Joint colloquium on plurilingualism and language education:opportunities and challenges, (AAAL/TESOL)

This colloquium was organised by Ryuko Kubota (University of British Columbia, Canada) and Sue Garton (Aston University, UK) as part of the collaboration between the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) and TESOL International Association.

Productivity analysis and measurement

The state of the art in productivity measurement and analysis shows a gap between simple methods having little relevance in practice and sophisticated mathematical theory which is unwieldy for strategic and tactical planning purposes, -particularly at company level. An extension is made in this thesis to the method of productivity measurement and analysis based on the concept of added value, appropriate to those companies in which the materials, bought-in parts and services change substantially and a number of plants and inter-related units are involved in providing components for final assembly. Reviews and comparisons of productivity measurement dealing with alternative indices and their problems have been made and appropriate solutions put forward to productivity analysis in general and the added value method in particular. Based on this concept and method, three kinds of computerised models two of them deterministic, called sensitivity analysis and deterministic appraisal, and the third one, stochastic, called risk simulation, have been developed to cope with the planning of productivity and productivity growth with reference to the changes in their component variables, ranging from a single value 'to• a class interval of values of a productivity distribution. The models are designed to be flexible and can be adjusted according to the available computer capacity expected accuracy and 'presentation of the output. The stochastic model is based on the assumption of statistical independence between individual variables and the existence of normality in their probability distributions. The component variables have been forecasted using polynomials of degree four. This model is tested by comparisons of its behaviour with that of mathematical model using real historical data from British Leyland, and the results were satisfactory within acceptable levels of accuracy. Modifications to the model and its statistical treatment have been made as required. The results of applying these measurements and planning models to the British motor vehicle manufacturing companies are presented and discussed.

Nurturing communities of practice for effective university-to-industry technology transfer:two exemplar cases from the Cauca Region of Columbia

This paper’s primary aim is to demonstrate how university-industry technology transfer can be achieved effectively by nurturing and bridging communities of practice amongst recipients of technology and stakeholders concerned with technology diffusion, productivity and economic development. Its empirical evidence is from an intervention initiative targeting two small-scale industries, namely fish farming and coffee production, in the Cauca region of Colombia. Results show how barriers to transfer have been overcome and the intervention’s design elements and outcomes are discussed.

Technology sourcing and reverse productivity spillovers in the MNE:global or regional phenomenon?

The focus of this paper is the importance of regions in technology transfer by the multinational firm. Specifically, we focus on an issue that has become known as knowledge or technology sourcing via 'reverse spillovers', i.e. productivity effects running from domestic firms to foreign establishments. Traditionally this issue has presented a challenge for international business scholars, both in terms of identifying the phenomenon and in terms of determining the success of the strategy. In this paper we examine these questions within the context of the debate on globalization/regionalization. For a set of some 4500 subsidiaries of multinationals across a wide range of countries we show that reverse productivity spillovers via technology sourcing are significant but that they tend to be concentrated within 'triad regions' rather than across them. We also find that reverse spillovers from host country multinational enterprises are greater than those from other host country firms or from other foreign affiliates. © 2013 British Academy of Management.