Search results

The purpose of this paper is to discuss literature and empirical evidence on regulatory independence especially in telecommunications and to suggest reforms of this institution.

The paper comprises a survey of the literature plus new empirical evidence on de facto independence.

The study finds that independence has a positive and significant, but modest, impact on network penetration, once de facto issues and endogeneity are taken into account.

De facto independence can only be superficially approached with quantitative methods and the instruments used to correct for endogeneity are far from perfect.

Regulatory agencies may find ways to improve their effectiveness.

The paper provides ideas on how to solve the dilemma between expertise and accountability in the particular field of telecommunications regulation.

The paper provides data about the vulnerability of independent regulation in telecommunications in Latin America until 2010.

This paper aims to analyze how emerging market firms upgrade their capabilities by focusing on “uncommoditizing strategies” that enable them to achieve levels of international competitiveness beyond the comparative advantages of their home countries and serve markets with premium pricing, quality and reputation of products.

In this paper, the authors studied 18 Latin American companies across six countries. Latin America represents an ideal setting because many of these countries have traditionally developed using natural resource endowments, and their firms have tended to rely on these in their internationalization. To facilitate the analysis of each case and the comparisons across cases, the authors used the same analytical framework for the companies, identifying the sources of differentiation and cost efficiency strategies that enabled these firms to upgrade their capabilities and compete on the basis of premium pricing, quality and reputation.

The analysis identified a general framework that represents an abstraction of the actions taken by these companies over time. The proposed model consists of three main elements used to pursue uncommoditizing strategies: tropicalized innovation, global efficiency and coordinated control.

Recent research on emerging market firms has shown interest in how these firms upgrade their capabilities. This paper contributes to this stream of research by providing an overarching framework that not only bridged previous narrower studies but also explained how firms can develop uncommoditizing strategies to upgrade their capabilities. Further, this paper helps managers by providing a comprehensive yet succinct overview of the main strategies that they can use to help their firms to achieve international competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the consumption of an international consumer product fad.

A literature review of the concepts that can be related to an international fad was conducted, which included the study of the product life cycle, CAGE distances, the herd behavior, the consumer behavior in social media, the conformism and perceived newness. To know more about the subject, the Gin case was studied. The quantitative study began to define an initial model with the variables that can have impact on the consumption of the Gin. Based on the initial model, a survey was built and conducted, obtaining 143 valid responses. The data were analyzed on the basis of the structural equation modeling.

The results verified the positive impact of need for group differentiation on the consumption Gin. The perceived newness had a direct impact on its consumption. An international fad lasts while it is differentiator for the consumer, so the herd behavior influence was not validated.

This study had a limitation in terms of responses. This study was made using a practical case of beverage, so its applicability to other types of products is limited.

This study is about consumer fads. It characterizes the key concepts in various moments of a fad: the implementation, the evolution of its consumption and its end. The study identifies the variables that have a positive impact on the consumption of a real fad. Data from sales geography diffusion in time are also analyzed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore three sociocultural themes common to migrant and seasonal farmworkers and to demonstrate the value of incorporating oral history into healthcare practice and quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods research programs, as oral history is a culturally sensitive approach to working with vulnerable populations.

This paper examines 17 oral histories from farmworkers residing in Ottawa County, Michigan, in the late summer of 2014. The theoretical framework section has two aims. First, it explains the significance of “cultural sensitivity” and “deep structure” to the practice of effective healthcare. Second, it introduces oral history as a form of deep structure cultural sensitivity.

Three themes emerge from the collected oral histories: stress/anxiety of undocumented status, honor/worth of honest work, and the importance of educating migrant children. Undocumented status is found to be the hub of farmworker health inequities while worth of work and education are described as culturally sensitive points of conversation for healthcare workers engaging with this population. Finally, oral history is found to be a useful method for establishing the deep structure of cultural sensitivity.

This paper gives a voice to farmworkers, an inconspicuous population that disproportionately suffers from health inequities. In addition, this paper acts as a case study promoting the use of oral history as a novel, culturally sensitive research method.

This study aims to extend the proposal of Holmqvist with regard to organisational processes of learning and their impact on firm performance.

Based on a survey of 187 firms, the paper shows that certain organisational processes of learning are related to innovation performance. Further, it investigates the moderating role of product radicalness on such relationships.

Based on a survey of 187 firms, the paper shows that certain organisational processes of learning are related to innovation performance. Further, it investigates the moderating role of product radicalness on such relationships and proves that the other two types of organisational learning processes are not related to innovation performance.

The innovation performance of collaboration between firms has not received a great deal of attention in the literature. This research paper offers some guidelines on how to obtain great advantages from this collaboration.

The speed of new product development (NPD) has been a key factor in a firm's degree of competitiveness. The tools and philosophy of quality management have been widely used to improve and control product quality. However, there is a lack of literature on the relationship between quality management and NPD. This paper aims to report on a study that investigates the influence of quality management on the speed of NPD.

The philosophy of quality management refers to total quality management (TQM). Tools for quality management include teamwork, continuous improvement (CI), value analysis (VA) and quality function deployment (QFD). This study begins by comparing literature in concurrent engineering (CE) and TQM, which leads to several common principles and five hypotheses. The hypotheses are tested using survey data from 700 manufacturing companies in 20 countries.

The research reveals that TQM, Team, VA and QFD are positively correlated with the speed of NPD, meaning that the tools and philosophy of quality management have a positive influence on the speed of NPD. However, no relationship is found between CI and the speed of NPD.

This paper tests hypotheses using survey data. It reveals the empirical relationship between quality management and the speed of NPD but does not provide details regarding the mechanism of influence between the two. Consequently, case studies should be conducted in the future to probe into the details. Additionally, new quality methods like Six Sigma can also be included in a future study, since Six Sigma covers both quality and NPD.

This study proposes that companies that have implemented TQM and other quality management tools will have a better foundation for implementing new NPD approaches like CE and design for manufacturing and assembly. This is especially encouraging for those original engineering manufacturing (OEM) firms that would like to change from OEM to original design manufacturing/original brand manufacturing (ODM/OBM). OEM companies typically implement TQM but invest very little in NPD.

This paper fills the gap in research exploring the links between quality management and NPD. It addresses the concern over whether quality management may hinder NPD. The critical issues for implementing quality management such as culture change, learning, change management, and team building can all be applied to implementing NPD methods such as CE. The result also supports the concept of “design the quality into products”. It is beneficial for employees in quality and NPD to share and work together.