Web-based B2B exchanges have experienced a significant growth in recent years. While some B2B exchanges have met with huge success, several others have failed to live up to expectations. There is hardly any systematic study to assess the value of B2B marketplaces for participating firms. Our research employs an event-study methodology to investigate the effect of various industry, firm, and exc...

Precis: Studies of foreign direct investment in Ireland have concentrated on the absence of linkages and the high proportion of output exported. This paper analyses a sample of manufacturing firms in the Mid-West Region to highlight other relatively neglected aspects, such as managerial skills and technology and argues that the managerial differences between foreign and native firms are such as...

The present paper studies the effect of the choice of product quality on trade and location of firms. We discuss a model where consumers have preferences for the quality of a set of differentiated varieties. Firms do not only develop and sell manufacturing varieties in a monopolistic competitive market but also determine the quality level of their varieties by investing in research and developm...

Using firm-level data for three Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries and four manufacturing industries, I examine how imports from OECD countries lead to productivity gains for domestic establishments through their knowledge absorption capabilities. I find that domestic firms with technology standards farther away from the international frontier benefit more from trade than those with technology...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of technological opportunities on the innovation activities of firms, depending on their absorptive capacities. The importance and impacts of the ability of firms to use external knowledge sources were inquired especially for external knowledge stemming from scientific research. Using a simple theoretic model, different innovation effects were emp...

To gain competitive advantages in the global market, many Chinese manufacturing firms have invested heavily in implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Evidence shows however that ERP post-implementation performance has varied significantly between firms. This paper aims to investigate such variances in performance in the Chinese manufacturing context, particularly at a plant le...

ISO 9000 is the most popular and widely adopted meta-standard for quality and operational improvements in manufacturing supply chains. However, few studies have quantitatively examined its impact on supply chain efficiency. In this paper we measure the material and cash flow efficiency of ISO 9000 certified firms in terms of inventory days and account receivable days. We analyzed changes in the...

Abstract In the past few years, diversification has turned into a highly controversial issue amongst numerous managers in almost each and every business. It is contended by many that diversification is vitally important and highly effective especially when it comes to evaluating the financial performance. There are several studies about the relationship between diversification and financial per...

Recently many researches have studied technological innovation capabilities (TICs) and their impacts on firm’s competitive performance in the field of manufacturing industries. This paper pursued Yam et al. (2004) framework to study the relevance of TICs and firm's competitive performance in a mainly-service-based industry in Iran (ICT). Empirical data were collected through a questionnaire from...