This book analyzes strategic aspects of SME development that may help to promote growth: high-tech development, productivity increase, and strengthening of linkages. Contributors to the book consist of a range of international experts recognised in the field of industrial development and/or small and medium enterprises. This book employs a benchmarking approach, which takes into account lessons that can be extracted from the development process in Europe, the US, and Latin America. It's a novel approach to SME development: it includes a tripartite framework that emphasises the importance of high-tech promotion, productivity growth, and networks.Progress in telecommunications and infrastructure, coupled with liberalization in international organizations, has introduced a number of new competitors to existing SMEs. This book analyzes strategic aspects of SME development that may help to promote growth: high-tech development, productivity increase, and strengthening of linkages.

Corporate Governance and Accountability presents students with a complete and current survey of the latest developments involving how a company is directed and controlled. Providing a broad research-based perspective, this comprehensive textbook examines global corporate governance systems, the role and responsibilities of the directorate, and the frameworks designed to ensure effective corporate accountability for stakeholders. A holistic approach to the subject enables students to develop a well-rounded knowledge of corporate governance theory and practice, policy documents, academic research, and current debates, issues, and trends. Now in its fifth edition, this comprehensive view of the corporate governance agenda features fully revised content that reflects new research and global developments in codes of practice and governance and accountability mechanisms. In-depth chapters contain numerous real-world case studies and compelling debate and discussion topics, exploring corporate transparency, social responsibility, boardroom diversity, shareholder activism, and many other timely issues.

The Changing Industrial Map of Europe is a major study of the recent evolution of six key industries - information technology, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, retailing, transportation and insurance - and their response to the 'new Europe'. Taken together, the analyses of these industries shed much light on how technological, economic and political factors are working together to create a more integrated and more competitive industrial base in Europe.

Hardbound. This handbook serves as a source, reference, and teaching supplement for industrial organization (or industrial economics), the broad field within microeconomics that focuses on business behavior and its implications both for market structures and processes, and for public policies towards them. Comprehensive and up-to-date surveys are provided of recent developments and the state of knowledge in the major areas of research in this field as of the latter part of the 1980's, written at a level suitable for use by non-specialist economists and students on advanced graduate courses. Each chapter can be read independently, although they are organized into sections.For more information on the Handbooks in Economics series, please see our home page on http: //www.elsevier.nl/locate/he

Over the next eight years, however, there was a dramatic improvement in its performance. From a cash surplus before dividend of Rs 1,071 crores in 2000, it achieved an estimated Rs 25,000 crores (or around Rs 13,000 crores after accounting for all expenditures, receipts and depreciation) in 2008. Alongside came a dynamic and differential tariff policy, and technical changes that led to an enhanced carrying capacity. How all this was accomplished is the focus of this riveting study of change and innovation in the Indian Railways. Based on an extensive examination of internal documents of the Railways and in-depth interviews with key people involved in the change process, authors V. Nilakant and S. Ramnarayan identify four distinctive features associated with the organization's renewal between 2004 and 2008. The change leveraged the strengths of the organization, instead of being preoccupied with its weaknesses. The aim was to change mindsets about costs, revenues, investment and business models. The momentum of the change process was sustained by fostering positive emotions. Changes were persistently and patiently seen to completion by focusing on results. Confronting several myths about organizational change, the book offers powerful lessons for managers and administrators grappling with the challenges of generating innovation and improving performance radically in a changing world.

The starting point of Paul Streeten's book is the dilemma, faced by policy makers in many developing countries: should the price of food be high, in order to stimulate production, or low, in order to prevent poor food buyers from starving? The author goes on to discuss the role of prices in the light of these and other objectives. 'It is the work of one of our wisest scholars on what I consider to be the key policy issue for economic development in the 1980s...this provocative essay will be required reading for anyone working on agricultural price policy.' C.Peter Timmer 'It provides solid and practical guidance to scholars and decision-makers. It is lucid, balanced and, above all, useful.' Robert Klitgaard 'Paul Streeten is well known for his gift of explaining the pros and cons of difficult policy issues in a clear, simple and realistic way, appealing to policy-makers, students and the wider development community, as well as to academic colleagues. This gift is fully displayed in his new book, and readers are bound to emerge with a better awareness of the conflicts and policy reforms which are involved.' H.W.Singer

More than a third of national output of the Chinese economy now comes from enterprises in the rural areas outside the plan. This book explains how that sector became so big in China and what it means for economic reform and structural change. The book contains precise measures of the size of the rural enterprise sector and the extent to which it has contributed to growth in China. The sources of both labour and capital used are documented, and their contributions to the growth are estimated. The implications of the growth of these enterprises are explored and the new issues which the growth of the sector has created so far are identified. Special attention is paid to problems associated with the nature of rural enterprise ownership. The analysis stresses the special conditions in China and also highlights some lessons for the process of reform in other economies.

Description
Innovation is universally recognized as an important source of economic growth. Patents may be considered as a potential measure of innovation. As such, patents may alter isoquant maps, and measuring their elasticities is both intuitively and empirically appealing. This book investigates the impact of U.S.A. patent activity on technical change in 35 industries given in the KLEM (Jorgenson, 1996) data set for the period 1958-1996. Four patent variables, namely total patent applications, total patents granted, unsuccessful patent applications and foreign patents granted, are introduced as technology-changing parameters into the generalized Fechner-Thurstone (GFT) production function to determine the effect on the elasticity of the marginal rate of technical substitution (MRTS) between inputs of the GFT production function over time. It is found that all four patent variables have significant impacts on the marginal rates of technical substitution between various production inputs over time, with foreign patents granted being the most "effective" parameter, and unsuccessful patent applications the least effective. In addition, the elasticity of the MRTS between materials and energy is found to be the most affected by patent activity, and that between materials and labor the least. The extent of technical change by patent activity varies across industries. Patent activity is found to be less effective as technology changes in some traditionally high patenting industries and more effective in others, which indicates that there are significant spillover effects of patents. Patent activity is found to have the greatest impact on technical change in the metal mining industryand the least impact in the chemicals industry.

Analysis of Manufacturing Enterprises presents a unified and systematic treatment of manufacturing enterprises. These enterprises are networks of companies working in partnership. Such networks are a common occurrence in auto, grocery, apparel, computer and other industries; and competition is among enterprises rather than between individual companies. Thus, for these enterprises (global or local) to succeed, there is a need for systematically designing the enterprise-wide value delivery processes such as the order-to-delivery process, supply chain process, and new product development process. This calls for developing systematic analysis methodologies for evaluating the performance of value delivering processes. Analysis of Manufacturing Enterprises fills this vital need. The first part of the book focuses on foundations of manufacturing enterprises: the generic value delivery process, their performance measures and redesign to meet specifications on lead time and defect levels. The second part provides a clear and comprehensive discussion on new product development, order to delivery, and supply chain processes, which are core processes of a manufacturing enterprise. Analysis of Manufacturing Enterprises is an excellent resource for researchers and professionals in the field of manufacturing engineering.

Privatising firms and liberalizing their market environment generates in Eastern Europe a variety of problems, many of which are not common to the analogous attempts in industries countries. A first difference between the two experiences resides in establishing the value of the firm or of the assets that are being privatized. A second main difference concerns the lack of the record of market performance for the firm. The book explores these open questions through an overview of on-going and proposed processes in Section 1. In Section 2 theoretical foundations of privatization processes are proposed with respect to the financial market, industrial relations and foreign trade. A final key question is faced in Section 3: 'is there any alternative to privatization?'

A starter to the concepts of modularization and mass customization.

Condensed and application-oriented approach for a broad audience in engineering, production, sales and marketing.

Provides an extensive configurator evaluation checklist for future users and a supplement of business cases.

This is the story of a major business enterprise. It describes the transformation of a small partnership, formed in 1759, into an international group, the scale of whose diverse activities has demanded the creation of a multi-divisional structure, supported by many specialist departments. Probably the most longeval of Britain's current manufacturing companies, GKN's history may be interpreted as a unique and revealing insight into Britain's industrial experience over past centuries.

This work examines the role of comptetence, organization and strategies of firms in industrial dynamics linking eceonomic, management and historical persectives. In the first part of the book, a series of economic and managerial contributions discuss the concepts, dimensions and effects of routines, competence, adaptation, learning, organizational structure and strategies in the evolution of industrial enterprises at the theoretical and empirical levels. In the second part of the book, a series of historical papers examine these issues in a long-term perspective for the United States, Japan and several European countries.

Before entering the seemingly lucrative Chinese market, investors should be aware of the darkside of the current business environment. The risk of rampant corruption, economic, social and political problems, and threat to personal safety go along with the potential benefits of a thriving economy, rapid growth and swelling consumer demand. Dixon and Newman describe the Chinese business environment and its major players--the People's Liberation Army, the 'princelings'--and 'guanxi' (connections). In addition, they describe the plight of foreign business people who have recently found themselves in ugly personal situations because of China's lack of internationally accepted business practices and ethics, lack of institutionalized rule of law, and lack of an impartial law enforcement system. They conclude that any prospective business rewards must be discounted by the personal and personnel risks foreign businesses face when dealing with China.

The challenge of our time is the greening of products. Different tools and concepts to support this process have been developed in the past decade. Among others, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) appears as one of the most instructive management instruments for gaining insight into product-related environmental impacts and for supporting an effective integration of environmental aspects in business and economy. Research on LCA was and still is focused on improving the methodology. In fact, the "LCA technique" has significantly improved over the last few years. However, this research progress did nearly not stress the application context of LCA and its embodiment into business and industry. This is precisely the primary focus of the present book. Based on the empirical information of a large survey and of 20 company case studies, the book describes the set of applications and uses, as well as the dynamics of the adoption and integration patterns of LCA within business and industry.

In about 40 years, Hong Kong has, against all odds, developed from a relatively obscure entrepot into a thriving industrial and financial economy of world renown. While such a complete metamorphosis constitutes an intriguing story, what of its future? Challenges of creeping, if not steadily proliferating, mercantilist forces and changing international division of labour aside, the capitalist city-economy of Hong Kong is now faced with the problem of changing governance. In all conscience, the future of Hong Kong, especially its post-1997 destiny as a free-market economy, as many have argued, hangs in the balance.;Focusing on relationships concerning trade in manufactures, industrial restructuring and economic development against a background of data, this book offers an examination of the evolution and characteristics of Hong Kong's postwar economy in a historical and comparative perspective, its symbiotic connection with South China in the light of China's open-door policy since late 1970s, as well as a thoughtful assessment of its current turning point.; Despite its emphasis on the economy of Hong Kong, this book has a broader objective - to contribute to the debate on alternative

This book presents the state-of-the-art in manufacturing engineering from the German perspective. Through the evaluation and analysis of the following 5 key issues: 1. Business Strategies. 2.Product Development. 3.Manufacturing Systems and Processes. 4.Production Plans. 5.The Environment, new manufacturing strategies to achieve a competitive edge are presented. The text is comprehensively supported by industrial examples from leading German and multi-national companies.

This book discusses both competitive and game theory models of industry growth through new technology, innovations and new entry, and provides a comprehensive treatment of various dynamic models of entry, applications of efficiency and entry models in computers and the pharmaceuticals industry, and applied models of Differential Games. The book analyzes the theory of Schumpeterian innovations and its impact on the selection and adjustment process in industry evolution, and emphasizes the applied and empirical aspects of evolutionary dynamics, with a case study of the computer industry over the years 1985-2000.

The aim of this book is to contribute to the understanding of product innovation - how it takes place and how it affects firms and the economy. It links product innovation to interactive learning and to the performance of firms. It studies the interconnections between these three elements on the basis of unique data sets and detailed case studies. The book will prove helpful for managers, employees and policy makers as well as for scholars and students who want to understand the role of product innovation in the economy.
In the book it is shown that product innovation is of major importance. For the economy as a whole, the introduction of new products is fundamental for economic growth. Process innovation without product innovation would sooner or later result in economic stagnation and in what has been called ???technological unemployment???. In turbulent sectors product innovation is necessary for firms to survive and grow.
The book also shows that product innovation is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon. In order to capture this complexity authors combine different theoretical perspectives, different levels of aggregation, and different methodological approaches.

This book delves into the nature of governance in Asia both at government and corporate level. It reviews the history and suggests potential solutions for years of underperformance due to the corrupt practices that have developed because of a poor understanding of corporate governance. The authors are experts in practices in Asia and their views are expressed in a sympathetic manner, at no time insisting that a western model of governance is correct. Instead the authors advise local models appropriate to the state of development and suggest that individual countries institute behavioral models that will mature as nations quickly develop in an increasingly global world.

Some goods and services are normally left to the market mechanism. Health care is often described as an exception to the rule. Society wants care to be allocated equitably; it wants the financial burden to be kept within bounds; it wants treatments to be both medically effective and economically efficient. These shared concerns lead to a demand for State intervention which this book seeks impartially to appraise and evaluate.

This early work on Weaving was originallly published in 1831, The egyptians were the first civilized people of whom there are any authentic records, and to them the neighbouring nations were chiefly indebted for there knowledge in the arts and sciences: among which was the art of weaving, especially of fine linen, for which there were widely famed. This is a comprehensive and informative look at the subject and will appeal to any historian. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and icreasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

This scholarly yet accessible book provides an introduction to the main topics in production economics. The book successfully integrates two historically distinct perspectives on modeling technology: from microeconomics and engineering.