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The objective of this paper is to survey the recent developments in economic theories of buyer power and using the theories as a guide to discuss how antitrust cases involving buyer power can be analysed. An important conclusion that emerges from this survey is that the competition effects of buyer power are quite different depending on whether it is monopsony power against powerless suppliers or countervailing buyer power against large suppliers with market power. A proposed framework of antitrust analysis is presented, and issues related to market definitions and determination of buyer power are discussed.

For central banks who study the use of cash, acceptance of card payments is an important factor. Surveys to measure levels of card acceptance and the costs of payments can be complicated and expensive. In this paper, we exploit a novel data set from Hungary to see the effect of stratified random sampling on estimates of payment card acceptance and usage. Using the Online Cashier Registry, a database linking the universe of merchant cash registers in Hungary, we create merchant and transaction level data sets. We compare county (geographic), industry and store size stratifications to simulate the usual stratification criteria for merchant surveys and see the effect on estimates of card acceptance for different sample sizes. Further, we estimate logistic regression models of card acceptance/usage to see how stratification biases estimates of key determinants of card acceptance/usage.

This chapter investigates whether core competence of managers and their expansive (vs. specialized) managerial style affects firms' innovative ability, capacity, and efficiency. Using exogenous CEO departures as a natural experiment, it establishes a causal link between managerial capability and innovation. Importantly, it reveals that firms with talented managers receive significantly more nonself citations; make significantly lower self-citations and lesser citations to the others, indicating novel and explorative innovation achievements. Also, managers with higher general (specialized) ability are cited more (less) by patents from a wider range of fields. Lastly, career concern is identified as a mechanism linking higher ability and innovation.

A wave of technological change in the first decades of the twenty-first century is prefiguring a fundamental restructuring of society. Key among the driving forces behind such change are powerful technologies with the potential to exert major transformations on a range of human activities and, crucially, to do so without direct human intervention. The technologies collectively referred to as Artificial Intelligence, or AI represent a productive lens through which to investigate two interrelated transformations: the emergence of self-driving cars and the coming shifts in education. This is in particular because AI’s versatility has led it to be directly applied (and increasingly valued) both in new automated driving technologies, and in the development of new forms of instruction. From the educational perspective, this means that the same technologies that are transforming workforce conditions are also reshaping – directly and indirectly – the approaches, objectives, and experiences of students and educational institutions. This chapter lays out how these twin transformations are likely to play out in the case of the automotive industry and the educational pathways of two occupations closely associated with it: automotive engineers and repair technicians. Two key arguments underpin this examination. First, educational programs for these two occupations, (and beyond) should be broadened to develop versatility and adaptability through tools and perspectives that allow people to move vertically within organizations and laterally across industries in the face of rapid technological change. Second, these educational programs must explicitly tackle AI and the coming technological revolution from a variety of dimensions that connect technical skills acquisition with the context on how these technologies are incorporated in society, how they are governed, and what are the various responses to them. This will allow students and professionals to navigate a rapidly changing labor landscape better while endowing them with the vocabulary to actively participate in the debates that shape its construction.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.