Brian Hilton

Applicability of financial theories of capital structure to the Chinese cultural context: A study of privately owned SMEs:

Using a new dataset of 1539 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises this article investigates the firm-level determinants of capital structure and tests them against the predictions of financial theory. Firm size and profitability are both found to be related to leverage as posited by pecking-order theory. In contrast little support is found for the predicted relationship between asset structure and leverage. These findings are discussed in relationship to their Chinese cultural context. The managerial and policy implications of the research are then explored.

The McGuire model and the economics of the NATO alliance

This paper uses a Stone‐Geary welfare function as a basis for estimating a system of expenditure equations for each NATO country. These estimates are for the following aggregates: defence expenditure, non‐defence public expenditure and private expenditure. The model estimates are directly derived from the utility function. Supply side estimates are also made, thus, unlike some earlier estimators, allowing full information maximum likelihood estimation of a fully simultaneous system of equations. The period covered is 1960–1985. A naive a priori view might be that defence as a pure public good would be inversely related to an allys expenditure and directly to an enemys. This is not borne out. In no instance do we find the naive public goods model fitting the NATO context. One either finds competitive behaviour between allies or apparently selfless commitments to taking on more than a “fair” burden of the response to increases in the threat.

Resource Accounting and Budgeting: Principles, Concepts and Practice—The MoD Case

In 1998/99 resource accounting will be trialed in the final group of departments to which it is to apply. Prominent among these will be the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The huge size of the MoD’s asset base, and the difficulty of assessing much of its value, raises problems which will not have to be faced by other government departments.

Client base, age and competitive advantage in the services sector

For many types of products, quality can be uncertain even after purchase and use; this applies especially in services industries. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual basis for analysing this phenomenon structured around the idea that suppliers and product users use informational “surrogates” to overcome ex post uncertainty about purchase quality. Many such surrogates are based on the idea at the heart of herding behaviour where prospective buyers group with others, i.e. join a herd, so that they can utilize the observed effects of choices made by others as information to support their own chokes. Under such conditions, the “size” of a selling organizations client base provides a competitive advantage; analogously, the organizations “age” also provides an advantage. Our ideas are illustrated by references to examples drawn from service industries such as insurance, banking and legal services.

Global sourcing partnerships and emerging MNC markets: a conceptual framework

This theoretical paper is about global sourcing partnerships for emerging Multinational Corporations (MNCs), such as Eastern European MNCs and the difficulties they face in accessing local knowledge networks in developed economies, a key issue given the continuing enlargement of the European Union with the addition of new members. Given the socially complex nature of knowledge, knowledge transfer for emerging MNC markets must take into account the institutional factors in emerging markets, including the issue of psychic distance towards emerging markets or economies. We show how countertrade, a nonstandard type of exchange in countries such as Eastern Europe can be seen as a type of institutional commitment accelerating global sourcing and e-procurement partnerships for emerging MNC markets. We show that our general framework of countertrade and hostage-style exchange can also be applied to the uncertainty of global sourcing and e-procurement in the 21st century.

An Integral Perspective On The Political Economy Of “Big Change”

The integral age demands a new economic vision. This has to emphasize exchange as a processes not the exchange of things. It must address humanitys unique compulsion to learn using collaborative learning networks. These are what energize the self-organizing global change now accelerating the emergence of new global economic institutions and processes. This new vision requires political economy (i.e., economics integrated with its sociopolitical context).

Enterprise and the State: Individualist versus Communal Interest

Precisely because there is no global state the role of the state is an issue in our current age of global emergence. As mentioned in Chapter 2, there has always been an intense debate on the role the state can play in encouraging enterprise and development, especially where it involves international business and sources of wealth beyond the bounds of the state itself. An issue for decision-makers here has always been1 whether the state can or cannot be effective in supporting the international global competitiveness of its domestic enterprise.

Socio-Economic Emergence of Man and Society

Only time will tell whether our analysis provides the right means to interpret events in the globalising business environment. But it is clear that dramatic change is already happening in the global networks now made possible by the emergent knowledge industries. New technologies, new industries and new markets will succeed existing ones. They themselves will either thrive or perish in the socio-economic turbulence inevitable with emergence.

The Seeds of Business System Diversity in Knowledge and Governance

Internationally, the structure and conduct of enterprises and social institutions varies. Associated performance varies less. This could be seen as unfortunate. Practical people, in both government and business, would like to use the form and behaviour of enterprises as a guide to best practice in their design and operation.

Knowledge and the Emergent Global Business System

Increasingly value creation through enterprise is based on ‘lean thinking’.1 Each enterprise keeps ‘lean’ by situating itself in a value-generating network with others. Each enterprise concentrates on adding value for the ultimate customer. Each does this by focusing on its own area of core competencies and the role that it can play in delivering value to the network as a whole. Non-core activity is outsourced to others in the network. These all deliver JIT from the network’s range of internationally situated global suppliers. The resulting value adding network of connectivity is organized much like the Japanese Keiretsu.2 In this case, each is part of the web of cross-cultural connectivity spanning the globe. To survive, each sub-network within this whole has to operate co-operatively through market-like transactions to generate and pass on value for the system. In so doing, for incentive reasons, each should be receiving an amount of value proportionate to its perceived worth to the network seen as a whole. Each such sub-network competes with others for its share of the value they mutually generate for the global system. The more effective they are at attracting such value, the more net value they can generate. This is a self-reinforcing positive feedback system in which success breeds success.