate income, property and power in the United States, China, and in a handful of intellectual monopolies, particularly from digital and pharmaceutical industries, while at the other pole developing countries are left further behind. The book includes detailed empirical mappings of how intellectual monopolies develop and transform knowledge from universities and open-source collaborations into intangible assets. The result is a strategy that combines undermining the commons through privatization with harvesting from the same commons. The book ends with provoking reflections to tilt the scale against intellectual monopoly capitalism and arguing that desired changes require democratic mobilization of workers and citizens at large. This book represents one of the first attempts to capture the contours of an emerging new era where old perspectives lead us astray, and the old policy toolbox is hopelessly inadequate. This is true for the idea that the best, or only, way to promote innovation is to transform knowledge into private property. It is also true for anti-trust policies focusing exclusively on consumer prices. The formation of global infrastructures that lead to natural monopolies calls for public rather than private ownership. Scholars and professionals from the social sciences and humanities (in particular economics, sociology, political science, geography, educational science and science and technology studies) will enjoy a clear and all-embracing depiction of innovation dynamics in contemporary capitalism, with a particular focus on asymmetries between actors, regions and topics. In fact, its topical issue broadens the book's scope to those curious about how innovation networks shape our world.
This uniquely comprehensive study explores all aspects of the English business community as it developed between 1590 and 1720. Drawing on largely untapped records of private firms as well as on institutional archives, Richard Grassby describes and explains the economic and technical structure of business in a pre-industrial economy and examines the ways in which social values, demographic factors, the family, the state and religion distributed talent, trained and motivated businessmen and determined their life style. The important conclusion which emerges from his study is that individual initiative and a fluid social structure largely account for differences in response to economic opportunities between England and other pre-industrial societies. His book offers an empirically based analysis of why men entered business, how they lived and worked and what they achieved, and it will appeal to all who wish to understand the dynamics of pre-industrial growth and the interaction between business and society.
This book was first published in 1995. Businessmen have always had a strong inclination to avoid competition and regulate the market. Helen Mercer traces the evolution of British competition legislation designed to discourage such practices, from 1900 to 1964. Economic and legal textbooks attribute the dynamic behind the development of this legislation to an undefined 'public opinion' or to economists. Helen Mercer disagrees. She contends that competition policies have been shaped by the strategies of powerful business interests - at home and in the United States. Trade unions and organisations of labour have provided a consistent pressure on governments to legislate on private monopoly, in the face of sweeping criticisms of free enterprise. This book makes extensive use of archival sources to give a detailed analysis of government-industry relations. In the course of this it sheds new light on Britain's changing industrial structure, and offers pointers to the likely outcome of business regulation in Britain in the future.
A comparison of British and German industries' reaction to the opportunities and threats offered by the Single European Market (SEM) is presented here. The book outlines the effect that the SEM was expected to have on the two countries and contrasts this with actual progress, based on published data and a detailed study of four industries: retailing, pharmaceuticals, insurance and machine tools. It shows that while indeed the single European market has had an impact, many measures have had a far weaker effect than expected. The existence of other barriers not tackled by the SEM programme - weakened measures, poor implementation, global business trends and the recent recession - helped to reduce the impact of the SEM. Nevertheless it stands out as one of the most striking influences on British and German industries for many years. Germany, with its geographical advantage, longer-term approach and stronger manufacturing, seems the better placed to benefit overall. But the less regulated and, in some respects, more flexible UK economy may have competitive advantages as the pressures increase. It is no accident that it has been chosen so frequently as the best site within the EC for investment by firms from non-EC countries.
This shortform book presents key peer-reviewed research on industrial history. In selecting and contextualising this volume, the editors address how the field of textile history has evolved. Themes covered include entrepreneurial, technological and labour history, whilst the book highlights the strategic and social consequences of innovations in the history of this key UK sector. Of interest to business and economic historians, this shortform book also provides analysis and illustrative case-studies that will be valuable reading across the social sciences.
Written for users, this book provides a structured approach with processes for implementing OEMS based on the learnings and experiences from companies who have implemented OEMS. The book leverages the knowledge of experienced OEMS personnel to provide a compelling sense of direction for organizations in the implementation of OEMS. The book includes sample templates and tools where necessary to ensure successful implementation and sustainment. The content of this book provides a testing methodology for implementing an OEMS across any organization while avoiding the pitfalls others have encountered along the way. The book: Provides a simple and easy process to follow for implementing an OEMS Offers organizations an opportunity to avoid the implementation errors of early adopters and provides them with the ability of learning from the experiences of others Equipped with tools and processes to make implementation and sustainment very effective, thereby avoiding false starts Designed to improve HSE, business reliability, efficiency, effectiveness, and performance on an ongoing basis Presents a simple pathway for helping organizations across all industries including those that operate within the various segments of the Oil and Gas business, to become more operationally disciplined in the way we do business and operate our assets in a high-risk operating environment
This book examines the linkages between exchange rates and India's merchandise trade since the 1990s. It looks at India's trade in the post-liberalisation period through its two main components: commodities and trading partners, and provides a bird's eye view through aggregate analyses accompanied by a historical narrative of the evolution of trade and exchange rate dynamics. Presenting a comprehensive analysis of bilateral and product-specific trade, the book explores the impact of exchange rate on labour intensive sectors and charts out major development. It also offers compelling evidence to suggest that if some commodities are identified as integral to India's export plans, then the impact of exchange rate must be weighed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) prior to a market intervention. This timely volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of economics, business and finance, development studies, trade, business, and industry as well as practitioners, think-tanks, and policy makers.
How much of the growth of output can be accounted for by the growth of inputs and how much is due to the growth of productivity? This book, first published in 1994, is a detailed attempt to answer this question for Britain. Estimates of outputs and inputs for over 130 industries were constructed, following the methodology pioneered by Professor Dale Jorgenson. These estimates can be employed to build up a picture of the performance of UK manufacturing as a whole. Contrary to the impression left by some previous authors, growth of productivity is found to play a relatively minor role - growth of inputs, when properly measured, accounts for most of the growth of output. The wealth of data which this book presents can also be used to shed light on a number of recent controversial views attached to the 'New Growth Theory'. According to this theory, externalities and increasing returns, often held to be associated with fixed investment, are the engine of economic growth. However, this book finds that the evidence does not support these claims.
This book uncovers the rich, fascinating and complex world of Ottoman manufacturing and manufacturers in the age of the European industrial revolution. Using a wealth of sources from Ottoman, European and American archives, Professor Donald Quataert explores the technological methods of producing cotton cloth, wool cloth, yarn and silk, how these changed throughout the nineteenth century, the organisation of home and workshop production and trends in the domestic and international markets. By focusing on textile manufacturing in homes and small workshops, the author reveals a dynamism that refutes traditional notions of a declining economy in the face of European expansion. He shows how manufacturers adopted a variety of strategies, such as reduced wages and low technology inputs, to confront European competitors, protect their livelihoods and retain domestic and international customers.
In a turbulent global economy, the popular idea of declining
farms and factories is largely unfounded. UN and World Bank data
show growing output everywhere, but it remains hidden by the
faster-growing service sector. Engineers, programmers, surgeons,
and pilots make up an increasing share of what is actually the
service sector, showing that this sector is not in decline. There
is no doubt that industries are shifting, but how does it all add
up?
After a century of exponential growth, the international oil industry suddenly slowed down in the 1970s, faltered during the 1980s, and by 1991 was just about back to its 1979 level. That break in trend of its dominance in world energy became clear in 'the OPEC decade' from 1973 onwards, gaining a surge of riches for oil-exporting countries. This book, which was originally published in 1993, is a descriptive analysis of influences in the world oil trade. It is concerned with a central unchanged paradox of the industry - its preoccupation with maximising the production of high-cost rather than low-cost oil. It follows the rise and decline of OPEC monopoly power in the crude market, and shows how growth in the international oil business has almost ceased since the late seventies, exploring the reasons behind this slowdown. The author has had twenty-five years of practical experience in petroleum economics.
Originally published in 1988. In this clear yet stimulating introductory text John Soussan explores the issues and arguments involved using a variety of case studies from across the Third World, including the tin mining industry, Rio Tinto-Zinc and fuelwood in Kenya.
Education, Technology and Industrial Performance in Europe explores the development of advanced scientific and technical education in seven European countries and the USA between the mid nineteenth century and the 1930s. The essays seek to replace the conventional notion of a simple interaction between education and industry with a far broader perspective in which not only educational institutions and industrial employers but also national and local governments, professional bodies, and private patrons can be seen to have made distinctive and often conflicting contributions. Although most of the essays are concerned with individual countries, the thrust of the volume is comparative. As the authors show, in nations as diverse as Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden there were similarities in the conditions from which the spectacular innovations in higher technical education emerged in the later nineteenth century. But the results that were achieved were by no means uniform. A provision for education that was highly effective in one industrialized or industrializing economy could well be ineffectual in another. And everywhere the balance between the supply of educated manpower and the capacity of industry to exploit knowledge and skills was a delicate one. As educational innovators throughout Western Europe (as well as the USA) came to realize, there was no universally applicable ideal of education for industry.
This timely and significant book explores the characteristics and complexities of Asian urban tourism, considering the extent to which Western paradigms can be transferred to Asian settings and the striking contrasts that exist within the region. In an era of unprecedented urban expansion in Asian cities, this book comes at a time of great urgency, illuminating the possible problems and opportunities that arise when a destination emerges as a tourism hotspot. Split into three parts; introducing Asian urban tourism and urbanization, the management and marketing of Asian cities, and emerging trends and issues associated with Asian urban tourism, the book offers a range of varying and vibrant perspectives from international and interdisciplinary experts in the field. Chapters include studies on a wide range of destinations such as Hong Kong, Macau, Cambodia, Phuket, Kolkata, Busan, Delhi, and Sri Lanka among many others, and explore crucial contemporary themes such as overtourism, urbanization and administrative challenges, world heritage, smart cities and the use of technologies such as VR in urban tourism experience creation. It will be a vital resource for upper-level students, researchers, and academics in tourism, city tourism, Asian studies, development studies, cultural studies, and sustainability, as well as professionals in the field of tourism management.
The world, of late, has seen a productivity slowdown. Many countries continue to recover from various shocks in the macro business environment, along with structural changes and inward looking policies. In contemporary times of growth slumps, various exits and protectionist regimes, this book engages with the study of productivity dynamics in the emerging and industrialized economies. The essays address the crucial aspects, such as the roles of human capital, investment accounting and datasets, that help understanding of productivity performance of global economy and its several regions. This book will be of interest to academics, practitioners and professionals in the field of economic growth, productivity and development studies. This will also be an important reference on empirical industrial economics in both India and the world.
Providing a single-valued assessment of the performance of a process is often one of the greatest challenges for a quality professional. Process Capability Indices (PCIs) precisely do this job. For processes having a single measurable quality characteristic, there is an ample number of PCIs, defined in literature. The situation worsens for multivariate processes, i.e., where there is more than one correlated quality characteristic. Since in most situations quality professionals face multiple quality characteristics to be controlled through a process, Multivariate Process Capability Indices (MPCIs) become the order of the day. However, there is no book which addresses and explains different MPCIs and their properties. The literature of Multivariate Process Capability Indices (MPCIs) is not well organized, in the sense that a thorough and systematic discussion on the various MPCIs is hardly available in the literature. Handbook of Multivariate Process Capability Indices provides an extensive study of the MPCIs defined for various types of specification regions. This book is intended to help quality professionals to understand which MPCI should be used and in what situation. For researchers in this field, the book provides a thorough discussion about each of the MPCIs developed to date, along with their statistical and analytical properties. Also, real life examples are provided for almost all the MPCIs discussed in the book. This helps both the researchers and the quality professionals alike to have a better understanding of the MPCIs, which otherwise become difficult to understand, since there is more than one quality characteristic to be controlled at a time. Features: A complete guide for quality professionals on the usage of different MPCIs. A step by step discussion on multivariate process capability analysis, starting from a brief discussion on univariate indices. A single source for all kinds of MPCIs developed so far. Comprehensive analysis of the MPCIs, including analysis of real-life data. References provided at the end of each chapter encompass the entire literature available on the respective topic. Interpretation of the MPCIs and development of threshold values of many MPCIs are also included. This reference book is aimed at the post graduate students in Industrial Statistics. It will also serve researchers working in the field of Industrial Statistics, as well as practitioners requiring thorough guidance regarding selection of an appropriate MPCI suitable for the problem at hand.
This book is a continuation of Corporate Law and the Theory of the Firm: Reconstructing Corporations, Shareholders, Directors, Owners, and Investors. The author extends his analysis of contract law, property law, agency law, trust law, and corporate statutory law and applies that analysis to defy conventional concepts and theories in economics, finance, investment, and accounting and expose the artificial boundaries established by decades of research founded on indefensible assumptions and fallacious conclusions. Using the Humpty Dumpty principle, where words mean what the authors want them to mean, economists have created "strange new worlds" where contract law, property law, agency law, and corporate statutory law no longer apply. The author dismantles the theory of the firm by proving the theory of the firm wilfully and intentionally ignores fundamental contract law, property law, agency law, and corporate statutory law. Contrary to the theory of the firm, shareholders do not own corporations, directors are not agents of shareholders, and shareholders are not investors in corporations. The author proves that by property law and corporate law, capital is not privately owned by capitalists but by corporations. Entire economic and social systems have been constructed that have no basis in law. With the advent of publicly traded corporations, the capital is there, but both capitalists and capitalism have been rendered extinct. This book will appeal to researchers and graduate and upper-level undergraduate students in economics, finance, accounting, law, and sociology, as well as legal scholars, attorneys and accountants.
This book analyzes the relationship between technological innovation and economic development in Japan before World War II. Guan Quan deploys econometric analysis, multivariate statistical analysis and case studies from different industries to shed light on technological innovation in the Japanese context with particular emphasis on the importance of the patent system. A great deal of new inventions and patents in this period led to fast economic growth in Japan characterized by the simultaneous development of both traditional and modern industries. These insights help reshape the understanding of Japan's economic development and industrial advancement at an early stage and provide pointers to developing countries as to how human capital, social capabilities and thereby technological innovation can figure in economic growth. The book will appeal to academics of the East Asian economy, development economics and modern economic history as well as general readers interested in the miracle of the Japanese economy as the first to achieve economic development and modernization among non-Western countries.
This comprehensive reference work gives an overview of the industrial development and current state of industrialization and deindustrialization in Asia, specifically Southeast Asia and China. It introduces typologies of industrial policies and discusses the manufacturing sector and its evolving role in the region. Designing Integrated Industrial Policies examines the integration of SMEs in global value chains and provides macro-econometric and firm-based micro-econometric analyses of (de)industrialization. This book will be a very useful reference particularly as a how-to guide on industrial promotion and designing integrated industrial policies not only for economic growth and job creation but also for "inclusive" development. It presents country cases and illustrates useful tools for industrial policy simulation and for evidence-based policy making through these concrete examples. |
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