Technology, business models and network structure in the airline industry

Network airlines have been increasingly focusing their operations on hub airports through the exploitation of connecting traffic, allowing them to take advantage of economies of traffic density, which are unequivocal in the airline industry. Less attention has been devoted to airlines? decisions on point-to-point thin routes, which could be served using different aircraft technologies and different business models. This paper examines, both theoretically and empirically, the impact on airlines ?networks of the two major innovations in the airline industry in the last two decades: the regional jet technology and the low-cost business model. We show that, under certain circumstances, direct services on point-to-point thin routes can be viable and thus airlines may be interested in deviating passengers out of the hub.

Did the cooperative start life as a Joint-Stock company? business law and cooperatives in Spain, 1869–1931

Studies of Spanish cooperatives date their spread from the Law on Agrarian Syndicates of 1906. But the first legislative appearance of cooperatives is an 1869 measure that permitted general incorporation for lending companies. The 1931 general law on cooperatives, which was the first act permitting the formation of cooperatives in any activity, reflects the gradual disappearance of the cooperative’s "business" characteristics. In this paper we trace the Spanish cooperative’s legal roots in business law and its connections to broader questions of the freedom of association, the formation of joint-stock enterprises, and the liability of investors in business and cooperative entities. Our account underscores the similarities of the organizational problems approach by cooperatives and business firms, while at the same time respecting the distinctive purposes cooperatives served.

Business plan: PARQUETS, S.A.

Aquest Treball Final de Carrera pretén desenvolupar un Pla de Viabilitat, que garanteixi una millora en la rendibilitat de PARQUETS S.A., una empresa amb més de 40 anys d’existència en el sector de la instal-lació de paviments per al terra. A partir de la realització inicial d’un estudi del mercat, s’ha elaborat un complet anàlisi sobre els punts principals que componen qualsevol Pla de Negoci: el Pla de Marketing, el Pla d’Operacions, el Pla d’Organització i el Pla Econòmic-Financer. A més, amb la realització d’aquest estudi, hem pogut verificar que al mercat hi ha importants economies d’escala que cal aprofitar, i que intervindrien amb èxit amb l’expansió geogràfica, organitzativa i operativa de l’empresa.

Welfare Maximizing Contest Success Functions when the Planner Cannot Commit

We analyze how a contest organizer chooses optimally the winner when the contestants' efforts are already exerted and commitment to the use of a given contest success function is not possible. We de…ne the notion of rationalizability in mixed-strategies to capture such a situation. Our approach allows to derive different contest success functions depending on the aims and attitudes of the decider. We derive contest success functions which are closely related to commonly used functions providing new support for them. By taking into account social welfare considerations our approach bridges the contest literature and the recent literature on political economy. Keywords: Endogenous Contests, Contest Success Function, Mixed-Strategies. JEL Classi…cation: C72 (Noncooperative Games), D72 (Economic Models of Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Elections), D74 (Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances)

Product differentiation, competitive pressure and the effects of innovation on the success and survivability of firms in oligopoly markets

In a recent paper Tishler and Milstein (2009) fi…nd that increased competition may increase aggregate R&D spending while market output decreases. Therefore, they obtain the surprising result that R&D spending is excessive when competition becomes intense. Their result is based on the standard linear demand function for differentiated products introduced by Bowley (1924) where decreased product differentiation is interpreted as more competitive pressure. In this paper I show that at an aggregate level this interpretation is problematic because equilibrium effects are dominated by a demand reduction effect. A slight modifi…cation of the standard demand function eliminates this effect. For the Tishler and Milstein (2009) setting it is shown that then increased competition increases both R&D spending and aggregate market output. Therefore, at least for consumers, more intense competition increases welfare. Journal of Economic Literature Classi…fication Numbers: D43, L1, O3. Keywords: Oligopoly markets, Product differentiation, Competitive pressure.

Technology, business models and network structure in the airline industry

Network airlines have been increasingly focusing their operations on hub airports through the exploitation of connecting traffic, allowing them to take advantage of economies of traffic density, which are unequivocal in the airline industry. Less attention has been devoted to airlines' decisions on point-to-point thin routes, which could be served using different aircraft technologies and different business models. This paper examines, both theoretically and empirically, the impact on airlines' networks of the two major innovations in the airline industry in the last two decades: the regional jet technology and the low-cost business model. We show that, under certain circumstances, direct services on point-to-point thin routes can be viable and thus airlines may be interested in deviating passengers out of the hub. Keywords: regional jet technology; low-cost business model; point-to-point network; hub-and-spoke network JEL Classi…fication Numbers: L13; L2; L93

Cronyism in Business, Public Sector and Politics

This paper contrasts the incentives for cronyism in business, the public sector and politics within an agency problem model with moral hazard. The analysis is focused on the institutional differences between private, public and political organizations. In business, when facing a residual claimant contract, a chief manager ends up with a relatively moderate …rst-best level of cronyism within a …firm. The institutional framework of the public sector does not allow explicit contracting, which leads to a more severe cronyism problem within public organizations. Finally, it is shown that the nature of political appointments (such that the subordinate's reappointment is conditioned on the chief's re-election) together with implicit contracting makes political cronyism the most extreme case. JEL classifi…cation: D72, D73, D86. Keywords: Cronyism; Meritocracy; Manager; Bureaucrat; Politician.

Macroeconomic shocks and the business cycle: evidence from a structural factor model

We use a dynamic factor model to provide a semi-structural representation for 101 quarterly US macroeconomic series. We find that (i) the US economy is well described by a number of structural shocks between two and six. Focusing on the four-shock specification, we identify, using sign restrictions, two non-policy shocks, demand and supply, and two policy shocks, monetary and fiscal. We obtain the following results. (ii) Both supply and demand shocks are important sources of fluctuations; supply prevails for GDP, while demand prevails for employment and inflation. (ii) Policy matters, Both monetary and fiscal policy shocks have sizeable effects on output and prices, with little evidence of crowding out; both monetary and fiscal authorities implement important systematic countercyclical policies reacting to demand shocks. (iii) Negative demand shocks have a large long-run positive effect on productivity, consistently with the Schumpeterian "cleansing" view of recessions.

No news in business cycles

This paper uses a structural, large dimensional factor model to evaluate the role of 'news' shocks (shocks with a delayed effect on productivity) in generating the business cycle. We find that (i) existing small-scale VECM models are affected by 'non-fundamentalness' and therefore fail to recover the correct shock and impulse response functions; (ii) news shocks have a limited role in explaining the business cycle; (iii) their effects are in line with what predicted by standard neoclassical theory; (iv) the bulk of business cycle fluctuations are explained by shocks unrelated to technology.

Productivity and human capital: a business-level analysis

This paper aims to analyse the impact of human capital on business productivity, focusing the analysis on the possible effect of the complementarity that exists between human capital and new production technologies, particularly advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) for the specific case of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Catalonia. Additionally, following the theory of skill-biased technological change, the paper analyses whether technological change produces bias exclusively in the skills required for managers, or whether the bias extends to the skills required of production staff. With this objective, we have compared the possible existence of complementarity between AMTs and the level of human capital for different occupational groups. The results confirm the complementary relationship between human capital and new production technologies. The results by occupational group confirm that to maximise the productivity of new technologies, skilled staff are needed both in management and production, with managers and professionals as well as skilled operatives playing a vital role. Keywords: human capital, process technologies, complementarity, business productivity. (JEL D24, J24, O30).

Organizational form and business performance

This project deals with the generation of profitability and the distribution of its benefits. Inspired by Davis (1947, 1955), we define profitability as the ratio of revenue to cost. Profitability is not as popular a measure of business financial performance as profit, the difference between revenue and cost. Regardless of its popularity, however, profitability is surely a useful financial performance measure. Our primary objective in this project is to identify the factors that generate change in profitability. One set of factors, which we refer to as sources, consists of changes in quantities and prices of outputs and inputs. Individual quantity changes aggregate to the overall impact of quantity change on profitability change, which we call productivity change. Individual price changes aggregate to the overall impact of price change on profitability change, which we call price recovery change. In this framework profitability change consists exclusively of productivity change and price recovery change. A second set of factors, which we refer to as drivers, consists of phenomena such as technical change, change in the efficiency of resource allocation, and the impact of economies of scale. The ability of management to harness these factors drives productivity change, which is one component of profitability change. Thus the term sources refers to quantities and prices of individual outputs and inputs, whose changes influence productivity change or price recovery change, either of which influences profitability change. The term drivers refers to phenomena related to technology and management that influence productivity change (but not price recovery change), and hence profitability change.

Integració d'un business intelligence en un ERP

Aquest projecte mostra la importància que pot tenir un sistema basat en Business Intelligence, dins d’una empresa o organització, donant una eina per augmentar la competitivitat, treballant les dades que s’obtenen dels diferents sistemes de gestió que hi ha dins l’empresa. Aquest gran nombre de dades històriques les transformarem per formar una base de dades de qualitat, i les explorarem per tal d’extreure’n informació útil en format gràfic, per ajudar a la pressa de decisions per part dels directius.

Text2Emotion: un gestor d'experiències SOA : extracció d'emocions per al suport a la gestió de relació amb clients

Customer Experience Management (CEM) se ha convertido en un factor clave para el éxito de las empresas. CEM gestiona todas las experiencias que un cliente tiene con un proveedor de servicios o productos. Es muy importante saber como se siente un cliente en cada contacto y entonces poder sugerir automáticamente la próxima tarea a realizar, simplificando tareas realizadas por personas. En este proyecto se desarrolla una solución para evaluar experiencias. Primero se crean servicios web que clasifican experiencias en estados emocionales dependiendo del nivel de satisfacción, interés, … Esto es realizado a través de minería de textos. Se procesa y clasifica información no estructurada (documentos de texto) que representan o describen las experiencias. Se utilizan métodos de aprendizaje supervisado. Esta parte es desarrollada con una arquitectura orientada a servicios (SOA) para asegurar el uso de estándares y que los servicios sean accesibles por cualquier aplicación. Estos servicios son desplegados en un servidor de aplicaciones. En la segunda parte se desarrolla dos aplicaciones basadas en casos reales. En esta fase Cloud computing es clave. Se utiliza una plataforma de desarrollo en línea para crear toda la aplicación incluyendo tablas, objetos, lógica de negocio e interfaces de usuario. Finalmente los servicios de clasificación son integrados a la plataforma asegurando que las experiencias son evaluadas y que las tareas de seguimiento son automáticamente creadas.

Integration in strategic alliances : a conceptual framework of IT use in marketing as NPD key factor

En una economia basada en el coneixement, la innovació del producte es considera un factor clau a l'hora de determinar la competitivitat, la productivitat i el creixement d'una companyia. No obstant això, l'experiència de les companyies demostra la necessitat d'un nou model de gestió de la innovació del producte: una gestió basada en el màrqueting, en què la cooperació i l'ús intensiu de les tecnologies de la informació i de la comunicació (TIC) són especialment importants. En els darrers anys, la bibliografia sobre màrqueting ha analitzat el paper de la cooperació en l'èxit del procés d'innovació. No obstant això, fins ara pocs treballs han estudiat el paper que té l'ús de les TIC en el màrqueting en l'èxit del desenvolupament de nous productes (NPD, New Product Development en anglès). És una omissió curiosa, tenint en compte que el nou entorn competitiu és definit per una economia i una societat basades principalment en l'ús intensiu de les TIC i del coneixement. L'objectiu d'aquest treball és investigar el paper que l'ús de les TIC en el màrqueting té en el procés de desenvolupament de nous productes, com a element que reforça la integració d'agents al projecte, afavorint l'establiment de relacions dirigides a la cooperació i l'adquisició d'intel·ligència de mercat útil en el procés de desenvolupament de nous productes. L'estudi d'una mostra de 2.038 companyies de tots els sectors de l'activitat econòmica a Catalunya ens permet contrastar hipòtesis inicials i establir un perfil de companyia innovadora basat en les importants relacions que hi ha entre la innovació, l'ús de TIC en el màrqueting i la integració. Sobresurten dues idees en la nostra anàlisi. En primer lloc, l'ús intensiu de les TIC en el màrqueting fa que la companyia sigui més innovadora, ja que percep que el seu ús ajuda a superar barreres a la innovació i accelera els processos, que es tornen més eficients. En segon lloc, incrementant l'ús de les TIC en el màrqueting es fa augmentar la predisposició de la companyia a integrar agents particulars en l'entorn de negoci en el desenvolupament del procés d'innovació i a col·laborar-hi, de manera que es millora el grau d'adaptació del nou producte a les demandes del mercat.

Sistema d'anàlisi financer: tresoreria amb eines Business Intelligence

El projecte tracte d' implementar una solució de Business Intelligence sota la plataforma Microsoft.Aquest projecte va destinat al Departament de Comptabilitat de l' Ajuntament de Cambrils, i està relacionat amb la funció del control de les despeses i els ingressos