Showing papers on "Restructuring published in 2006"

Zombie Lending and Depressed Restructuring in Japan

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a bank-based explanation for the decade-long Japanese slowdown following the asset price collapse in the early 1990s. We start with the well-known observation that most large Japanese banks were only able to comply with capital standards because regulators were lax in their inspections. To facilitate this forbearance the banks often engaged in sham loan restructurings that kept credit flowing to otherwise insolvent borrowers (that we call zombies). Thus, the normal competitive outcome whereby the zombies would shed workers and lose market share was thwarted. Our model highlights the restructuring implications of the zombie problem. The counterpart of the congestion created by the zombies is a reduction of the profits for healthy firms, which discourages their entry and investment. In this context, even solvent banks do not find good lending opportunities. We confirm our story's key predictions that zombie-dominated industries exhibit more depressed job creation and destruction, and lower productivity. We present firm-level regressions showing that the increase in zombies depressed the investment and employment growth of non-zombies and widened the productivity gap between zombies and non-zombies.

Determinants of Weaknesses in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Abstract: We examine determinants of internal control deficiencies using a sample of 779 firms disclosing material weaknesses from August 2002 to August 2005. We find that material weaknesses in internal control are more likely for firms that are smaller, younger, financially weaker, more complex, growing rapidly, or undergoing restructuring. We next investigate whether these determinants differ based on whether the problem is at the transaction-level or is a more serious company-level problem. We find that firms with more serious entity-wide control problems are smaller, younger and weaker financially, while firms with account-specific problems tend to be healthy financially, but have complex, diversified, and rapidly changing operations. We also provide evidence that the determinants vary based on the specific reason for the material weakness. For example, firm size and age are strong determinants of staffing issues, consistent with each firm facing their own unique set of internal control challenges.

Inherited Control and Firm Performance

Abstract: I use data from chief executive officer (CEO) successions to examine the impact of inherited control on firms' performance. I find that firms where incoming CEOs are related to the departing CEO, to a founder, or to a large shareholder by either blood or marriage underperform in terms of operating profitability and market-to-book ratios, relative to firms that promote unrelated CEOs. Consistent with wasteful nepotism, lower performance is prominent in firms that appoint family CEOs who did not attend "selective" undergraduate institutions. Overall, the evidence indicates that nepotism hurts performance by limiting the scope of labor market competition.

Market Selection, Reallocation, and Restructuring in the U.S. Retail Trade Sector in the 1990s

Abstract: The U.S. retail trade sector underwent a massive restructuring and reallocation of activity in the 1990s with accompanying technological advances. Using a data set of establishments in that sector, we quantify and explore the relationship between this restructuring and reallocation and labor productivity dynamics. We find that virtually all of the labor productivity growth in the retail trade sector is accounted for by more productive entering establishments displacing much less productive exiting establishments. The productivity gap between low-productivity exiting single-unit establishments and entering high-productivity establishments from large, national chains plays a disproportionate role in these dynamics.

Pulp and Paper Fiction: On the Discursive Legitimation of Global Industrial Restructuring

Abstract: Despite the central role of legitimacy in social and organizational life, we know little of the subtle meaning-making processes through which organizational phenomena, such as industrial restructuring, are legitimated in contemporary society. Therefore, this paper examines the discursive legitimation strategies used when making sense of global industrial restructuring in the media. Based on a critical discourse analysis of extensive media coverage of a revolutionary pulp and paper sector merger, we distinguish and analyze five legitimation strategies: (1) normalization, (2) authorization, (3) rationalization, (4) moralization, and (5) narrativization. We argue that while these specific legitimation strategies appear in individual texts, their recurring use in the intertextual totality of the public discussion establishes the core elements of the emerging legitimating discourse.

‘Policies in Motion’, Urban Management and State Restructuring: The Trans‐Local Expansion of Business Improvement Districts

Abstract: This article examines the ways in which business improvement districts are being introduced into UK cities. In advancing this analysis, the focus here is on the means through which one or two Manhattan business improvement districts have been constructed as ‘models’ of urban management, taken out of their particular local/regional and national contexts and introduced into a diverse set of local political economic contexts in UK cities and towns. Examining the way business improvement districts have become a policy in motion, the article sketches out the emergence of entrepreneurial urban governance arrangements in the UK as part of the state's changing spatiality in the industrialized economies of Western Europe and North America. I argue that these changes make UK cities and towns increasingly receptive to the business improvement district model of downtown management. Seeking to move beyond the sometimes rather one-sided representations of policies that find themselves on the move, the article seeks to connect the ‘exporting’ and ‘importing’ zones of policy transfer, arguing for an open and permeable conceptualization of these places. It draws on work in Manhattan, New York to unpack the nature of the political–economic relations that business improvement districts were part of, before moving on to examine the dynamics of policy transfer and the early days of the introduction of this downtown ‘model’ into UK cities.

The environmental impact of changing logistics structures

Abstract: Purpose – This paper seeks to address how firms may contribute to environmental improvement through structural changes of their logistics systems.Design/methodology/approach – A comprehensive literature review discloses the low interest that has been directed to environmental issues in logistics, and findings relevant for structural issues at a firm level are described. Three cases where firms have implemented different types of structural changes to their logistics systems support the analysis.Findings – A range of different measures to succeed in environmental as well as logistics performance are presented, comprising types of consolidation, logistics standardisation, and IS/IT solutions allowing a vast restructuring of logistics systems.Originality/value – The discussion about logistics and the environment has mostly revolved around more environmental friendly technological solutions, concerning single firms as well as governmental support for technology development. The structural, more organisational...

Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? Mapping the Gender Regimes of Public Sector Worksites

Abstract: The “glass ceiling” model of gender equity has its weaknesses. Therefore, a multiple-dimensions approach to gender is proposed. This essay reports on a field study of organizational gender arrangements in 10 public sector worksites in New South Wales, Australia. Despite equal opportunity measures, gender divisions of labor persist in several forms. Processes that sustain and undermine these divisions are identified. Authority patterns are being reconfigured, with restructuring and rising numbers of women in management resulting in local turbulence in gender relations. Emotions of gender transition are identified, with considerable diversity in reactions among men. An emerging pattern, the “depolarized workplace,” is described. A cultural trend toward workplace gender neutrality is observable. Proposals are made for better practice in gender equity work, including richer ways for public organizations to study their own gender regimes.

Electricity market reform : an international perspective

Abstract: Foreword (S. Littlechild). Introduction (P.L. Joskow). Part 1. What's wrong with the status quo? 1. Why restructure electricity markets? (F.S. Sioshansi). 2. Sector-specific market power regulation vs. general competition law: Criteria for judging competitive vs. regulated markets (G. Knieps). Part 2. Trailblazers. 3. Chile: Where it all started (R. Raineri). 4. Electricity liberalization in Britain and the evolution of market design (D. Newbery). 5. The Nordic Market: Robust by design? (E. Amundsen, N.H. von der Fehr, L. Bergman). Part 3. Evolving markets. 6. The electricity industry in Australia: Problems along the way to a national electricity market (A. Moran). 7. Restructuring of the New Zealand electricity sector, 1984-2005 (G. Bertram). 8. Energy policy and investment in the German power market (G. Brunekreeft, D. Bauknecht). 9. Competition in the continental European electricity market: Despair of work in progress? (R. Haas, J.M. Glachant, N. Keseric, Y. Perez). Part 4. Nort America, New World, New Challenges. 10. California electricity restructuring, the crisis, and its aftermath (J.L. Sweeney). 11. Texas: The most robust competitive martket in North America (P. Adib, J. Zarinkau). 12. Electricity restructuring in Canada (M. Trebilcock). 13 The PJM Market (J. Bowring). 14. Independent system operators in the United States: History, lesseons learned, and prospects (R. O'Neill, U. Helman, B. Hobbs, R. Baldick). 15. Competitive retail power markets and default service (T. Tschamler). Part 5: Other markets. 16. The case of Brasil: Reform by trial and error? (J.L. R. Hermes de Arauja). 17. Understanding the Argentinian and Colombian electricity markets (I. Dyner, S. Arango, E.R. Larsen). 18. A new stage of electricity liberalization in Japan: Issues and expectations (M. Goto, M. Yajima).

Market liberalization and firm performance during China's economic transition

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of market liberalization on firm performance through institutional changes during the economic reform in China. The conceptualization focuses on the decentralization of control, ownership restructuring, and industrial policy as the primary institutional changes to implement market liberalization in China. These institutional changes affect firm performance by shaping managerial incentives, affecting transaction and agency costs, and making selective resource allocations across and within industries. Using a large-scale data set including 23,577 firms between 1992 and 1996, the study examines how market liberalization affects the profitability and productivity of Chinese firms and the relationship between ownership change and the performance of state-owned enterprises.

Just Art for a Just City: Public Art and Social Inclusion in Urban Regeneration

Abstract: Summary. In this article, it is shown how cultural policy, and in particular public art, intersects with the processes of urban restructuring and how it is a contributor, but also antidote, to the conflict that typically surrounds the restructuring of urban space. The particular focus of the paper is on investigating how public art can be inclusionary/exclusionary as part of the wider project of urban regeneration. The first part of the paper examines examples in which public art intervention has attempted to generate inclusion. Subsequently, attention focuses more on examples in which the public art has been perceived as an aspect of cultural domination and has thus provoked resistance. Throughout, it is argued that the processes through which artworks become installed into the urban fabric are critical to the successful development of inclusion.

The EU and social inclusion: Facing the challenges

Abstract: Social cohesion is one of the declared objectives of the European Union and, with some 16% of EU citizens at risk of poverty, the need to fight poverty and social exclusion continues as a major challenge. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the EU Social Inclusion Process, the means by which it hopes to meet this objective, and explores the challenges ahead at local, regional, national and EU levels. It sets out concrete proposals for taking the Process forward.The book provides a unique analysis of policy formation and assessment. Setting out the evolution and current state of EU cooperation in social policy, it examines what can be learned about poverty and social exclusion from the EU community agreed indicators. Taking the position of outside, but informed, observers, the authors explore the further development of common indicators, including the implications of Enlargement, and consider the challenges of advancing the Social Inclusion Process - strengthening policy analysis, embedding the Process in domestic policies and making it more effective. Proposing the setting of targets and restructuring of National Action Plans and their implementation, they emphasise the need for widespread "ownership" of the Process at domestic and EU level and for it to demonstrate significant progress in reducing poverty and social exclusion.The book will be invaluable to academics, students and policy-makers at sub-national, national and EU levels as well as to social partners, and to NGOs working towards a more inclusive society.

In Search of the Nordic Model in Education

Abstract: The Nordic model of education is defined in this article as an attempt to construct a national education system on the foundation of specific local values and practices, but at the same time subject to international influences. According to the author, equity, participation, and welfare are the major goals and the publicly funded comprehensive school system is the major form of the ideal Nordic model. The actual and nationally varying transformation of the model or pattern from the Golden Years of the welfare state in the 1960s and 1970s until the age of restructuring from the 1990s has been described in more detail. The conditions and prospects of the Nordic model are tentatively discussed.

How to implement a new strategy without disrupting your organization.

Abstract: Throughout most of modern busi ness history, corporations have attempted to unlock value by matching their structures to their strategies: Centralization by function. Decentralization by product category or geographic region. Matrix organizations that attempt both at once. Virtual organizations. Networked organizations. Velcro organizations. But none of these approaches has worked very well. Restructuring churn is expensive, and new structures often create new organizational problems that are as troublesome as the ones they try to solve. It takes time for employees to adapt to them, they create legacy systems that refuse to die, and a great deal of tacit knowledge gets lost in the process. Given the costs and difficulties involved in finding structural ways to unlock value, it's fair to raise the question: Is structural change the right tool for the job? The answer is usually no, Kaplan and Norton contend. It's far less disruptive to choose an organizational design that works without major conflicts and then design a customized strategic system to align that structure to the strategy. A management system based on the balanced scorecard framework is the best way to align strategy and structure, the authors suggest. Managers can use the tools of the framework to drive their unit's performance: strategy maps to define and communicate the company's value proposition and the scorecard to implement and monitor the strategy. In this article, the originators of the balanced scorecard describe how two hugely different organizations--DuPont and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police-used corporate scorecards and strategy maps organized around strategic themes to realize the enormous value that their portfolios of assets, people, and skills represented. As a result, they did not have to endure a painful series of changes that simply replaced one rigid structure with another.

Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe

Abstract: Description: This is the first volume to analyse systematically the role of neoliberalism in contemporary processes of urban restructuring. Drawing upon cutting–edge theoretical work within radical geography, critical urban studies, neo–marxian state theory and critical social theory, contributions by leading scholars map the spaces of neoliberalism that have been forged and contested within contemporary North American and Western European cities.

Victual vicissitudes: Consumer deskilling and the (gendered) transformation of food systems

Abstract: A considerable literature addresses worker deskilling in manufacturing and the related loss of control over production processes experienced by farmers and others working in the agri-food industry. Much less attention has been directed at a parallel process of consumer deskilling in the food system, which has been no less important. Consumer deskilling in its various dimensions carries enormous consequences for the restructuring of agro-food systems and for consumer sovereignty, diets, and health. The prevalence of packaged, processed, and industrially transformed foodstuffs is often explained in terms of consumer preference for convenience. A closer look at the social construction of “consumers” reveals that the agro-food industry has waged a double disinformation campaign to manipulate and to re-educate consumers while appearing to respond to consumer demand. Many consumers have lost the knowledge necessary to make discerning decisions about the multiple dimensions of quality, including the contributions a well-chosen diet can make to health, planetary sustainability, and community economic development. They have also lost the skills needed to make use of basic commodities in a manner that allows them to eat a high quality diet while also eating lower on the food chain and on a lower budget. This process has a significant gender dimension, as it is the autonomy of those primarily responsible for purchasing and preparing foodstuffs that has been systematically undermined. Too often, food industry professionals and regulatory agencies have been accessories to this process by misdirecting attention to the less important dimensions of quality.

Outsourcing and Offshoring: Implications for Productivity of Business Services

Abstract: This paper reviews the implications of outsourcing and offshoring for the productivity of business services in the UK. Official statistics indicate that business-service productivity has grown by over 20 per cent in the last 7 years at the same time as employment grew by 20 per cent. The paper considers possible factors that account for the simultaneous growth of employment and productivity. First, we discuss outsourcing and offshoring, and their role in enhancing productivity through greater specialization, standardization, and consolidation of business processes, and a shift to higher value-added services. Outsourcing of business services is interpreted as part of corporate restructuring, namely as the unbundling of corporate functions as well as vertical disintegration. Second, as some services become more like products, both low-skilled and high-skilled jobs are subjected to productivity growth through standardization and digitization. It is argued, however, that the future of business-service productivity is on a knife-edge, depending on the mix of two sources of productivity enhancement--namely greater standardization and capturing value from customized solutions. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.

Reforming power markets in developing countries : what have we learned?

Abstract: This paper broadly follows the structure of the World Bank's Operational Guidance Note (OGN) for Public and Private Roles in the Supply of Electricity Services. Following the overview in chapter 1, the rest of chapter 2 sets out the techno-economic basis and the importance of political and institutional factors for reforming power markets in developing countries. Chapter 3 covers the current extent and outcomes of power market reform in developing countries. Chapter 4 covers enterprise restructuring and corporate governance, including the respective roles of state-owned enterprises and private enterprises in the provision of electricity services. Chapter 5 covers market structure, including restructuring power systems, the experience with independent power producers, and competition in the power market. Chapter 6 covers regulation of power markets. Chapter 7 covers ways that power market reform can support access and affordability to electricity services for the poor. The final chapter of the paper -- chapter 8 -- covers reform implementation, which complements the subjects covered by the OGN. The chapter covers three main aspects: (a) the challenges for implementing power market reform, including governments' roles and responsibilities in this endeavor; (b) the sequencing of power market reform; and (c) managing reform transition, especially the importance of starting conditions. The appendix to the paper examines the relevance of experience with power market reform in OECD countries for reform in developing countries.

The Contradiction in China's Gradualist Banking Reforms

Abstract: DURING CHINA'S TWO and a half decades of economic reform, it has often been observed that the bank-dominated financial system is the economy's Achilles' heel. Since 2003, China's central government has reformed the largest state-owned commercial banks to improve their competitiveness before opening the banking industry to foreign competitors, as mandated as part of the country' s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Reform of these banks has markedly improved their performance, but the process has been gradual, and underlying problems remain. One can assess these developments in two contrasting ways. The first is optimistic: the Chinese authorities can afford to reform the state-owned banks gradually because of the economy's growth momentum, the small public sector debt-to-GDP ratio, the size of China's foreign exchange reserves, and the large volume of domestic savings? A complementary perspective by Jonathan Anderson notes that the removal of nonperforming loans (NPLs) from bank balance sheets has substantially reduced their financial risk, even if those NPLs have not all been resolved. (2) The alternative assessment is more skeptical, highlighting the depth of reforms and bank restructuring that remain. Nicholas Lardy has emphasized, as have others more recently, (3) that, in China as elsewhere, an efficient banking system is essential to the efficient allocation of capital and the transmission of monetary policy, and it is closely tied to capital account convertibility and other economic objectives. The gradual pace of reform in China, particularly of the government's involvement in bank ownership and decision-making, postpones the day when such a system arrives. This choice of continued public sector involvement reflects a basic trade-off between, on the one hand, greater efficiency in state-owned institutions, of which the banks are an important part, and, on the other, stable employment growth and, more recently, rural-urban and regional equality. The Chinese authorities seek rapid economic growth and employment creation sufficient to absorb the country's surplus labor force, which consists of new entrants, rural-urban migrants, and those laid off from money-losing state-owned enterprises (SOEs). In the past two decades, the banks have been enlisted to support the SOEs as well as to finance infrastructure investments and export platforms through policy lending (lending based on policy objectives or political criteria and connections rather than creditworthiness). Addressing the growing rural-urban and regional inequality is the centerpiece of China's 11th Five Year Program, approved by the National People's Congress in early 2006. The program seeks more balanced urban and rural development by improving public services in the rural areas and by increasing urbanization. We are skeptics on the issue of gradual banking reform. It is not uncommon for former command economies to undertake reform gradually in order to prevent widespread unemployment. As this paper will show, however, the dependence of China's government-affiliated firms on the state-owned banks for their working capital means that the banks are forced to satisfy contradictory objectives: financing employment and social stability while transforming themselves into commercially viable corporate entities. Further, we argue, the Chinese government is proceeding in a way that ignores this contradiction. The impact of continued government ownership of the banks is apparent in current institutional arrangements. Just as China's high average growth rates conceal large disparities between the three large coastal urban agglomerations--around Beijing, the Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai), and the Pearl River Delta (Hong Kong, Guangdong, Shenzen)--and the rest of the country, the banking system remains fragmented and often dominated by still-independent local branches and decisionmakers, whose objectives may differ from those of the Beijing headquarters. …

Organizational Commitment, Job Redesign, Employee Empowerment and Intent to Quit Among Survivors of Restructuring and Downsizing

Abstract: This study is designed to determine the relationship between job redesign, employee empowerment and intent to quit measured by affective organizational commitment among survivors of organizational restructuring and downsizing. It focused on middle level managers and employees in supervisory positions because survivors of this group are often called upon to assume expanded roles, functions and responsibilities in a post restructuring and downsizing environment. The results show statistically significant positive relationships between job redesign, empowerment and affective commitment. It therefore, provides empirical data to support theoretical models for managing and mitigating survivors’ intent to quit and subsequent voluntary turnover among survivors of organizational restructuring and downsizing. The implications of these findings, which suggest expanded roles for job redesign and employee empowerment, are discussed.

Globalfocusing: From Domestic Conglomerates to Global Specialists*

Abstract: Globalization is changing the competitive terrain on which companies develop their corporate strategy. On the global stage, key competitive advantages are gained through internationally fungible resources. Consequently, diversified conglomerates are converting to global specialists in narrower niche markets and competing with a small number of multinational enterprises operating worldwide. Their internationalization and their reduction of product diversification are opposite sides of the same coin: globalfocusing. I extend Penrosian resource-based theory to analyse this change process, notably by distinguishing country and industry specificity of firms' core competences, and by integrating divestment as part of firm growth processes. Globalfocusing is driven by shifts in the relative importance of country-specific and industry-specific resources and capabilities due to changes in the internal and external environment, notably the globalization of markets and supply chains. The argument is developed using case studies of restructuring of two Danish manufacturing enterprises. On this basis, I analyse the forces driving globalfocusing processes and suggest propositions for empirical testing.

Making connections: global production networks, standards and embeddedness in the mobile telecommunications industry

Abstract: The authors investigate the contemporary restructuring of the mobile-telecommunications industry with the use of a global production networks (GPNs) perspective. After a brief conceptual discussion of GPN, standard setting and embeddedness, their analysis proceeds in four further stages. First, they consider how technological change has driven the development of complex mobile telecommunications GPNs in a sector previously characterised by relatively linear and simple value chains. Second, they show how processes of deregulation and privatisation over the past two decades have enabled the internationalisation of mobile telecommunications provision. Third, they explore the delicate power balance between embedded state and corporate actors in telecommunications GPNs through a consideration of the changing bases of standard setting in the industry. Despite ongoing processes of globalisation, the continuing importance of national policies and strategies is clear. Fourth, they demonstrate the continuing import...

Governing space: planning reform and the politics of sustainability

Abstract: The authors explore the relationship between land-use, or spatial, planning and the environmental sustainability of major areas of public policy. First, the planning^public policy relationship is conceptualised within a framework that challenges narrowly instrumental accounts of the role of planning in the promotion of environmental sustainability, emphasising instead how the exploitation of opportunity structures in planning has impinged over time on dominant sectoral objectives. This framework is then used to analyse reformist pressures on planning, with particular reference to England's 'modernising planning' agenda. The argument is developed through a critical analysis of how, in the light of key components of this agendarescaling, streamlining, and the introduction of a statutory purposeplanning, public policy, and environmental sustainability might be expected to interact in future. Early signs suggest that the initial reform proposalsto accelerate the delivery of development by restructuring opportunities for participationwere diluted (but not displaced) by strong opposition. Tracing the long-term impacts of the reforms will require research into the relations between the reconstituted tiers of planning and the ability of interest groups to use the new opportunity structures effectivelytasks that should interest analysts of the greening of the state as much as planning researchers.

Restructuring and functional heads

Abstract: This volume collects the recent published articles of Guglielmo Cinque of the University of Venice, one of the world's top linguists. The book is divided into two sections, the first on restructuring, a central topic in Romance syntax and with connections to other language groups as well. The second part focuses on the consequences of treating clausal functional heads as members of a universal hierarchy in the domain of morphpsyntax, offering a new perspective on many intricate problems arising in a variety of natural languages.