This book examines cross-chain control centers (4C), an ambitious concept in supply chain management and logistics that is intended to foster collaboration between different supply chains to increase efficiency. It provides an overview of the main results, insights, and other developments in the academic field of horizontal collaboration. Furthermore, it gives recommendations to governments, commercial companies, and academia on how to proceed with horizontal logistics collaboration in the years to come. To link research with practice, the book takes the Dutch project on cross-chain collaboration centers (4Cs) and identifies a typology of existing patterns for horizontal collaboration in supply chains. Finally, the book zooms in on the Netherlands as a case-study of intense public-private partnerships to develop 4C as a mature logistics value proposition. It provides an overview of the accomplishments in the government supported 4C projects and offers a critical reflection of why some more ambitious and structural solutions have not found solid ground yet. The book is of value to researchers and professionals in the supply chain domain.

Higher education is beginning to play an increasingly important role in the process of globalization, which promotes information technologies, development and diffusion of innovations and the ability of economies to benefit from rapid shifts in the production of goods, services, and ideas. In this volume the editors have brought together some of the most significant previously published academic papers describing how highly skilled graduate labour impacts on the economy. Topics covered include the economic benefits of higher education, student choice of subject and university, the technology of higher education, empirical research on the cost functions faced by universities, the funding and financing of university education, the market for higher education and how universities compete. In their scholarly introduction, the editors provide an overview of the volume and offer suggestions for future research in this field.

This book identifies and discusses critical issues of ICT innovation at both the macroeconomic and organisational levels, bringing together two hitherto independent fields of study: economics and information systems. The book takes stock of these two fields, highlighting their complementarity in contemporary issues such as business competitiveness and e-commerce, organisational change and industrial restructuring, information systems implementation and technology infrastructure building. The contributions cover a broad range of issues, from analysing policy approaches for fostering ICT innovation at a regional level, to examining the way in which ICT-based information systems and organisational practice are simultaneously shaped. The book elaborates an understanding of innovation as shaped largely in context, rather than 'diffused' from the place of its conception into the place of its implementation. The theoretical perspectives offered by the authors include institutional economics, evolutionary economics, social constructivism, and structuration theory. Collectively, the chapters of this book present ICT innovation as a dynamic process involving multiple actors in multiple locations, codified and tacit knowledge, and instrumental and situated behaviour. This pathbreaking book will be of enormous interest to students, researchers and academics specialising in economics, information systems and ICT innovation, as well as policy and management consultants involved in information systems and development.

Research on the internationalisation process of firms shows that the development of experiential knowledge is a major factor in explaining firms' internationalisation. However, our knowledge of how this takes place is limited. The detailed mechanisms of learning, and the effects of the duration of the firm's international operations, have not been studied in depth. Using examples from Denmark, Finland, South Korea, New Zealand and Sweden, the contributors to this book examine these factors and test the basic assumptions of the internationalisation process of firms. In doing so, they explore how firms accumulate knowledge on foreign markets and analyse whether the number of countries in which firms operate influences the quantity and quality of knowledge accumulated. The effect is to expand our understanding of the use of knowledge and the international transfer of knowledge in the internationalisation process. Learning in the Internationalisation Process of Firms will be of great interest to scholars, researchers and practitioners of international business and management.

Market dominance - encompassing single firm dominance, overt and tacit collusion, mergers and vertical restraints - raises many complex analytical and policy issues, all of which continue to be the subject of theoretical research and policy reform. This second edition of a popular and comprehensive text extends the arguments and combines an analysis of the issues with a discussion of actual policy and case studies. This new edition addresses the recent fundamental changes in antitrust law, especially in the UK and the EU, and reviews some high profile and controversial cases such as the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger and the Microsoft monopoly. The author moves on to deal with several unresolved questions including the conflicts between trade and antitrust policy, the foreign take-over of domestic assets and extra-territorial claims made by certain countries. Market Dominance and Antitrust Policy will be of considerable value to students and scholars of economics, law and business, as well as researchers, policymakers and practitioners with an interest in competition policy and international trade.

This book is selection of author's articles about China's reform and development. The earliest article of the anthology was written in 1986 and the latest in 2017. The author studies the changes in property rights and system based on the practical experience of China's reform. In the first article "Economics in the Real World", the author expounds on Coasean Economics' Research Method which is "neither fashionable nor popular" and finds out problems from the fascinating real world. It focuses on researching the constraint conditions and strives to have cognition generalized. Guided by this methodology, all the following articles are about empirical research on China's reform, involving such fields as farmland reform, reform of state-owned enterprises, medical reform, urban-rural relationship, monetary system and regulatory reform. In the concluding article "Institutional Cost and China's Economy", the author, gives a new interpretation for the economic logic of the high-speed growth and transformation of China's economy by redefining concepts. Reading the anthology, readers may not only follow the author's train of thought to have an overview of the surging and magnificent reform course from small clues to the evident, but also have a broader train of thought on studying and comprehending the practical problems of China.

For over 30 years environmental policy has developed under the assumption that self-interest explains firms' environmental behaviour and that the problem of pollution can be rectified by technological fixes. This policy paradigm has been proved wrong: entrenched antagonism between firms and regulators, and greater environmental harm, have proved to be the dominant outcomes. This book re-focuses environmental policy analysis by demonstrating how behavioural models can be applied within the field to better understand the propensity of the firm to engage in pro-environmental, innovative activities. The book develops an essential tool for environmental policy analysis in the context of technical change. A rigorous theoretical and methodological framework is applied to identify sources of firms' willingness (or resistance) to engage in cleaner production and to evaluate under which conditions the firm's pro-environmental, innovative behaviour may be fostered. The author undertakes extensive research through a case study of the In-Bond industry in Mexico and assesses the significance and relationship of individual factors relating to a firm's innovative behaviour towards 'greener' production. The model developed helps to understand the planned behaviour of the firm in specific contexts, to shape and guide empirical inquiry, and to produce useful corporate and public policy recommendations. Environmental Policy and Technological Innovation comprehensively explores the factors which can influence a firm's behavioural approach towards developing clean technologies. Unlike many other studies on environmental policy, it addresses the origin of the problems and not just the symptoms. It will become an indispensable companion for local, national and international environmental regulators, environmental policymakers and analysts, and those interested in technological innovation and technology policy.

The study of dynamics of institutional change in emerging markets are subjects of great interest in contemporary political economy. The dynamics and quality of institutional change can have significant impacts on the long-run performance of economies, economic growth and development of nations, and play a fundamental role in societies. It provides a comprehensive understanding of legal-economic institutions, and sheds light on the way to global peace by producing a better understanding of the dynamics of historical change. Topics range from institutional uncertainty, hybrid market order and labor market institutions, to good governance of institutions and WTO rules as trade institutions, as well as entrepreneurship and institutional change in emerging markets, and the role of modern technologies. This edited volume emphasizes legal-economic institutions, and the role of management and entrepreneurship on dynamics, trends, and implications of institutional change in emerging markets. Presenting research articles by eminent scholars and experts engaged in education and research, who address and discuss the most recent issues in the field, they reveal new insights into the dynamics of institutional change for researchers interested in development of new theories and comparative studies, especially in the era of emerging markets. The book is appealing to a wide range of global audience, can serve as a useful reference work in education and research, offers innovative and productive discussions, and can satisfy scholarly and intellectual interests, regarding institutional development and a broad spectrum of its interactions with functioning of markets and economies.

Korea has been at the centre of intense debate concerning the role of government in economic development. Taking an in-depth approach, this book analyses the path of Korea's industrial technology development. In contrast to many previous studies on Korea, the author argues that the role of foreign multinational enterprises has been significant while the government's was surprisingly limited in scope. The author addresses three main questions: * How was Korea able to develop so effectively despite the low inflow of foreign technologies and capital? * What is the role of multinational enterprises in 'teaching' technology to the firms from developing countries? * What has been the influence of public policy on Korea's technology development? The author demonstrates that the key to the Korean electronics industry's spectacular growth has been through its participation in and learning from an inter-firm arrangement called 'original equipment manufacturing' (OEM) arrangement, and a number of firm-level case studies support this argument. This book will be of special interest to scholars of industrial and development economics, innovation and Asian studies. It will also be of use to policymakers responsible for industrial policy development.

Over the past 25 years, activists, farmers and scholars have been arguing that the industrialized global food system erodes democracy, perpetuates injustices, undermines population health and is environmentally unsustainable. In an attempt to resist these effects, activists have proposed alternative food networks that draw on ideas and practices from pre-industrial agrarian smallholder farming, as well as contemporary peasant movements. This book uses current debates over Michel Foucault's method of genealogy as a practice of critique and historical problematization of the present to reveal the historical constitution of contemporary alternative food discourses. While alternative food activists appeal to food sovereignty and agrarian discourses to counter the influence of neoliberal agricultural policies, these discourses remain entangled with colonial logics. In particular, the influence of Enlightenment ideas of improvement, colonial practices of agriculture as a means to establish ownership, and anthropocentric relations to the land. In combination with the genealogical analysis, this book brings continental political philosophy into conversation with Indigenous theories of sovereignty and alternative food discourse in order to open new spaces for thinking about food and politics in contemporary Australia.

Entrepreneurs engaging in international business face business environments that are fundamentally different from their home countries. Despite decades of entrepreneurship research, we know little about these entrepreneurs and their strategic behaviour in establishing and managing transnational operations. This book applies an institutional perspective on transnational entrepreneurship to empirical investigations of transnational corporations (TNCs) from Hong Kong and Singapore. Henry Wai-chung Yeung argues that significant variations in institutional structures of home countries explain variations in the entrepreneurial endowments of prospective transnational business networks. This is illustrated by empirical data from two in-depth studies of over 300 TNCs from Hong Kong and Singapore and over 120 of their foreign affiliates in Asia. Entrepreneurship and the Internationalisation of Asian Firms is a timely contribution to theoretical and empirical studies in international business and will be widely read by those interested in international business, industrial economics, organisation studies, political economy, regional studies and economic geography.

Since the 1970s, there have been many changes to the ways in which Japanese firms have conducted business. The editors of this volume examine the strategies of Japanese subsidiaries in the new global economy and present, in four parts, a comprehensive picture of the nature of Japanese multinational enterprises.The book addresses the overall nature of Japanese investment in international markets, and its broader implications for corporate performance. The entry mode choice and its relationship to performance is then examined, in an attempt to establish overall trends in the performance of various modes. The focus then shifts explicitly to joint ventures since nearly half of all Japanese subsidiaries take this form. Finally, the management strategies that Japanese firms have used in their foreign subsidiaries are investigated. Japanese Subsidiaries in the New Global Economy utilizes empirical analyses based on a very large, longitudinal data set, coupled with state of the art conceptual development. This volume provides a complete current picture of the international strategy of Japanese firms, which will be both useful and informative for researchers, scholars and policy makers in international business, international economics, foreign investment, joint ventures and expatriate management.

This book investigates the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Caribbean travel firms, particularly for sales and marketing purposes. By examining the decision-making process in tourism companies deciding whether to become more dependent on digital capabilities and artificial intelligence, this text seeks to understand the role of strategy and resources in technology adoption. Further, the author assesses the role of factors both external (such as culture) and internal (such as leadership) in this strategic process. Economies in the Caribbean are reliant on tourism to bring prosperity to the region, and with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry is being forced to transform the way it operates. With implications for those studying organizational behavior as well as strategic and tourism management, this study analyzes rapid change in this pivotal industry.

Entrepreneurial Competition and Industrial Location explores the notion of entrepreneurial competition from its theoretical foundations in early Austrian and contemporary evolutionary economics. Focusing on the structural development of the intangible factors of production such as labour skills, advertising and research and development, the book's empirical implications are tested in a comparative study of competitive performance in the EU, Japan and the USA. Typical mechanisms of external spillovers, shaping industrial location by means of Marshallian cluster formation, highlight the dimension of industrial location. Peneder finally employs the three evolutionary principles of variation, cumulation and selection to establish entrepreneurship, learning and fair markets as the main pillars of modern competitiveness policy. This volume paves the way for a better understanding of the market process, demonstrating the importance of intangible factors as sources of competitive advantage both by conclusive theoretical argument and careful empirical investigation.