Search results

The ultimate goal of competitiveness is the well being of the citizens of a country. From this perspective, this study investigates the contribution of international competitiveness on per capita income, human development, and inequality in 45 countries of the world. Correlation and regression analysis were conducted to determine the relationships. The results indicate that international competitiveness positively influences per capita income and human development. Competitiveness also influences the reduction of inequality in a country. Longitudinal studies with more country data needs to be conducted to further the relationships established through cross‐sectional research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the competitiveness and convergence of the G7 and big emerging markets (BEM) nations using various economic, demographic, trade, investment, and freedom and governance criteria.

The two groups of nations, G7 and BEM, are compared on the basis of various longitudinal and cross‐sectional variables. The longitudinal variables are GDP and real GDP growth, per capita GDP, international trade, foreign direct investment, index of ageing, and life expectancy at birth. Cross‐sectional competitive indices are Global competitiveness index, index of economic freedom, Democracy index, Human development index, Gini index, Government effectiveness, and Corruption perception index.

The findings show that BEM is growing faster than G7 in most economic indicators including GDP, trade, and investment. The growth results in some form of convergence. The freedom and governance infrastructure of the BEM is relatively weak to support their economic growth. The primary challenge of the BEM is coming from the economic interdependence they create in a globalized economy. Overall, the growth presents a new political reality that the world must recognize.

National competitiveness is a long‐term issue. A 30‐year longitudinal analysis may not be long enough to accurately reflect a nation's performance. Evidently, wealth creation in the emerging markets has profound influence in noneconomic areas. Political polarization and military confrontation are not unlikely.

Governments and businesses in G7, BEM, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) nations and institutions involved in global governance (e.g. World Bank, IMF, and WEF) may use the findings of the study to determine their policies. We should pay special attention to the global economic interdependence and guard against the negative effects of emerging markets' growth.

The comparative analysis between the G7 and BEM in terms of competitiveness and convergence is an original contribution. Also, the author's insight beyond economics is a unique section to follow. The author is not aware of any other study that has used the two concepts competitiveness and convergence together to understand the emerging markets.

Competitiveness is one of the most misunderstood concepts of the 1990s. It has drawn substantial attention from the government and business communities during the last 25 years. Morrisson et al. (1988) noted that between 1983 and 1987, the term competitiveness appeared more than 5700 times in the titles of newspapers and magazine articles. The growth of importance and interest can also be observed from the increase in the bibliographical entries in ABI/Inform database. From 1981 to 1986, the topic “international competitiveness” increased by about 26 listings per year (a total of 159 in 6 years) and the rate increased to 45 listings per year from 1987 to 1993. Academic interest in the area has also increased and as a result, new developments contemplating conceptualization and understanding of competitiveness are taking place. However, to no one's surprise, writers from different disciplines offer a variation in perspective when describing the concept, understanding, and postulation of competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a cooperation‐driven stage in the traditional framework of country competitiveness development and also suggest an approach to address pragmatic issues related to cooperation in the context, particularly, competitiveness evaluation and choice of partner country.

The objectives of the research were achieved by a research design that leveraged quantitative tools with strength of case study research. Quantitative data for benchmarking were obtained from a carefully selected Country Competitiveness Report. For identifying criteria of competitiveness for success of a country (aka critical success factors CSF), content analysis of strategic reports from competitive countries was employed.

Cooperative strategies and flagship firms emerged to be CSFs that can drive investment needed for innovation and technology development, the later stages in country competitiveness development framework. Evaluation of competitiveness can be quite difficult and resource‐intensive process, but can be improved with innovative mix of different approaches and tools. With quite consistent and effective results in one more international context and a new industry, the assets‐processes‐performance (APP) framework of competitiveness can provide a simple, yet valuable approach with flexibility to adapt across levels and contexts, a vital need.

Competitiveness leaders should review cooperation processes and performance. They should evolve strategies to leverage cooperation on relevant dimensions.

A key contribution of this paper is proposing a vital cooperation‐driven stage for country competitiveness and operationlizing it using three major frameworks of competitiveness in a practical and useful context of nanotechnology, when many countries are evolving their strategies for such industries. An approach is tested to simplify evaluation of competitiveness in a difficult context of emerging industries. It can help leadership take more informed critical decisions about competitiveness and assess their impact for enhancing desired impacts of the decisions. For the purpose, comparing three alternatives, the author extends the APP framework with strategy concept of CSF to enhance its flexibility, thus contributing to needs of effectiveness and simplicity of emerging country context.

This paper aims to examine the convergence in per-capita income (measured as per-capita net state domestic product) of regions in India during the period 1990–1991 to 2017–2018. Two separate analyses have also been done for the sub-periods, i.e., 1990–1991 to 2003–2004 and 2004–2005 to 2017–2018, to find out the effect of the second phase of economic liberalization in India.

In a panel data study, the estimation of absolute and conditional beta (β)-convergence and sigma (σ)-convergence across 17 Indian regions have been done. To measure the dispersion of per-capita income across the regions in India, the standard deviation of logs, Gini coefficient, Mehran measure, Piesch measure, Kakwani measure and Theil index have been estimated. In addition to this, these indices have been regressed over time.

This study finds the presence of absolute and conditional β-convergence; the regions with low initial per-capita income have grown faster than the regions with high initial per-capita income. Further, this study finds that foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow and the availability of power enhance growth across regions. However, this study finds the presence of σ-divergence, which indicates that the economic inequality among the regions in India has widened over the periods, calling for policy interventions to promote growth in the backward regions through the promotion of FDI inflow and the availability of power.

This study highlights the rising economic inequality among the regions in India by analyzing the latest available data through appropriate econometric techniques.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the US News and World Report's competitive ratings of US universities with various state level demographic variables using cross‐sectional data.

Secondary data for the study were collected from the US News and World Report, Demographics USA, other US statistical sources. Regression and correlation analysis determined the relationships.

Findings indicate that the competitive rating of the US News and World Report universities can be explained by the Buying Power Index (BPI) of the state in which the university is located, per capita federal transfer payments in education, and proportion of out‐of‐state students. International students and ethnic enrollment also show some relationship with competitive rating. Diversity adds to competitiveness. The ratings of the universities are related to the BPI of the state and per capita federal transfer, both of which are uncontrollable variables for the university administrators.

One‐year cross‐sectional data and quasi‐scientific rating of US News and World Report pose to be a limitation of the study. Longitudinal data could better substantiate the findings of the study.

Shows how universities can improve their competitiveness by bringing more diversity to their student body as out‐of‐state students, international students and/or ethnic diversity seem to influence the competitiveness ratings.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of competitiveness, strategic direction (SD), and competencies on the level of globalization and technology development in Thai firms from the executive perspective.

A pilot survey of 64 respondents in executive MBA programs was employed to identify the strategic factors that influence globalization and technology development.

The analysis specified important factors linked to SD, strategic management competencies, and global actions related to globalization performance and technology development. To achieve a better global performance and business development, Thai companies should adopt global standards, select potential international partners, use cross‐national projects, and focus more on the level of globalization of their operations. Top managers in strategy or business operations in high‐performing firms perceive a significantly higher globalization performance and technology development.

The survey was limited to the perceptions of executive participants in Thailand using a survey only in English.

Thai executives need more effective strategic approaches to compete in the global marketplace and to determine the appropriate strategies to achieve a global level of performance and increased technology competence.

The paper shows that the strategic competencies and global competencies of executives play a significant role in firms' level of global performance and technology development. These competencies support effective strategies to improve the competitiveness of Thai companies on a global level.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated framework that conceptualizes multifaceted antecedents pertaining to international expansion of Asian emerging multinational enterprise (MNEs) in relation to firm performance. The author argues that the accelerated process of Asian emerging MNEs internationalization appears to be a historically significant change in the way business is conducted.

The paper tests how internationalization expansion path, geographic scope, industry and firm characteristics affect Asian emerging MNEs performance in a sample of 115 Asian MNEs over the period 2003‐2006.

The results indicate that an emerging MNE's institutional heritage and its own internationalization strategy are likely to create specific preference for operating in differing geographic regions. On the other hand, the results also indicate that domestic growth rate, global market growth rate and R&D investment influence the degree of internationalization of Asian emerging MNEs.

Future studies may apply time series data and require additional empirical research using samples from other emerging markets such as Eastern European, Russia and South America. Addressing industry‐specific effects, and/or examine the influence of company characteristics would clearly add to this study.

Asian merging MNEs have certain advantages over large developed country's MNEs, including greater flexibility, efficiency, quality and advantage‐seeking behavior, which allow an emerging multinational enterprise MNE to develop capabilities to succeed in the international markets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the ranking of countries based on the World Economic Forum's (WEF') competitiveness index is changed when the underlying primitive data dimensions of this composite index are aggregated using weights that are endogenously determined for each country, instead of aggregated using the WEF's fixed set of weights applied to all countries.

The paper presents a method based on data envelopment analysis to determine weights for aggregating the underlying primitive data dimensions of any composite indicator. The approach determines endogenously the “best” weights a given observational unit (e.g. country) on the basis of its revealed performance on each primitive sub‐dimension underlying a composite index. The ranking of countries based on the values of a composite competitiveness index that uses the proposed endogenous weight method is then compared to the ranking based on the WEF's competitiveness index for the year 2006. The rankings are then compared and assessed to determine if the observed difference in the rankings are statistically significant.

A comparison of the ranking of countries on the basis of the value of each index reveals that countries do undergo a change in their competitiveness rank when endogenous weights are used. The results suggest the WEF's competitiveness index, which uses the same fixed weights applied to every country (or group of countries), creates a bias that favors countries that score high on the “technology” sub‐dimension of the index.

The study presents an alternative to the current practice of using a fixed set of weights applied uniformly to the basic unit of analysis. The method serves as a starting‐point for further research on the biases created by different weighting schemes to construct a composite indicator that aggregates primitive data, with the resulting composite index values then used to rank entities.

The method to determine endogenously the weights to be applied to each unit of analysis when constructing a composite indicator is novel and has wide applicability to the general issue of comparing performance across different units of analysis based on a composite index of performance (i.e. benchmarking).

This paper seeks to examine the effects of communications infrastructure and other traditionally‐investigated, market‐related factors on net investment inflows into developed versus emerging markets.

Hypotheses are developed and tested empirically using auto‐regression analysis. Data are used from 38 countries (19 developing and 19 developed) over a ten‐year period (1995‐2004).

Findings are consistent with the view that research models of the drivers of investment inflows should consider markets' levels of economic development, different time frames, and macro‐economic changes in the global market.

Communications infrastructure influences a country's ability to attract foreign investment. Extrapolation of the results to other places and times should be done with caution.

Managers should carefully examine the information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure before investing in foreign countries to determine suitability to supporting achievement of company objectives. Policy makers that wish to attract foreign investment should strengthen country ICT capacity and, especially for emerging economies, complementary capabilities and telecommunications utilization.

The research highlights the importance of communications infrastructure for attracting inward foreign investment and suggests that technological infrastructure and human utilization of communications impact investment inflows, but only during a certain time frame in the development process of market economies.