Inflation-Targeting, Flexible Exchange Rates and Macroeconomic Performance since the Great Recession. CEPS Working Document No. 394, March 2014

Has inflation targeting (IT) conferred benefits in terms of economic growth on countries that followed this particular monetary policy strategy during the crisis period 2007-12? This paper answers this question in the affirmative. Countries with an IT monetary regime with flexible exchange rates weathered the crisis much better than countries with other monetary regimes, predominantly countries with fixed exchange rates. Part of this difference in growth performance reflects differences in export performance during the initial years of the crisis, which in turn can be explained by real exchange rate depreciations. However, IT seems also to confer other benefits on the countries above and beyond the effects from currency depreciation.

Service innovation, embeddedness and business performance:UK regional evidence

This paper asks to question. First, what types of linkages make firms in the service sector innovate? And second, what is the link between innovation and the firms’ productivity and export performance? Using survey data from Northern Ireland we find that links intra-regional links (i.e. within Northern Ireland) to customers, suppliers and universities have little effect on innovation, but external links (i.e. outside Northern Ireland) help to boost innovation. Relationships between innovation, exporting and productivity prove complex but suggest that innovation itself is not sufficient to generate productivity improvements. Only when innovation is combined with increased export activity are productivity gains produced. This suggests that regional innovation policy should be oriented towards helping firms to innovate only where it helps firms to enter export markets or to expand their existing export market presence.

Exporting and innovation performance: analysis of the Annual Small Business Survey in the UK

This paper analyses the determinants of the export propensity of UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based on the 2004 Annual Small Business Survey. Particular emphasis is placed upon the relationship between innovation activities (distinguishing product from process innovation) and export performance. In general the data suggest that some 17 per cent of firms within this group sell outside the UK. Businesses that export are also characterized by high levels of innovation activity (43 per cent of exporters innovate in products, 27 per cent innovate in process and 21 per cent innovate in both). When considering product and process innovation independently we find that both impact positively on the decision to export. However, once we consider the interdependence between both innovation activities, we find no robust evidence that process innovation increases the probability to export beyond product innovation.

Spontaneity and international marketing performance

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how today’s international marketers can perform better on the global scene by harnessing spontaneity. Design/methodology/approach: The authors draw on contingency theory to develop a model of the spontaneity – international marketing performance relationship, and identify three potential moderators, namely, strategic planning, centralization, and market dynamism. The authors test the model via structural equation modeling with survey data from 197 UK exporters. Findings: The results indicate that spontaneity is beneficial to exporters in terms of enhancing profit performance. In addition, greater centralization and strategic planning strengthen the positive effects of spontaneity. However, market dynamism mitigates the positive effect of spontaneity on export performance (when customer needs are volatile, spontaneous decisions do not function as well in terms of ensuring success). Practical implications: Learning to be spontaneous when making export decisions appears to result in favorable outcomes for the export function. To harness spontaneity, export managers should look to develop company heuristics (increase centralization and strategic planning). Finally, if operating in dynamic export market environments, the role of spontaneity is weaker, so more conventional decision-making approaches should be adopted. Originality/value: The international marketing environment typically requires decisions to be flexible and fast. In this context, spontaneity could enable accelerated and responsive decision-making, allowing international marketers to realize superior performance. Yet, there is a lack of research on decision-making spontaneity and its potential for international marketing performance enhancement.

The significant role of third-party logistics (3pl) operators as fosterers of organizational performance in colombian companies

La eliminación de barreras entre países es una consecuencia que llega con la globalización y con los acuerdos de TLC firmados en los últimos años. Esto implica un crecimiento significativo del comercio exterior, lo cual se ve reflejado en un aumento de la complejidad de la cadena de suministro de las empresas. Debido a lo anterior, se hace necesaria la búsqueda de alternativas para obtener altos niveles de productividad y competitividad dentro de las empresas en Colombia, ya que el entorno se ha vuelto cada vez más complejo, saturado de competencia no sólo nacional, sino también internacional. Para mantenerse en una posición competitiva favorable, las compañías deben enfocarse en las actividades que le agregan valor a su negocio, por lo cual una de las alternativas que se están adoptando hoy en día es la tercerización de funciones logísticas a empresas especializadas en el manejo de estos servicios. Tales empresas son los Proveedores de servicios logísticos (LSP), quienes actúan como agentes externos a la organización al gestionar, controlar y proporcionar actividades logísticas en nombre de un contratante. Las actividades realizadas pueden incluir todas o parte de las actividades logísticas, pero como mínimo la gestión y ejecución del transporte y almacenamiento deben estar incluidos (Berglund, 2000). El propósito del documento es analizar el papel de los Operadores Logísticos de Tercer nivel (3PL) como promotores del desempeño organizacional en las empresas colombianas, con el fin de informar a las MIPYMES acerca de los beneficios que se obtienen al trabajar con LSP como un medio para mejorar la posición competitiva del país.

Inward exporting of professional services : lessons from an exploratory study of Australian educational firms

Inward export activities for services companies have been largely neglected in the literature. Little is known about how professional service firms export to overseas consumers who travel to the domestic market of the firm. This study utilizes a resource-based perspective (RBV) to explore the main barriers and drivers of export performance for professional education services. A case study of Australia’s education industry, as well as interviews with executives from four Australian education institutions, was conducted. Findings show that inward exporters confront most barriers in the domestic market where the service is provided, and drivers of export performance combine firm- and country-specific resources.

Status of the shrimp sector in Bangladesh in the context of HACCP and trade issues: a review

Shrimp culture in Bangladesh has emerged as an important aquaculture industry over the last three decades although its culture in greater parts of the farming area is done in traditional ways. In the meantime, the government of Bangladesh has taken necessary measures along with the private sectors to increase production, upgrade processing industries and to promote export performance. Long supply chain in raw material collection, inadequate infrastructure facilities, poor level of cool chain and lack of adequate HACCP-based training on hygiene and sanitation of different groups of people involved in the field level are the main problems of quality loss of raw materials. Shortage of raw materials results in poor capacity utilization of the processing plants. The growth of bagda (P. monodon) hatchery has expanded rapidly over the last few years, remaining mostly concentrated in Cox's Bazar region is enough to meet the target production. However, there is a shortage of pelleted shrimp feed in Bangladesh. A large number of export processors are now producing increasing amounts of value-added products such as individually quick-frozen, peeled and divined, butterfly cut shrimp, as well as cooked products. The export earnings from value added products is about half of the total export value. About 95% of total fish products are exported to European countries, USA and Japan and the remaining to the Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Most of the EU approved shrimp processing industries have been upgraded with laboratory facilities and provided HACCP training to their workers. As of now, HACCP is applied on the processing plants, but to ensure the quality of raw materials and to reduce risks, shrimp farms are also required to adopt HACCP plan. There is increased pressure time to time from importing countries for fish processors to establish effective quality assurance system in processing plants. Fish Inspection and Quality Control (FIQC) of the Department of Fisheries while having moderately equipped laboratories with chemical, bio-chemical and microbiological testing facilities and qualified technical personnel, the creation of facilities for testing of antibiotics is underway. FIQC mainly supervises quality aspects of the processing plants and has little or no control over raw material supply chains from farm to processing plants. Bangladesh export consignments sometimes face rejection due to reported poor quality of the products. Three types of barriers are reported for export of shrimp to EU countries. These are:(1) government participation in trade and restrictive practices (state aid, countervailing duties, state trading enterprises, government monopoly practices), customs and administrative entry procedures (anti-dumping duties, customs valuation, classification, formalities, rules of origin); (2) technical barriers to trade or TBT (technical regulations, standards, testing, certification arrangement); (3) specific limitations (quantitative restrictions, import licensing, embargoes, exchange control, discriminatory sourcing, export restraints, measures to regulate domestic prices, requirements concerning marking, labeling and packaging).

Construção de vantagens competitivas nas estratégias de internacionalização: estudo do caso da EFACEC

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Politécnico do Porto para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Gestão das Organizações, Ramo de Gestão de Empresas Orientador: Professor Doutor Orlando Manuel Martins Marques de Lima Rua

India's Engineering Exports: Growth, Concentration and Diversification

The unprecedented increase in competition as well as protectionism in world markets makes it imperative for a country like India to get much more energetically involved in the export business and make the dictum "export and flourish" a really true proposition, as against a somewhat passive "export and perish" approach followed during the last three and a half decades. At present, India needs to evolve new export strategies to cope with the changing international scenario and to ensure a steady improvement in the otherwise sagging export performance. A search for such strategic measures becomes all the more important in view of the all-out efforts of the government for expanding the country's exports to tide over the crippling balance of payment deficits and to generate necessary foreign exchange to meet the import requirements for accelerating the tempo of economic development. The present study is an endeavour in this direction. Taking engineering exports as an example, the study demonstrates alternative ways of understanding indepth export performance analysis and learning lessons for better performance in future

Impacto de la innovación en el crecimiento de la oferta exportable de bienes no tradicionales en Colombia

El objetivo de este paper es avanzar en la comprensión existente acerca del impacto de la innovación (en este caso entendida como la inversión en actividades de innovación) en las exportaciones no tradicionales. El estudio analiza un conjunto de datos de empresas colombianas que desempeñan sus actividades en los sectores de la Clasificación Industrial Internacional Uniforme – CIIU - durante el periodo del 2005 al 2012. Para esto se usó un modelo de datos panel en el cual a través de la teoría Box Jenkins, se lograron identificar las variables estadísticamente significativas en el desempeño de las exportaciones. Los hallazgos permiten comprobar las teorías acerca de la relación positiva entre estas variables, y en nuestro caso particular demostrar el impacto que tienen las actividades de innovación en el desarrollo de las exportaciones. Finalmente los resultados sugieren que el estímulo de la innovación y políticas que la promuevan es esencial para el crecimiento de las exportaciones.

Productividad, innovación y uso de tecnologías de información y las comunicaciones (tic) como factores de desarrollo de la micro, pequeña y mediana empresa (mipyme) en Bogotá.

Las TIC han impactado en el funcionamiento de las organizaciones y han aportado a su proceso evolutivo, generando diversos efectos de acuerdo a la función que estas cumplen dentro de la organización. Las TIC como consecuencia se convierten en una estrategia de gestión en un entorno complejo donde permiten alcanzar mejoras en la organización social, la actividad económica, el bienestar y el acceso a la información y el conocimiento. (Cáceres Carrasco & Aceytuno Pérez, 2008)Con el fin de entender los beneficios de las TIC, se deben brindar a los directores herramientas que permitan formular modelos de negocios efectivos de cara a los mercados y enfocadas a la satisfacción de los clientes. Adicionalmente, para las organizaciones el añadir valor, no sólo hace referencia al servicio que están prestando; hay otros factores diferentes al uso de herramientas TIC y la innovación que también son igual de importantes como: los procesos de apoyo, de gestión que se encuentran de fondo y que hacen posible brindar un servicio al mercado, en estos procesos se encuentran aplicaciones de procedimientos amigables y fáciles de articular, temas como la responsabilidad empresarial, relación y comunicación con competidores dentro del mismo sector, es justamente en las relaciones con los clientes, que las TIC y el uso de Internet puede tener incidencia en los modelos de negocios a través de actividades como el comercio electrónico, el mercadeo electrónico, el mercadeo en línea entre otros. Existen investigaciones acerca de estos temas: innovación, TI, pero no se han establecido relaciones entre ellos, debido a su novedad. Diferentes experiencias laborales de los investigadores en el uso de las TIC como herramienta en la organización de información permiten que surja la idea de llevar a cabo este proyecto abarcando la realidad bogotana de las MiPyme. La presente investigación con un enfoque cualitativo hace una revisión bibliográfica, y bajo la mirada teórica se analiza la relación que tienen los factores de desarrollo que se evidenciaron como son la innovación y el uso de herramientas TIC, como variables dependientes de la productividad de las MiPyme en Bogotá, Colombia, involucrando temas que se relacionan con distintos campos como la tecnología, políticas gubernamentales, y economía.

La integración de la cadena de suministro con los proveedores de servicios logísticos y el desempeño organizacional

Esta investigación presenta un estudio correlacional, que involucra el desempeño organizacional y la integración de operadores logísticos en la cadena de suministro con el fin de analizar el impacto generado por la implementación de proveedores de servicios logísticos en el desempeño de las Pymes exportadoras.

Impacto del Internet en el ingreso laboral: análisis del lugar y manejo del Internet

Este estudio analiza el efecto del uso de Internet sobre el ingreso laboral, eliminado el problema de endogeneidad que existe por motivos de selección. También se analizan los efectos seg un el lugar de acceso y las actividades realizadas en Internet. Para esto se utiliza Propensity Score Matching, tomando información para Colombia entre el año 2009 a 2011. Los resultados muestran que existe un efecto positivo, significativo y heterogéneo entre trabajadores asalariados y cuenta propia, siendo los últimos los más beneficiados. Con respecto al lugar de uso se encuentra un impacto positivo del uso del Internet en el trabajo y/o en el hogar, con una mayor magnitud en el primer sitio de acceso. Para el tema del manejo del Internet, no se encuentra efecto cuando se utiliza en actividades de entretenimiento, pero si cuando se usa en tareas educativas diariamente. Esto siguiere que usar este servicio aumenta la productividad y el capital humano, lo que se transforma en un incremento en los ingresos. Por tanto, se encuentra que el lugar de uso es una señal informativa para el mercado laboral, mientras que el impacto del manejo de esta herramienta depende de la frecuencia con que se realicen las actividades.

Why is the Greek economy collapsing? A simple tale of high multipliers and low exports. CEPS Commentary, 21 December 2012

In an attempt to understand why the Greek economy is collapsing, this Commentary points out two key aspects that are often overlooked – the country’s large multiplier and a bad export performance. When combined with the need for a large fiscal adjustment, these factors help explain how fiscal consolidation in Greece has been associated with such a large drop in GDP.

Measuring construction professional services exports: a case for change

There is limited understanding of the role of services in the wave of globalisation and how the strengths of the UK service sector help to respond to the challenge of global competition. The way in which the construction export data are collected does not reflect the impact of globalisation and the changes in the construction business environment, such as increasing foreign ownership, foreign affiliates, and changing forms of procurement. The paper describes construction service exports, how they are collected and classified, highlighting the challenges of recording the export performance of construction services in a changing world. A case for change is made to ensure the collection of statistics better reflects the role of construction professional services