Business Commons^™

Technology On The Factory Floor Ii: Benchmarking Manufacturing Technology Use In The Usa, Paul Swamidass

Paul Swamidass

This monograph is the result of the second joint effort of the Manufacturing Institute of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the author for studying the use of fifteen different manufacturing technologies in the US. Timely support by the National Science Foundation enabled this second study to be expanded to a larger number of participants. A total of 1,121 members of NAM participated in this study. Hard technologies studied were: AGV, CAD, CAM, CIM, CNC, FMS, LAN, Robotics and automated inspection, and soft technologies studied were: TQM, JIT, SQC, MRP, MRP II, and manufacturing cells.

Selected findings are: CAD, …

Use Today's Technology To Improve Customer Contact, Douglas J. Swanson Ed.D Apr

Douglas J. Swanson, Ed.D APR

No abstract provided.

Reaching Entrepreneurs Where They Live And Work: A Communication And Marketing Strategy For The Oklahoma Home-Based Business Association, Douglas J. Swanson Ed.D Apr

Douglas J. Swanson, Ed.D APR

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Public Information Arrival, Thomas Berry, Keith Howe

Thomas D Berry

The authors develop a measure of public information flow to financial markets and use it to document the patterns of information arrival, with an emphasis on the intraday flows. The measure is the number of news releases by Reuter's News Service per unit of time. The authors find that public information arrival is nonconstant, displaying seasonalities and distinct intraday patterns. Next they relate their measure of public information to aggregate measures of intraday market activity. The authors' results suggest a positive, moderate relationship between public information and trading volume but an insignificant relationship with price volatility. Copyright 1994 by American …

Guarding Your Company's Intellectual Property Rights: Patents, Trademarks, And Copyright Protection, Douglas J. Swanson Ed.D Apr

Douglas J. Swanson, Ed.D APR

No abstract provided.

Home-Based Business Owners: A Market Worth Pursuing, Douglas J. Swanson Ed.D Apr

Douglas J. Swanson, Ed.D APR

No abstract provided.

Black Women Managers And Participatory Action Research, Gloria Gordon Phd

Gloria Gordon PhD

This paper informs on the work of an action research group set up to investigate the status and experiences of black women managers within an organisational context in the UK. It relates how the group rapidly becomes a ‘participatory’ action research group when it is recognised that the black women managers share the common perception that theirs’ is an experience of oppression and potential powerlessness in their organisational setting. Empowerment results as common experiences shared are identified also the immediate and longer term steps being taken towards their ‘emancipation’.

Wage Bargaining With Time-Varying Threats, Peter Cramton, Joseph Tracy

Peter Cramton

We study wage bargaining in which the union is uncertain about the firm's willingness to pay and threat payoffs vary over time. Strike payoffs change over time as replacement workers are hired, as strikers find temporary jobs, and as inventories or strike funds run out. We find that bargaining outcomes are substantially altered if threat payoffs vary. If dispute costs increase in the long-run, then dispute durations are longer, settlement rates are lower, and wages decline more slowly during the short-run (and may even increase). The settlement wage is largely determined from the long-run threat, rather than the short-run threat.

The Determinants Of U.S. Labor Disputes, Peter Cramton, Joseph Tracy

Peter Cramton

We present a bargaining model of union contract negotiations, in which the union decides between two threats: the union can strike or continue to work under the expired contract. The model makes predictions about the level of dispute activity and the form the disputes take. Strike incidence increases as the strike threat becomes more attractive, because of low unemployment or a real wage drop during the prior contract. We test these predictions by estimating logistic models of dispute incidence and dispute composition for U.S. labor contract negotiations from 1970 to 1989. We find empirical support for the model's key predictions, …

Relational Investing And Agency Theory, Peter Cramton, Ian Ayres

Peter Cramton

This Article analyzes how, and when, corporate governance could be improved by utilizing "relational investing." The term relational investing is just coming into vogue and there does not yet seem to be a consensus on what it means. Although the term has been trumpeted on the cover of Business Week, before the Conference on Relational Investing at Columbia University, relatively little legal writing had been published on the subject. For the purposes of this Article, we define relational investing to encompass commitments to buy and hold significant blocks of a corporation's stock. And it is particularly important that the relational …

Tricks Of The Trade For Trade Shows (Part 2), Douglas J. Swanson Ed.D Apr

Douglas J. Swanson, Ed.D APR

No abstract provided.

Aggregate Convergence And Sectoral Specialization In Innovation, Mario Pianta, Daniele Archibugi

Mario Pianta

Over the last 20 years OECD countries have converged in terms of their innovation, in parallel to the process of economic convergence and catching-up in technology. However, this has not led to a similarity in the sectoral strenghts of the majority of countries. Applying a measure of "technological distance" between pairs of countries based on patents, it is shown that nations have increased their technological specialization (i.e their sectoral differences) over the 1980s. An apparent paradox is pointed out, as countries converge by becoming more different and grow by becoming more specialized.