Basu Sharma

The impact of internal marketing activities on external marketing outcomes

Abstract An increasingly service-oriented economy requires organizations to attract and retain customers to ensure a sustainable competitive advantage. To achieve this objective, organizations must focus their efforts on developing and sustaining an organizational culture that emphasizes internal customer well-being as a means to attract and retain external customer patronage. This rationale is based on the notion that to the external customer, the internal customer represents the firm. In fact, a growing body of empirical evidence suggests that there is a direct relationship between a firms financial success and its commitment to internal marketing practices that treat employees as assets. However, there is a paucity of theoretical frameworks that explore these relationships in a systemic fashion. Based on the literature in marketing and human resource (HR) management, we propose a model that relates six key internal marketing practices to external customer satisfaction and loyalty, mediated by internal customer attitudes (i.e., loyalty to the firm, job satisfaction, trust in management) leading to extra role behaviors directed at external customers.

The effects of culture and HRM practices on firm performance

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of organizational culture and human resource management (HRM) effectiveness on financial performance of a sample of Singapore‐based companies involved in mergers and acquisition activities.Design/methodology/approach – The study used the method of content analysis to collect information on cultural values and HRM effectiveness, using Kabanoffs content analysis dictionary. Culture profiles were then assigned to organizations in the sample following the results from cluster analysis. Various financial ratios were used to measure organizational performance. Finally, regression analysis was performed to test various hypotheses.Findings – The key finding of the study is that organizations with either elite or leader value profile, when complemented by human resource effectiveness, had a better financial performance as compared to organizations with meritocratic or collegial value profiles. It thus follows that, to achieve better financial results ...

The Effects of Foreign Direct Investment on Human Development

Various studies in the past have examined the effect of foreign direct investment on economic growth of both developed and developing countries. However, research on the influence of foreign direct investment on an expanded conception of socio-economic progress such as human development is absent. In this article, we examine the effect of foreign direct investment on human development (measured by the human development index) for middle and low-income countries for the period from 1975 to 1999 to fill in this lacuna. Regression results of a fixed effects model indicate a positive effect of foreign direct investment on human development for both the groups of countries.

Aspects of the internationalization of management education

The growing globalization of national economies, the increasing internationalization of production, and the rise of business networks and strategic alliances have dramatically changed the business landscape of the 1990s. These developments have created the necessity to further our understanding of internationalization and the implications for management education. Examines various dimensions of internationalization in management education, and identifies major trends in the internationalization process to draw on their implications for the future of management education.

The effects of information technology achievement and diffusion on foreign direct investment

Foreign direct investment (FDI) and the new information and communications technology (ICT) have gained significant grounds in many parts of the world in somewhat parallel fashion. The objective of this paper is to assess the proposition that the level of technological achievement and diffusion is a determining factor in attracting FDI in high-income countries. A sample of technologically advanced countries was chosen on the basis of the technological achievement index (TAI). Crosscountry data for the period of 1994 to 1998 were used to estimate a fixed effects model. The empirical results obtained provide strong evidence that technology diffusion of new instruments of ICT, such as mobile phones and Internet hosts, are major pull factors of FDI. The results also provide evidence that robust economic environment, low unit cost, and high degree of openness are other essential determinants of FDI. We conclude that in order to retain and attract FDI, countries should create opportunities for useful innovations to be created and diffused, as well as maintain flexible, competitive and dynamic economic environments. The main policy implication for countries lagging in terms of attracting foreign investment is to build on reforms that emphasize creation and diffusion of ideas and products, as well as maintain a high degree of openness to new investors, especially in ICT.

The Human Development Index Adjusted for Efficient Resource Utilization

The human development index (HDI) developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP 2003) is computed as the average of three equally weighted outcome measures or indices of human development: life expectancy (LI), educational attainment (EI) and income (WI). However, this computational process is independent of the resource endowment being devoted by each country to the achievement of the three outcome levels (Raab et al. 2000). Hence, it is conceivable that two different countries consume vastly different amount of resources in achieving the same, say, LI, whereas this difference in the efficiency of resource utilization is not reflected in the HDL The purpose of this chapter is to address this efficiency issue. Here, the term efficiency corresponds to the concept of Pareto-Koopmans efficiency in economics (Varian 1999). Thus, it measures the ability of each country to transform the minimum possible units of its own resources into the maximum possible levels of the three outcomes. As a result, a country or decision-making unit (DMU) ‘is fully efficient if and only if it is not possible to improve any input or output without worsening some other input or output’ (Cooper et al. 2000: 45). This definition is operationalized through the development of a benchmarking model, where each country’s three HDI outcome measures, LI, EI and WI, are evaluated relative to an efficient or ‘best-practice’ production frontier, formed by the benchmarking (that is, most efficient) countries.

Foreign Capital Flows and the Efficiency of the HDI Dimensions

This paper examines the impact of the various types of foreign capital flows (or FCF) on the efficiency with which countries transform their respective resources into the achievements associated with the three dimensions (Life expectancy or LI, Educational attainment or EI and wealth or WI) of the Human Development Index. An important result is the identification of returns to scale as the main factor preventing some countries from achieving the total efficiency level assumed by standard economic analysis, if decision-making units (DMUs) or countries in this case, working along their respective production possibility frontiers, wish achieve the goal of optimizing the utilization of their resources.

Regionalization and labour market interdependence in East and Southeast Asia

Preface - List of Acronyms - Notes on the Contributors - Introduction A.Parisotto & D.Campbell - Is an Integrated Regional Labour Market Emerging in East and Southeast Asia? D.E.Bloom & W.Noor - The Reorganization of Production on a World Scale: States, Markets, and Networks in the Apparel and Electronics Commodity Chains G.Gereffi - Changing International Division of Labour in the Electronics Industry J.Henderson - Regional Integration of East and Southeast Asian Economies: The Role of Japan S.Watanabe - Hong Kong and Coastal China Growth Linkages R.Skeldon - Growth Triangles in International Perspective M.Tang & M.Thant - Thailand in the Regional Division of Labour V.Charoenloet - An Employer Response N.Simakrai - A Worker Response S.Zuesongdham - The Philippines in the Regional Division of Labour A.C.Orbeta Jr & M.T.C.Sanchez - An Employer Response F.R.Floro - A Worker Response A.J.Dinglasan - Conclusion A.Verma - Index

The Role of Compensation Policies in Singapore's Competitiveness

This paper examines how Singapore has used compensation policies to remain competitive and to further enhance its competitiveness It discusses evolution of compensation policies in Singapore, highlights central features of the current flexible wage system, and identifies some issues that may appear to be of important concern in future.

The determinants of union membership growth in Taiwan

This paper examines the determinants of intertemporal variation in the growth rate of trade union membership in Taiwan during 1960–1987. The empirical results indicate that the widely used empirical model of growth in trade union membership based largely on cyclical variables applies to the case of a newly industrialized Asian country—Taiwan.