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This paper presents a simple framework for analyzing the macroeconomic effects of internal and external shocks under polar exchange rate regimes. It highlights the significance of fluctuations in competitiveness and real income for exchange rate policy, revealing that positive (negative) real shocks increase (decrease) national income and strengthen (weaken) the balance of payments and exchange rate. It also shows that, ceteris paribus, pegged exchange rates facilitate real income growth for emerging economies while lowering its variability when exports and productivity are improving and monetary shocks predominate. Alternatively, a floating exchange rate system may be most appropriate for less open advanced economies with relatively stable monetary sectors that frequently experience negative real shocks.

Dr Goh Keng Swee has been credited as being the social and economic architect of Singapore. In his 25 years of government service, he served in a wide range of ministerial appointments, including Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Minister of Defence and Minister of Education. This paper discusses a specific aspect of his contributions to Singapore's economic strategy, namely that of reducing income inequality without compromising competitiveness.

We develop a general equilibrium endogenous growth model where final goods are produced in either the exporter sector or the importer sector, in order to analyze the short, medium and long-run growth effects of an external demand shock induced by an international crisis, such as the current one. Depending on the policy response, such a shock might (or might not) severely affect competitiveness, wage inequality, the economic growth rate and the technological-knowledge bias. This bias controls the paths towards the new steady state. The model shows that countries with balanced public finances can accommodate the external shock and that the intervention should be prompt, as the delay is costly. Results appear to be supported by empirical evidence.

The master equation formalism is used to describe the possibility for peak population amplitudes of two nonstationary states in a 3-stage linear kinetic system to be endowed with an untraditional physical quantity — competitiveness — established in regard to the differences for the degree of the peak responses to a change in the input rate constants. Calculated coefficients of competitiveness are found to agree with observations of performance for the three optical materials with respect to their reliability in different operating windows. It is concluded that, for a non-equilibrium linear kinetic system, the competitiveness constitutes a common dynamic property of its nonstationary states and, in the case of their directed irreversible evolution, comprises the property of a system’s anti-cooperativity.

We consider three related problems of robot movement in arbitrary dimensions: coverage, search, and navigation. For each problem, a spherical robot is asked to accomplish a motion-related task in an unknown environment whose geometry is learned by the robot during navigation. The robot is assumed to have tactile and global positioning sensors. We view these problems from the perspective of (non-linear) competitiveness as defined by Gabriely and Rimon. We first show that in 3 dimensions and higher, there is no upper bound on competitiveness: every online algorithm can do arbitrarily badly compared to the optimal. We then modify the problems by assuming a fixed clearance parameter. We are able to give optimally competitive algorithms under this assumption. We show that these modified problems have polynomial competitiveness in the optimal path length, of degree equal to the dimension.

Suppose that a robot is required to traverse a two-dimensional scene with impenetrable rectangular obstacles. The robot has no information about the obstacles in advance and the size, location, and orientation of each obstacle in the scene are arbitrary, yet the robot can see and move in any direction. In this paper we construct an on-line algorithm for the robot to determine an obstacle-free path to its destination dynamically. The primary concern for such on-line algorithm is the competitiveness coefficient which essentially compares the actual distance traversed to the length of the shortest path. We show that if the aspect ratio of every rectangular obstacle in the scene is bounded by a constant r, then our algorithm achieves the optimal competitiveness coefficient which is r/2+1.

Until recently, human resource management has been considered inappropriate and too costly for small businesses and consequently research in this direction has been at a relatively minimum level. It is also evident that the effectiveness and competitiveness of SMEs can be increased through the application of sound HRM practices. In order to establish how SMEs can successfully apply HRM, the objective of this study is to establish, in an exploratory manner, the applicability of HRM in a small business in order to ensure its effective operation and consequent competitiveness. The research method applied is an interpretive and qualitative approach by means of a single case study of a photographic equipment store. The owner-manager perceives that personnel problems pose a major barrier to the success of the business; however, he also believes that outside aid in HRM would not resolve the problems. The HRM process of the SME growth model adds value in the sense that it also illustrates the relationship between the owner-manager's personal characteristics, external market conditions, nature of the work environment, and the business structure. Given the small business-specific problems that were identified, the information obtained in this study paves the way for a quantitative study of a number of SMEs and comparative research.

This paper makes the distinction between micro-focused unions and macro-focused unions, with the latter emphasizing full employment and competitiveness for the economy. It examines the micro-foundation of the macro-focused labor movement, which calls for certain conditions or arrangements conducive to, and the instruments needed for, the establishment and survival of macro-focused unions. The consequences and outcomes in an industrial relations regime in which macro-focused unions prevail are also examined, and measures for countering the free rider problem suggested. The main conclusion is that a macro-focused labor movement is a strategic partner with the government in enhancing international competitiveness, an option which is superior to an exchange rate policy.

This paper investigates the impact of Asian banks' income structure on competitiveness, profitability, and risk over the period 2005–2011. Exchange-listed commercial banks of eight Asian countries are included in the study sample. The cross-sectional regression results reveal that higher exposure of net non-interest income in Asian banks increases market risk and asset risk but lowers insolvency risk, ROA and ROE. On the other hand, higher exposure of net fees and commissions reduces return volatility, market risk, and asset risk but increases insolvency risk, ROA, and ROE. Further, exposure to trading and derivatives, along with other securities, tends to decrease banks' competitiveness.

Among the economies in the Eastern coastal area of mainland China, Jiangsu has stood out in terms of its rapid and sustained economic growth since 2000. The province has done exceptionally well in terms of competitiveness indicators, catching up quickly with the leading Greater China economy of Taiwan. Such convergence has triggered much academic and policy interest in terms of understanding the driving factors that have enabled Jiangsu to catch up with Taiwan. In this context, this paper empirically analyzes the factors that have caused the convergence between the two economies from 2000 to 2011 by employing Geweke Causality analysis. By decomposing and examining the linear feedback between economic growth and vectors of variables capturing investments in infrastructure, human capital, science, technology and innovation activities, this paper confirms the important role played by those factors in the convergence between Jiangsu and Taiwan in recent years.

Carbon leakage and competitiveness concerns are some of the main reasons why an international environmental agreement is lacking to fight climate change. Many studies discussed the adoption of a border tax adjustment (BTA) to allow countries that would like to implement a carbon tax to level the playing field with imports. The big drawback from these studies is that the other country is not allowed to react by adopting itself a carbon tax to avoid being punished with the BTA. The model proposed in this paper looks at the optimization of two different governments and their respective firms. Parametric values inside the set [0, 1) are used to represent the possible extents of the BTA depending on both countries environmental policy allowing countries to have different carbon policies. The result that a BTA parameter of 0.5 yields the highest total welfare could increase its acceptance within the World Trade Organization (WTO).

With the increasing globalisation of the economy, the global economy has been in recession in recent years. Traditionally, corporate competition stems from assets, material, and entrepreneurial spirit. However, with the times’ development, enterprises’ competitiveness has gradually transformed into cultural competitiveness. Organisational cultural competitiveness combines culture with tangible assets to create a human identity unique to the organisation, thus further enhancing its competitiveness. In order to improve competitiveness, this study reconstructs the organisation’s culture by integrating press and publicity into it, uses grey relation analysis (GRA) to analyse it, and establishes a GRA evaluation model to evaluate competitiveness indicators. The experimental results show that among the three indicators of physical, institutional and spiritual culture competitiveness, the curves of institutional culture competitiveness and organisational competitiveness are the most similar, with a correlation degree of 0.9, indicating that the improvement of institutional culture competitiveness has a greatest impact on the improvement of organisational culture competitiveness. This study proposes an efficient method to improve organisational competitiveness.

In Japan, there are great expectations for nanotechnology because it is expected not only to renovate existing markets but also create new, large, and wide-ranging markets. Japan is generally believed to be strong in nanotechnology. However, how should the competitiveness of nanotechnology be measured?

Based on publications, patents, venture business, and other survey results, this paper intends to discuss Japan's nanotechnology competitiveness and changes in the competition areas of nanotechnology by examining nanotechnology's technological characteristics and industry structures.

A finding from this study is that in individual technology areas identified through quantitative analyses such as papers and patents, Japan's nanotechnology can be rated equal to or just behind that of the US. In the future, however, when nanotechnology commercialization becomes more widespread and the stages of technology competition change from top-down technology to bottom-up technology, Japan may lose relative competitiveness as it faces some barriers related to "nanosystematization".

Research on innovative technological methods in SMEs’ production processes is progressively receiving attention. However, little is known about the emerging phenomenon of additive manufacturing (AM), which may represent a significant strategic lever for fostering a company’s competitiveness and performance, especially for SMEs. Our aim is to investigate the effects of AM on SMEs’ production process, in order to better understand the relative outcomes of such an innovative technique. We used latent content analysis for empirically analyzing SMEs present in one of the most important Italian gold jewelry districts. Our findings suggest that the AM introduction in a company’s production process effectively results in many positive outcomes, such as process innovation, customer satisfaction, costs, revenues, profits, and competitive advantage. Specifically, there is a positive linkage between AM and a company’s performance. Hence, such an innovative technique may be interpreted as a viable growth strategy for SMEs. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

This study embarks on a comprehensive bibliometric analysis to elucidate the intricate relationship between knowledge management capabilities and perceived performance within information technology small and medium-sized enterprises (IT SMEs). Utilizing data from the Web of Science and Scopus databases, this research meticulously examines occurrences, word frequencies, and clustering analyses to identify pivotal thematic areas influencing IT SMEs. By employing advanced tools such as RStudio software and the Biblioshiny application, the study dissects average citations per year, presenting a dynamic view of research impact and evolving significance in the domain. Authorship dynamics are explored through Lotka’s law, and geographic contributions are analyzed, highlighting the global and collaborative essence of knowledge management research. Factorial analysis further reveals layered dimensions of research trends, offering guidance for researchers and practitioners in crafting nuanced strategies. The collective insights underscore the paramount role of knowledge management in enhancing IT SMEs’ performance and competitive edge, marking a significant stride toward understanding and implementing effective knowledge management strategies in the rapidly evolving IT landscape.

This study examined the competitive attitudes of entrepreneurs using the psychological theory of hyper-competitiveness versus personal development competitiveness in data from a cross-section of small business entrepreneurs. Results suggest most entrepreneurs view themselves, and their cohort, as personal development (e. g., growth oriented) competitors rather than as hypercompetitors (e. g., dominant individuals). The analysis suggests that, when applied at the individual level, the entrepreneurial orientation dimension of competitive aggressiveness should be reconceptualized to include not only hyper-competitiveness but also personal development competitiveness. Implications for the theories of entrepreneurial gender, affective engagement, interactional competitiveness and self-actualization are discussed.

In September 2010, Brazil’s Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, used the term “currency war” with reference to monetary policies implemented by different countries to generate an artificial devaluation of their currency and achieve a cheaper, more competitive domestic economy that may be attractive to foreign investors. Similar cases have been documented since the 1930’s Great Depression, when several countries abandoned the gold standard as backing for their currencies. More recently, a large-scale asset purchase by Japan’s Central Bank in 2013 was singled out as a strategy aimed at generating devaluation of the yen. This research uses statistics of new business formation density reported by Doing Business for 30 emerging countries in the period from 2004 through 2011 to evaluate the impact of devaluation measured by the behavior of the real effective exchange rate (REER) on the rate of new business formation (NBF). It is determined how variables associated with competitiveness affect the relationship between devaluation and business formation. Results show that devaluation has a positive effect on NBF in the short term, which gets diluted in the long term. Countries with greater competitiveness have less dependence on devaluation to increase the number of businesses.

Projects play key roles in many modern industries and firms. The management of these economic systems, project management, is continuously developed and considered to be at the core of competitive advantage. Traditional research on project management has, however, paid scant attention to the capabilities needed for firms that depend on projects in their business operations. Furthermore, traditional work on the capabilities and competence of the firm pays limited attention to the specific traits of project processes. In the present paper, project competence is considered to be one of three strategic competencies frequently observed in modern firms. We develop an overall model for the analysis of project competence. The proposed model identifies four building blocks of project competence, namely project generation, project organising, project leadership and teamwork. In an empirical study we elaborate on some empirical regularities in the operations of firms that to a large extent depend on projects. The companies studied are ABB, Ericsson, Skanska and Posten. We illustrate the possibilities of this model and show some variations between the companies. The article illustrates how the project competence framework might explain the differences among the competitiveness of firms.

The innovation process in the biopharmaceutical sector is influenced by long business cycles, multiple stakeholders and complex interactions. Early models of the innovation process are inadequate to capture the complexity of innovation in the life sciences sector. In particular, narrow classifications which describe innovations as "radical" or "incremental" are not particularly useful when considered in the context of the complex patterns of interrelated innovations observed in practice.

Many partial models of the innovation process which equate innovation to inventive research, patenting and product development fail to recognise that innovation is a cyclical and business-driven process and underscore the final phase of the innovation process, namely, achieving timely market diffusion and adoption of innovations to benefit patients and innovators. Innovation is sustained if it is appropriately rewarded. Investment in the science base alone without appropriate reward system for innovations is unlikely to promote renewed competitiveness in the European biopharmaceutical industry.

This paper examines the links between eco-innovations and competitiveness. It explores how superior competitiveness is created and how existing competitiveness is lost. The study utilises multiple case studies following the replication approach. The empirical evidence is based on five case firms that have created superior competitiveness and five case firms that have lost their competitiveness. Competitiveness is monitored having emphasis on market-related, efficiency-related, risk-related and image-related issues. The longitudinal data covers ten years from 2002 to 2011. This study provides two contributions to academic literature. First, it deepens the existing knowledge of how firms have created competitiveness through the development of eco-innovations or how the firms have lost their competitiveness. Second, it illustrates a journey of ten years during which the successful eco-innovators created their superior competitiveness. Also, the journey of the unsuccessful eco-innovators is described.