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Bonus pools, in which a worker’s realized bonus depends both on a worker’s share of the pool (which serves as the incentive) and on the size of the pool (which is largely outside of the worker’s control), are a common method for distributing incentive pay. Using data on the variation in the size of the bonus pool generated by a US manufacturing plant’s gainsharing plan, which varies incentives for quality and worker engagement, the authors evaluate the conditions under which such bonuses have incentive effects. Overall, results are cautionary: The evidence suggests gainsharing’s benefits operate outside of the incentive channel, and incentives may backfire if they are too small or too diluted by group performance metrics. The authors illustrate how random variation in the size of bonus pools offers researchers a powerful, readily available, and underused tool for studying how workers respond to the availability and strength of incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have developed an information processing theory of board effectiveness to examine board-chief executive officers ( CEOs) pay relations. We theorize that CEO pay reflects the information processing context of boards. Boards have limited information processing capacity and therefore prefer to use outcome-based CEO pay when they have difficulty in processing information for monitoring their CEOs. Using a longitudinal sample of Standard and Poor's (S&P's) large-, medium-, and small-cap manufacturing firms in the United States from 1998 through 2005, we found support for our theory. Large boards and boards in less complex monitoring contexts tend to link CEO pay less tightly to firm performance by providing less stock-based incentives, and the tendency of large boards to decrease outcome-based CEO pay is even greater when boards are not busy or when boards are in less complex monitoring contexts. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent economic events have sparked debates over the degree of structural mismatch in the U.S. economy. One of the most frequent claims is that workers lack the skills that employers demand. The existing literature, however, analyzes this potential mismatch at a high level of aggregation with abstract indices and noisy proxies that obscure the underlying mechanisms. The authors address these issues by presenting and analyzing results from a survey of U.S. manufacturing establishments. The survey is the first, to their knowledge, to directly measure concrete employer skill demands and hiring experiences in a nationally representative survey at the industry level. The findings indicate that demand for higher-level skills is generally modest, and that three-quarters of manufacturing establishments do not show signs of hiring difficulties. Among the remainder, demands for higher-level math and reading skills are significant predictors of long-term vacancies, but demands for computer skills and other critical-thinking/problem-solving skills are not. Of particular interest, high-tech plants do not experience greater levels of hiring challenges. When the authors examine the potential mechanisms that could contribute to hiring difficulties, they find that neither external regional supply conditions nor internal firm practices are predictive of hiring problems. Rather, the data show that establishments that are members of clusters or that demand highly specialized skills have the greatest probability of incurring long-term vacancies. The authors interpret these results as a sign that it is important to think about factors that complicate the interaction of supply and demand—such as disaggregation and communication/coordination failures—rather than simply focusing on inadequate labor supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we evaluate the performance of US manufacturing and service operations in the presence of information technology (IT) as measured by technical efficiency, using firm-level data from 133 companies over the period from 1999 to 2009. To gain insight into the phenomenon of the 'IT productivity paradox', or the history of inconsistent findings in the existing literature, we employ a Bayesian stochastic production frontier approach to model the relationship between performance and technical efficiency at the firm, industry and sector levels. Some results are indicative of a slight advantage of the manufacturing sector over the service sector in terms of technical efficiency and a significant positive contribution of IT-investment to firm output. However, other results do suggest the productivity paradox, because of a lack of any definitive association of high IT investment levels with either high- or low-technical efficiency. Indeed, the findings of this study suggest that the origin of some portion of the IT productivity paradox may exist at the industry level, in that the relationship between extreme levels of IT-investment and extreme levels of technical efficiency appear to work differently in sufficiently different industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a model of sluggish firm entry to explain short‐run labor responses to technology shocks. We show that the labor response to technology and its persistence depend on the degree of returns to labor and the rate of firm entry. Existing empirical results support our theory based on short‐run labor responses across U.S. industries. We derive closed‐form transition paths that show the result occurs because labor adjusts instantaneously while firms are sluggish, and closed‐form eigenvalues show that stricter entry regulation results in slower convergence to steady state. Finally, we show that our theoretical results hold in a quantitative model with capital accumulation and interest rate dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US military operates some of the largest and most complex supply chains in the world and their experience provides insight into a variety of supply chain issues. This paper taps that experience to study how the design of a supply chain is influenced by its economic environment. Consider these circumstances: the military is not a profit-seeking enterprise, they want to achieve a particular state of readiness and cost is secondary to that goal. Modern weapons systems are complex, expensive, push the envelope of technology, and the volume requisitioned is often small such that few manufacturers can afford to be in the business; and these expensive weapons systems operate in harsh operating conditions where wear and tear is substantial, consequently remanufacturing of systems and parts is a critical source of supply. Focusing on the supply chain of the US Army, this paper uses an economic model to study their responses to these conditions, how supply chain design is affected by these conflicting goals, and how those designs affect cost and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: To estimate the additional health care costs incurred by two U.S. manufacturing companies due to their policies related to shift work and long work hours. Methods: We applied risk ratios from the published literature to data on 2647 workers from Company A and 1346 workers from Company B to estimate the excess cases of several chronic conditions in the worker population due to shift work and long work hours. We estimated the annual health care costs incurred by the companies by applying Medicare cost data. Results: Excess annual health care costs related to shift work totaled $1,394,365 and $300,297 for Companies A and B, respectively. Excess annual costs related to long work hours totaled $231,293 and $107,902 for Companies A and B, respectively. Conclusions: Excess health care costs related to shift work and long work hours is substantial, but may not be large enough to compel companies to alter their work scheduling policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1In theory, competition improves productivity and performance; trade liberalisation, which increases imports/exports, brings more competition. Using two large-scale survey responses from over 1000 manufacturers collected during two different time periods while US exports were growing in an environment of trade liberalisation, this study examines the effectiveness of technologies, over time, in manufacturing plants with varying export intensities. We find manufacturing technology use increases with exports and exporters report significant gains in plant performance over time. The study considers hard technologies (i.e. technologies involving capital-intensive equipment in manufacturing operations) and soft technologies (i.e. technologies involving planning and administrative components) to understand the distinct dynamic impact of the use of these technologies among plants exporting with varying intensities. Manufacturing plants are categorised into high, medium, and non-exporting based on the plant's exports as a percent of total output. The results of this study indicates that exporters engage in more skilled use of these technologies than non-exporters. Further, exporters not only have higher skilled use of manufacturing technologies from non-exporters, but they also expand the scope of technologies that they skillfully employ in their operations. We find that over the course of liberalised trade regime, medium exporters get closer to high exporters in their skilled use of manufacturing technologies providing evidence of learning effect from exporting. Finally, higher skilled use of manufacturing technologies by high exporters translates into lower rejects and shorter lead times. However, non-exporters were not able to gain similar benefits from using manufacturing technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated inventory reduction and firm performance in US manufacturing firms during the period 1990 to 2009. Our findings show that, the practice of JIT principles in US manufacturing has reduced the difference between the top 10% performers and the bottom 10% performers when they are compared on total inventory/sales ratio. We offer a few explanations for this empirical finding in the conclusions section. This study was motivated to investigate the counter-intuitive findings reported by Swamidass (2007. The effect of TPS on US manufacturing during 1981–1998: inventory increased or decreased as a function of plant performance. International Journal of Production Research 45 (16): 3763–3778) regarding the JIT effect on the relationship between inventory reduction and firm performance. We replicated Swamidass’s procedures by using Altman’s Z score and all firms in SIC 3400–3990 whose annual data were available from the Compustat database between 1990 and 2009. In contrast to Swamidass’s findings, we found that the mean estimate of total inventory/sales ratios of the bottom 10% group showed significant inventory reduction over the test period, and such reduction mainly occurred during the 1990s. We also found that the bottom 10% group was very successful in reducing work-in-process inventory and such reduction mainly occurred during the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: Describe manufacturing workers' perceptions of the effect of shift work, following the Framework for Worker Well-Being. Methods: Eight focus groups and 43 interviews were conducted across four large manufacturing plants. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data within each of the five domains of the Framework: physical environment and safety climate; workplace policies and culture; health status; work evaluation and experience; and home, community, and society. Results: Respondents described shift work as detrimental to well-being across four of the five Framework domains. The exception was in the workplace policies and culture domain, where some respondents described shift work as necessary, fair, and financially beneficial. Conclusions: Shift work negatively influences worker well-being in a holistic way. Employers could consider reconfiguring workplace wellness benefits to transcend the boundaries of the workplace and better support workers and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dietary supplement marketers assure the safety of their products by complying with current good manufacturing practices and a host of federal regulations, including those enforced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Post-market surveillance is a key part of identifying safety problems associated with dietary supplement products. FDA requires dietary supplement marketers to provide a domestic address or phone number on product labels for consumers, family members, or health care professionals to report adverse events (AEs) associated with product use and to report all serious adverse events (SAEs) to the agency within 15 business days of receipt. We aimed to evaluate the characteristics of AEs reported with dietary supplement use, including dietary supplement type and Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) system organ class (SOC) that occur with reported SAEs. A total of 41,121 unique adverse event cases reported to two large, U.S.-based dietary supplement marketers in a 2.5-year period (March 1, 2014–August 31, 2016) were assessed for seriousness using established criteria. Each SAE was assigned one or more MedDRA preferred terms and system organ classes (SOC). The types of supplements most responsible for SAEs were assessed. Of the 41,121 AE cases reported, 203 (0.48%) were SAEs. SAEs tended to occur with products marketed for weight loss (69.0%) and glycemic control (19.2%). SAEs occurred most commonly in the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and nervous system disorder SOCs. The percentage of SAEs reported to dietary supplement marketers is low, predominantly among consumers of two types of supplements. Further study is needed among a larger cohort of supplement users to determine causal associations between types of supplement products and serious adverse events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms that are capable, undertake strategic renewal to ensure and reinforce a sustainable competitive advantage. Digitalisation is a major technological change; a strategic renewal that can deliver such an advantage. In this article, we adopt the theories of path dependence and strategic renewal to analyse the implementation and utilisation of digitalisation in the USA manufacturing industry based on qualitative interview data collected among policymakers, researchers and manufacturers. The analysis identified and described five US strengths (i.e. technology leaders, innovative tolerant culture, technology agnostic, market driven, speed) contributing industrial renewal through digitalisation, and five US weaknesses (i.e. technology driven, disorganised convergence, not part of the cultural identity, competitive not collaborative, short term perspective) inhibiting it. The strengths and weaknesses were further considered as they pertain to individuals, businesses and national policy. The study highlighted the systemic nature of the identified strengths and weaknesses, and suggested that in addition to policymakers, also research community and businesses should further strengthen what is already strong in the innovation system to indirectly mitigate the weaknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This article characterizes trajectories of work and disability leave across the tenure of a cohort of 49,595 employees in a large American manufacturing firm. Methods: We employ sequence and cluster analysis to group workers who share similar trajectories of work and disability leave. We then use multinomial logistic regression models to describe the demographic, health, and job-specific correlates of these trajectories. Results: All workers were clustered into one of eight trajectories. Female workers (RR 1.3 to 2.1), those experiencing musculoskeletal disease (RR 1.3 to 1.5), and those whose jobs entailed exposure to high levels of air pollution (total particulate matter; RR 1.9 to 2.4) were more likely to experience at least one disability episode. Conclusions: These trajectories and their correlates provide insight into disability processes and their relationship to demographic characteristics, health, and working conditions of employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data collected from US manufacturing firms, this research evaluates logistics service from the eyes of manufacturers. The study leads to a close look at how manufacturers view third party logistics services to provide important strategic and operational values to manufacturers. The results indicate that the building of a long-term relationship is mediated by trust and commitment from manufacturers. When manufacturers believe that the logistics service provider is honest and passionate, and care about their business, they will make a commitment toward a long-term business relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors estimate the effects of U.S. manufacturers' use of staffing services on measured employment and labor productivity between 1989 and 2009. Using time series data constructed from the Occupational Employment Statistics program, they document the dramatic increase in manufacturers' use of staffing services to fill core production occupations and to adjust employment levels during recessions. In 2006, just before the recent recession, staffing services added an estimated 9.2% to manufacturing employment, compared with only 2.3% in 1989. Outsourcing to staffing services significantly dampened measured employment volatility and inflated the growth and volatility of measured labor productivity in manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider boards as human groups in the uppermost echelon of corporations and examine how an informal hierarchy that tacitly forms among a firm's directors affects firm financial performance. This informal hierarchy is based on directors' deference for one another. We argue that the clarity of the informal hierarchy can help coordinate boardroom interactions and thereby improve the likelihood of the board's contributing productively to the firm's performance. We further identify a set of internal and external contingencies affecting the functioning of the informal hierarchy. Our analysis of seven-year panel data on 530 U.S. manufacturing firms provides support for our arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do unions really impede manufacturers' output flexibility? If so, in what ways? The authors propose a methodology for qualifying George Stigler's concept of output flexibility, and for decomposing the effects of unionization on average cost differences between union and non-union plants. Using a recently compiled data set on U.S. three-digit manufacturing industries from 1973 to 1996, they adapt this methodology to simulate the effects of unionization on flexibility and average costs for average-size plants. Simulation results indicate that higher unionization was associated with higher average costs and lower flexibility than low unionization. Higher average costs appear to have been primarily due to higher fixed costs, such as higher benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though lean manufacturing has been widely recognised for its effectiveness in continuously improving productivity, product quality, and on-time delivery to customers, the cost for hiring a full-time lean manufacturing engineer has kept many small businesses from implementing lean in their facilities. This paper presents a case study of lean implementation at a small manufacturer in the United States. Starting with collecting process information, a current value-stream map was created that reflected the current operation status. A future value stream map was then proposed to serve as a guide for future lean activities. Next, hurdles that kept the company from moving towards future state were identified. The '5 whys' method was employed to reveal the root cause for each hurdle, followed by kaizen events proposed as solutions. In this case study, two kaizen events were proposed. For the first kaizen event, Taguchi experiment design was used to find the optimal machining parameters that reduced variation in a plasma cutting process. It consequently eliminated rework time and improved productivity. In the second kaizen event, implementation of rabbit chasing increased the system flexibility and consequently reduced inventory levels between work stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of strategies used to appropriate innovation rents on firm performance is analyzed using a sample of U.S. public manufacturing firms. Stronger appropriability at the firm level, achieved through patent protection or the ownership of specialized complementary assets, leads to superior economic performance, as measured by the stock market valuation of a firm's R& D assets. Among commonly used ‘nonconventional’ patent strategies, preemptive patenting allows incumbents to strengthen their market power. Consistent with theory, such effect is higher for incumbents with higher ex ante market power and facing a higher threat of entry, and lower when R& D competition is characterized by the discovery of drastic innovations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates structural change among the four-digit (SIC) industries of the US manufacturing sector during 1958-1996 and its relation to productivity growth within a distribution dynamics framework. Focus is on the transition density of the Markov process that characterizes the value-added shares of the industries. This transition density is estimated nonparametrically as well as by maximum likelihood, in which case the functional form of the density is motivated by a search theoretic model, The nonparametric fit and the maximum likelihood fit show striking similarities. The relation of structural change to a measure of total factor productivity change is tested by quantile regression and appears to be significantly positive throughout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the outlook for growth in information services in the United States and calculates the wage bills for information and material workers in the two broad categories of product and service industries. The study is based on the distribution of gross national product in four supersectors--products versus services and information versus material--during 1967, 1992, and 1997. Occupations and sectors are classified in terms of market transaction or delivery form, tangible or intangible form, or the production process. Data includes the number of material and information workers in the employment and wage bill for 1999. Factors contributing to trends in the service economy, five differences in the material/information dichotomy, and management strategies are mentioned.

According to dynamic capability theory, some firms are better able than others at altering their resource base by adding, reconfiguring, and deleting resources or competences. This study focuses on the first form of dynamic capability: the competence to build new competences. Two such second-order competences are studied: the ability to explore new markets and the ability to explore new technologies—referred to as marketing and R&D second-order competences, respectively. Using two wave panel data on a sample of U.S. public manufacturing firms, five organizational antecedents of these second-order competences are examined: willingness to cannibalize, constructive conflict, tolerance for failure, environmental scanning, and resource slack. Willingness to cannibalize, constructive conflict, scanning, and slack have contemporaneous effects, while scanning also has a lagged effect and slack has a U-shaped lagged effect on marketing and R&D second-order competences. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 14 000 firm years of data (average number of firms per year times 18 years) were processed to investigate the effect of Toyota Production System (TPS) in high and low performing firms. This is a longitudinal study of the records of US manufacturing firms operating for the entire duration of 18 years from 1981 to 1998. Using industry data from COMPUSTAT† files, manufacturing firms covered by SIC 3400-3900 were ranked on performance. Evidence from the ranked companies shows that the ratio TI/S ((total inventory)/(sales)) declined significantly in the top and middle performers (top 10% and middle 10% in performance). In contrast, the study discovered that firms making the bottom 10% showed an unhealthy "inventory growth" trend in TI/S during 1981-1998; the better performers got better, and the weak performers got weaker with time. This discovery of the unwanted and unexpected growth in TI/S in bottom performers opens many new avenues for research stemming from questions such as: what is the source of the "inventory growth" problem in low performing firms in industries widely embracing TPS? How could the OM profession address the inventory growth problem facing low performers? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine the diffusion of the electric motor between 1880 and 1930. I find that long lag times are determined by the degree of technical difficulty in application. After solutions became available, electrification generally proceeded rapidly. To make this claim, I explore three industries: urban transit, printing and paper making. I identify points at which viable electric solutions to particular problems were found and examine adoption patterns both before and after these events. The explanation contrasts with common demand-side explanations such as costly user-adaptation or information diffusion, and imposes conditions on the application of standard supply side models. The results are particularly important when examining the diffusion of broadly defined technological categories, such as general-purpose technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been claimed that American employers' experiments in private welfare capitalism collapsed during the Great Depression, giving place to the welfare state and industrial unionism. Recent studies, however, reveal considerable differences in experience across firms. The author of this study,who characterizes private welfare capitalism as a set of human resource management practices constituting an implicit contract equilibrium, tests the implications of implicit contract theory using data from fourteen leading manufacturing firms. The repudiation of implicit contracts, she finds, was positively correlated with the severity of the depression's impact experienced by firms and negatively correlated with the effectiveness of "internal enforcement mechanisms" instituted by firms. Furthermore, she finds that greater breaches of implicit contracts were associated with greater employee support for industrial unions and more explicit employment contracts concluded under the New Deal. A comparative case study complements the quantitative analysis by exploring internal dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 will have a substantial impact on the financial service professional's practice. This article provides a summary and explanation of the key provisions of interest to professionals and their clients. Among the primary areas to be discussed are changes related to manufacturing businesses, flow-through entities, insurance, executive compensation, alternative minimum tax, and tax-shelter provisions, as well as other individual matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking an organizational learning and adaptation perspective, we compared "relay" CEO successions with nonrelay inside successions and outside successions. Data on 204 CEO successions between 1993 and 1998 in nondiversified U.S. manufacturing firms showed that the likelihood of relay succession was negatively associated with the number of internal candidates and positively associated with presuccession firm performance. We also found that relay successions led to better postsuccession firm performance, particularly at lower levels of presuccession firm performance and higher levels of postsuccession strategic and industry instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim was to explore the adoption of information technology (IT) by manufacturing firms. We identified where in the immediate supply chain IT has been adopted and explored the issues and benefits reported by the adopting firms. To move beyond case-specific examples prevalent in prior research, we chose to use a written survey, which was targeted at US manufacturing facilities. By employing both hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analysis on the 165 responses relative to five product flow positions within the firm, a taxonomy of five distinct IT adoption profiles was created and validated. Although the results indicated that the profiles were similar relative to demographic information (e.g. manufacturing process type) and top competitive priorities (e.g. on-time delivery, quick response, realistic schedules), the profiles differed relative to application utilization, application integration with a computer-based scheduling system (e.g. module of an ERP system) and reported benefits. Further, from the taxonomy an adoption orientation matrix was derived, analysed and then discussed in the context of profile progression to full adoption of the applications. Several propositions are presented and implications for future operations management research identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-run interindustry comovement may be due either to common shocks or to complementarities that progagate shocks across sectors. This paper assesses the importance of input-output linkages. aggregate activity spillovers, and local activity spillovers to comovement in postwar U.S. manufacturing. I find that input-output linkages and local activity spillovers are important to comovement. while aggregate activity spillovers are not important. I find that complementarities are important to aggregate volatility, even after I remove observable aggregate shocks from the data. Local spillovers are particularly important, explaining between 15 and 36 percent of manufacturing employment volatility. The importance of local spillovers stems from the fact that industries that cluster together in space also comove through time, contrary to the Marshallian idea that industries with negatively correlated fluctuations should cluster together in order to stabilize local demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how to properly specify and test for factors that affect exchange-rate exposure. Starting from theoretical underpinnings and a sample of U.S. manufacturing industries between 1979 and 1995, we find that 4 of 18 industry groups are significantly exposed to exchange-rate movements through the effect of industry competitive structure, export share, and imported input share. On average, a 1% appreciation of the dollar decreases the return of the average industry by 0.13%. Consistent with our model's predictions, as an industry's markups fall (rise), its exchange-rate exposure increases (decreases). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We test theories of product differentiation and firm capabilities using data from the U.S. automobile industry. We find managers introduce new models close to their existing ones but far from rival models. We also find entrants and foreign manufacturers locate models closer to rival models. These results are consistent with both economic models of product differentiation and theories of firm capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses frameworks from the strategic management and operations strategy literatures to explore the relationships among collaboration, technology, and innovation in small and medium-sized manufacturers. Statistical analysis of the responses of 200 New Hampshire manufacturing companies in four SIC code industries (fabricated metals, industrial equipment, electrical and electronic equipment, and instruments) leads to the development of a strategic supplier typology which is useful in explaining the differences in the composition and performance of various types of suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investments in dispersed foreign subsidiaries and international joint ventures (IJVs) are often thought to enhance corporate flexibility and thereby reduce risk. The authors tested these predictions from real options theory and the international strategy literature using a set of recently developed downside risk measures. The evidence reveals that U.S. manufacturing firms with greater multinationality or investment in IJVs do not generally obtain lower levels of downside risk. Implications for theory and future empirical research are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To obtain the greatest benefit from its information system, an organization must determine which applications will provide the most benefit to organizational performance. This study reviews data collected from 310 manufacturing firms in Israel and 197 such firms in the U.S. For each firm, data were obtained about the benefits derived from using information systems, as perceived by a senior manager, and the organization's operating characteristics. Data were pooled across both countries. No meaningful relationship was found between the benefit a firm derives from its overall information systems application portfolio and its organizational operating characteristics. However, for two individual applications, the benefit derived is linked significantly to the organization's operating characteristics. Thus the model relating benefits from information systems to the organization's operating environment, first demonstrated by data collected in Israel, is confirmed by the data collected in the U.S. The model applies across both countries, even though there may be differences between the two countries, for example, in culture, size of businesses, and relationship with customers and suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the dynamic interaction between financial conditions and investment by using company account data from manufacturing firms based in the United States. Financial business cycle theories concerning time and sectional heterogeneity; Role of financial factors in aggregate fluctuations; Relevance of financial factors for corporate investment decisions.

Some companies are heavily reliant on the capabilities of their manufacturing technology for product competitiveness. Likewise, the capabilities of a manufacturing technology are dependent on the sourcing policy that the host company practices. This paper describes research that has explored a wide variety of US companies to understand manufacturing technology sourcing policies and how they have been formed. This research finds that there is a preference amongst the US organizations studied not to become involved with equipment manufacture, though some examples of full integration do occur. These policies are not determined by formalized decision processes, rather they are formed implicitly during technology choice. In this research, factors that influence a technology source have been identified. These drivers are then used to establish a methodology that will help practising managers to form a technology sourcing decision. This methodology takes into account the business demands placed on a technology, along with the characteristics of the host company's supplier base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A few studies (Jaikumar 1986) have left an impression among researchers that Japanese manufacturers use more advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) then their US counterparts. Presuming this were to be true, we hypothesized that nationality of the firm is an important factor in AMT use. To test the effect of the nationality variable on AMT use we compared the use of 18 AMTs in the US and Japan in an exploratory study using data from 160 US firms and 125 Japanese firms.There is clear evidence that the nationality of the firm is a factor in AMT use; that is AMT use is significantly different in the two countries. One explanation for the differences in AMT use may lie in the respective strategic orientations of the manufacturers in the two countries. A major finding in this study is that, while US manufacturers use more scheduling and control technologies, their Japanese counterparts use more factory floor technologies. Several hypothesis are offered as propositions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how value is created in horizontal mergers and acquisitions. More specifically, it examines the impact of post-acquisition asset divestiture and resource redeployment on the long-term performance of horizontal acquisitions. The data come from a detailed survey of acquiring firm managers and cover 253 horizontal mergers and acquisitions that were initiated by European and U.S. firms in manufacturing industries for the period 1988–1992. This study incorporates insights from the cost efficiency and resource-based theories to propose a model of the effects of asset divestiture and resource redeployment on long-term acquisition performance. Overall, our results show that both asset divestiture and resource redeployment can contribute to acquisition performance, with, however, a significant risk of damaging acquisition performance when the divested assets and redeployed resources are those of the target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]