Learning through foreign market participation: the relative benefits of exporting,importing, and foreign direct investment

A growing literature explores the degree to which firms learn from exporting. Although this literature finds that firms that export subsequently enjoy enhanced innovative performance, there has been little research that compares the effect of exporting to that of alternative internationalization activities. In this paper, we extend the literature to explore theoretically the differential effects of a firm’s exporting, foreign direct investment, and importing activity on its innovative outcomes. We test the resulting hypotheses using a sample of Spanish manufacturing firms from 2000 to 2008. We find that (1) learning associated with exporting is more pronounced than that associated with a firm’s FDI activities, (2) exporting and FDI operate as substitutes in their effect on a firm’s learning, and (3) although importing is positively associated with learning as manifested in new product introductions, it is not associated with learning as manifested in patenting activity.     

A study of female robbers in a Southern Correctional Institution

A stratified random sample of thirty-three female robbers incarcerated at the Florida Correctional Institute at Lowell was selected and interviewed. The findings indicated that the majority of the sample was black, under thirty, of average intelligence, and single. The female robber was typically found to operate with an accomplice, use a firearm, and be motivated by a desire for financial gain. A preliminary typology that included two major categories, situational robbers and career robbers, was developed.     

Deciding to Negotiate with Villains

Negotiation Journal - Do national leaders have an obligation to negotiate with enemies that have been villainized despite government policies and popular opinion that constrain them from doing so?...     

Die multilokale Mehrgenerationenfamilie

In the fourties, René König and Ernest W. Burgess formulated concepts for the family, with the internal coherence being based on the relations and the feelings of the family members. Therefore, König feared the disorganization and disintegration of the institution of the family. In contrast, Talcott Parsons developed the model of a cooperative family organization, whose stability is not based on the feelings, but is regulated by the reciprocal functioning of the family members. The thesis of this essay is that Parsons — contrary to König and Burgess — developed a valid model of the family of the industrial society. This model is empirically examinable, but furthermore indicates in detail the conditions designating the stability or the decay of the model. Today the fordist family model of Parsons is replaced by the model of the multi-local and multi-generational family.     

Terror and triage: prioritizing access to mass smallpox vaccination

In response to the threat of a smallpox attack on the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC") recommended the establishment of smallpox clinics designed to distribute a vaccine to the entire U.S. population in a ten day period. However, a number of potential obstacles raise questions about the feasibility of this plan. What is needed is a plan that applies principles of triage to smallpox vaccine distribution following a bioterrorism attack. Only in this way can those most vulnerable--the previously unvaccinated--be protected from a significantly increased risk due to delays that might arise in executing the CDC plan.