Political Issues In Russia - 1071 Words

Russian Federation has a long and interesting history. Many different events the structure and development of the country. Nowadays, Russia plays one of the most important roles in our world. Russia is located at the intersection of different cultures and contains multinational population and ethno-cultural diversity. Russia is an interesting country to discuss its issues of ethnicity and religion, try to predict the future development and economics of the country. How different country’s issues such as class distinction, equity and equality, race, religion, nationalism and other political variables are solved or considered by the state at least. The main goal of this work is to show weaknesses and struggles which Russia faces on the road†¦show more content†¦After replaces of all these phases, transitions and links between phases, humankind would try to reform itself and improve itself to achieve a better world to live in for everyone. The first phase which Marx desc ribed in his work was called primitive or tribal-communism when humans lived in small communities or tribes and lived a quasi-communistic existence. The main idea of that society was to share their work and resources were. The main decisions for a tribe were made together or communally. During the ancient period, the first societies, for example, the Roman Empire, were based on ownership of land and control of labor It was a hierarchical system. Its noble classes, or we could say the class who ruled the state, used slave labor, At that time, slavery wasnt based on the race, prisoners of military conquests mainly or people who could not pay debts became slaves mainly. This phase was called the slavery phase. After the slavery phase, there was feudalism. It existed during medieval times when kings and lords ruled and owned the land. They gave some parts of their lands to their peasant farmers and let them live and take care about it, these peasants served their lords and kings, for e xample, they return their obedience, tributes and military service. Capitalism was the next phase. It is an industrialized system that appeared and was developed in the 18th century after industrialShow MoreRelatedThe Impact Of Political Change On Russia1277 Words   |  6 PagesHow significant was war in bringing about political change in Russia in the year 1856-1964? War had a huge political impact on Russia from 1856 to 1964, but it was not the only factor that brought about political change. Political change was influenced by many aspects. A big part of what brought about political change was the different wars that took place which included; The Crimean war of 1853, The Russo-Japanese war of 1904 and lastly the First World War that began in 1914. 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The first thing that should be taken into account when evaluating the Russian political system - is pronounced personification of power. The Russian system has not so much institutional as personalistic character. This feature is deeply rooted in the historical tradition since the days of autocracy. Personality of the monarch was putting a distinct imprint on the character of the reign - not only on its direction (variation of reformism and conservatism)Read MoreKosovos Status Legitimacy 1690 Words   |  7 PagesDemocracy. By the turn of the century Russia was beginning to demonstrate several signs that hinted at a healthy democracy was beginning to emerge. These signs included such promising practices as the public debate of policy issues, a healthy competition of political parties, a variety of opinions presented by the media, a strong community of regional governors, and an expanding community of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (Russia 2005). Although many of these politica l institutions and their leaders

Some Helpful Tips For Writing a Good Social Economics Essay

Some Helpful Tips For Writing a Good Social Economics EssayIf you want to get good grades on your Social Economics essay, the best way to do this is to study and practice on your topic of choice. However, it can be frustrating when you know that you have a clear idea of the topic, but you still have a difficult time writing the essay. Here are some suggestions to help you work through your essay writing challenges.Begin by defining the topic of your essay in detail. Make sure you know what type of essay you are writing and that the subject is a strong one. Writing an essay that discusses the roots of racism and classism can be a little tricky as it is difficult to determine who was in the wrong and who was not in the wrong.Begin thinking about how the main points of your essay topics will relate to the readers. One of the biggest problems that people face when they are writing an essay is the confusion between their vision and the reader's vision. To overcome this problem, you need t o take the time to really sit down and think about what you want to say.Begin researching your essay topic to determine who the audience is. You need to find out who the audience is in order to write an essay that will be able to reach them. You will also want to decide if you are writing for a specific audience or general audiences.Be prepared to create two drafts. You need to know your topic so you need to be confident in your skills and knowledge of the topic. Also, if you do not have a lot of time to devote to essay writing, then you will want to focus on your topic and write the essay in the order that you feel is most important.Read as much as you can about the topic of your essay and try to take note of the mistakes people make when writing essays. This will give you an idea of what you will need to work on to make sure your essays are error free. You also need to become familiar with the different types of essay writing that you can perform.Be aware of grammar and style rule s. Your essay writing should be done using appropriate grammar and writing conventions. You also need to learn to properly format your paper so that it will look clean and ready for submission.There are a number of other tips and tricks that you can use to improve your essay topics. The best way to work on improving your essays is to take a step back and review your entire topic at least once before you begin working on your essay. This will give you the necessary knowledge to ensure that you write your paper with confidence.

Literary Analysis Essay Samples

Literary Analysis Essay SamplesLiterary analysis essay samples are some of the most important elements of literary study. Literary analysis is about doing more than just reading a piece of writing. Instead, it takes a deeper understanding of the writing to identify its purpose and the overall impact of the story.Literary analysis essay samples are important because they offer a sense of what kinds of reading will be most helpful in identifying the central themes of a work. Writing this kind of essay requires a thorough knowledge of how an author will write their text. The key is to make it easy for your readers to understand your words. In order to do this, you need to make sure that the words come from the heart.However, you should not leave the reader's attention on one point of the writing. By doing this, you will be able to identify a theme that might lead to much deeper themes. To take this further, you should consider using different kinds of literature for this essay.Literary analysis essay samples can also incorporate video clips that would help the reader see how the writer uses imagery and sounds to draw their attention. Another useful method to use is to integrate two or more narratives within the same book. You may be able to differentiate two different themes by using these methods.You can also use a variety of reading techniques when analyzing a story. The goal is to find the main theme of the piece. If you have a greater knowledge of the author's tastes, you might be able to identify a common thread with one work while you are familiar with another. If you find that there is a significant difference in their choices, the theme that you are trying to identify can only be found by linking the two works together.A great way to use this form of analysis essaysamples is to look at how the writers structure the story. Often authors use structure in order to describe the actions that occur in the narrative. If you are able to link the actions within the book together with how they relate to the rest of the book, you will be better able to pinpoint the main theme.You should also include literary analysis essay samples in your book. This allows you to work with an audience that knows what the plot is all about. And if you want to give them a more detailed description of how it is written, you can simply include the sample in your published work.

Vietnam Research Paper Free Essays

Why is the Vietnam War so significant in American history? How did it really affect America? The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces trying to unify Vietnam under a communist government, and the United States attempting to prevent the spread of communism. There are many lessons learned throughout this war that America, hopefully, will never undergo again. There are a series of events that led up to this full-scale war. We will write a custom essay sample on Vietnam Research Paper or any similar topic only for you Order Now First, the U. S. tried to prevent Vietnam from becoming a communist nation, so they sent the French military aid to help rule against this. Soon enough, France wanted to withdraw their troops out of Vietnam; the Geneva Conference was a meeting between many nations deciding how France could peacefully pull out troops. A bit later, there was supposed to be a General democratic election held, but America refused to agree to the election, afraid that the communists would win. In 1965, the U. S. sent ground troops to help South Vietnam, sparking tensions between the U. S. and North Vietnam. From 1965 to 1969, America was involved in a limited war in Vietnam, meaning weak efforts to attack North Vietnam. U. S. orces became easily frustrated because war in the jungle was found difficult. Vietnam would attack in ambushes, set up booby traps, and escape through underground tunnels. To prove even more difficult, Northern Vietnam troops and the Viet Cong surprised South Vietnam and U. S. troops. On January 30, 1968 they attacked hundreds of South Vietnamese cities and towns, known as the Tet Offensive. Without a doubt, it showed that the enemy was stronger and better prepared. While the public’s support for the war was way gone, there was new hope with Richard Nixon, the new president of America. Soon after taking office, Richard Nixon planned the policy Vietnamization, which was a process to remove U. S. troops from Vietnam while handing back the fighting to the South Vietnamese. While America had almost completed the withdrawal of their troops from Vietnam, the North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam and the remaining troops on March 30, 1972. This attack is known as the Easter Offensive. This rough battle resulted in about 40,000 deaths and 60,000 people wounded or missing in the People’s Army of North Vietnam (PAVN). The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) estimated at 10,000 deaths and 33,000 troops wounded. The offensive was defeated, but the PAVN continued to occupy about 10 percent of South Vietnam after this battle. Nixon was in the process of his Vietnamization policy, when discussions had arisen about restoring peace in Vietnam. Soon began peace talks in Paris that finally succeeded in producing a cease-fire agreement. Nixon declares the news of the decisions made during the Paris peace talks. â€Å"Good evening. I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia. The following statement is being issued at this moment in Washington and Hanoi: At 12:30 Paris time today [Tuesday], January 23, 1973, the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam was initialed by Dr. Henry Kissinger on behalf of the United States, and Special Adviser Le Duc Tho on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The agreement will be formally signed by the parties participating in the Paris Conference on Vietnam on January 27, 1973, at the International Conference Center in Paris. The cease-fire will take effect at 2400 Greenwich Mean Time, January 27, 1973. The United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam express the hope that this agreement will insure stable peace in Vietnam and contribute to the preservation of lasting peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia†¦The important thing was not to talk about peace, but to get peace and to get the right kind of peace. This we have done† (â€Å"Peace with Honor† 1). After signing the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, on March 29, 1973 the last group of U. S. troops left Vietnam. The North Vietnam toppled the Southern Vietnamese government, and South Vietnam officially surrendered in 1975 to communist North Vietnam. Tolerating all the hard work and fighting was proved pointless for American and ARVN troops when Vietnam was reunited as a communist country in 1976. Often in history, major events such as wars or disasters are the key elements that seem to influence and shape our society. The major event that shaped American society during the ‘70s was the Vietnam War, having a massive social impact. The Vietnam War acted as a catalyst to the counterculture movement, and changed the art, music, and education. How to cite Vietnam Research Paper, Essay examples

International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction Essay Example

International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction Essay Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of International Management International diversi? cation and the market value of new product introduction Chi-Feng Wang a,1, Li-Yu Chen b,? , Shao-Chi Chang c,2 a b c Department of Business Administration, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan Department of Management, Fo Guang University, Taiwan Institute of International Business, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan article info Article history: Received 11 January 2011 Received in revised form 31 March 2011 Accepted 31 March 2011 Available online 2 May 2011 Keywords: International diversi? cation New product introduction Technological capability Marketing capability Event study abstract Although previous studies on international diversification are plentiful, they mainly focus on the effect of international diversification on overall firm performance, and the results are mixed. This study extends this line of research and explores the impact of international diversification on new product performance. Specifically, we ask if international diversification explains the stock market reactions to new product introduction (NPI) announcements. We find an inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversification and the announcement returns of NPIs, revealing that the market value of NPIs initially improves and then declines with increasing international diversification. The results also show that intangible assets, such as technological and marketing capabilities, positively moderate the relationship between international diversification and the market value of NPIs. We will write a custom essay sample on International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Our study not only highlights the importance of considering both sides of international diversification in affecting investors assessments of corporate new product strategies, but also shows the possibility of internal capabilities in changing the fixed relationship between international diversification and the market value of new products.  © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction According to the theory of foreign direct investment (FDI) (Caves, 1996; Dunning, 1988; Hymer, 1976) and portfolio theory (Jacquillat and Solnik, 1978; Lessard, 1973, 1976; Solnik, 1974), international diversi? ation will lead to higher ? rm value. However, existing studies examining the impact of international diversi? cation on ? rm performance have yielded inconclusive results. The results on the relationship between international diversi? cation and ? rm performance has been found to be positive (Delios and Beamish, 1999; Grant, 1987; Rugman et al. , 2008), negative (Collins, 1990; Z aheer and Mosakowski, 1997), U-shaped (Capar and Kotabe, 2003; Gaur and Kumar, 2009; Lu and Beamish, 2001), inverted-U-shaped (Brock et al. , 2006; Garbe and Richter, 2009; Gomes and Ramaswamy, 1999; Hitt et al. 1997) and horizontal-S-shaped (Contractor et al. , 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004; Ruigrok et al. , 2007). To better understand the in? uence of international diversi? cation, we extend this line of research by studying the impact of international diversi? cation on new product performance. Speci? cally, we test if international diversi? cation explains the stock ? Corresponding author at: Present address: Department of Management, Fo Guang University, No. 160, Linwei Rd. , Jiaosi, Yilan County 26247, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 3 9871000 23816. E-mail addresses: [emailprotected] net. tw (C. -F. Wang), [emailprotected] fgu. edu. w (L. -Y. Chen), [emailprotected] ncku. edu. tw (S. -C. Chang). 1 Present address: Department of Business Administration, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, No. 123, University Road, Section 3, Douliou, Yunlin 64002, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 5 53426015245. 2 Present address: Institute of International Business, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, 701, Tainan, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 6 275757553506. 1075-4253/$ – see front matter  © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10. 1016/j. intman. 2011. 03. 002 334 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 arket responses to new product introduction (NPI) announcements. NPIs are an important dimension of innovation output. 3 Firms with the ability to introduce new products are signaled as those with the opportunity for differentiation and future earnings (Chaney et al. , 1991; Kleinschmidt and Cooper, 1991; Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). In order to improve the performance of NPIs, many ? rms are engaged in international diversi? cation activities (Kogut and Zander, 1993; Peng and Wang, 2000). Previous stud ies have documented that international diversi? cation comes with both bene? s and costs (Contractor et al. , 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004; Ruigrok et al. , 2007). We suggest that these bene? ts and costs might create both opportunities and challenges for ? rms to develop new products, and hence in? uence investors assessment of the new products introduced by ? rms. International diversi? cation may have positive effects on NPIs. For example, it allows ? rms to reach outside their domestic boundaries, providing them with more opportunities to gain new ideas in terms of the types of new products that can be developed (Hitt et al. , 1997). Internationally diversi? ed ? ms also have better access to the resources resident in foreign countries that may be necessary for producing these new products (Craig and Douglas, 2000; Peng and Wang, 2000). Furthermore, international diversi? cation creates the bene? t of economies of scale by ef? ciently leveraging the initial investments on new prod ucts over a broader market base (Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). In spite of the bene? cial effects of international diversi? cation, we suggest that international diversi? cation may also entail disadvantages when it comes to introducing new products. For instance, cross-national distances increase the dif? ulty for internationally diversi? ed ? rms to transfer technological knowledge between countries. Differential environmental settings among countries might also constrain the ? rms ability to absorb and apply resources towards new product development. In such cases, new products are expected to be less worthwhile for introducing ? rms with international diversi? cation activities. In addition to investigating the direct impact of international diversi? cation on the stock market reactions to NPI announcements, we postulate that investors assessments of the value of new products may depend on a ? ms internal capabilities. Extending previous research documenting the importance of technological and marketing capabilities in determining new product success (e. g. , Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Yeoh and Roth, 1999), we argue that both marketing and technological capabilities assist in enhancing the bene? ts of international diversi? cation while simultaneously restricting its drawbacks with regard to the introduction of new products. We test our hypotheses by measuring the stock market responses to NPI announcements using the event-study methodology framework. The events of NPI announcements are collected for the period 1997–2005. Under the assumption of the ef? cient markets hypothesis (Fama, 1970), NPI announcements bring unanticipated information into ? nancial markets that may change the market value assessments of the announcing ? rms. In response to the new information, changes in stock prices occur, which represent investors revision of their expectation with regard to the net present value of a ? rms risk-adjusted expected cash ? ow generated by the new products, or stated differently, the investors expectation of the wealth impact of NPIs. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides the theoretical background and develops the hypotheses. Section 3 introduces the sample and methodology. The empirical results are presented in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 contains the discussion and concluding remarks of this study. 2. Theoretical background and hypotheses International diversi? cation has been suggested by FDI theory and portfolio theory to provide ? rms with bene? ts ranging from the ability to realize scale economies (Grant, 1987; Porter, 1986), the possibility to spread investment risks over different countries (Kim et al. 1993), the potential to arbitrage factor cost differentials across multiple locations (Kogut, 1985) and the opportunity to access resources resident in foreign countries (Hitt et al. , 1997). However, there is considerable theoretical evidence that international diversi? cation comes with both bene? ts and costs. We suggest that that these bene? ts and costs that accompany foreign expans ion may create both opportunities and challenges for ? rms in terms of developing new products, and thereby affect the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. In this section, we review various theoretical domains in order to identify the channels through which international diversi? cation might in? uence value creation for ? rms in the context of NPIs. 2. 1. Effects of international diversi? cation International diversi? cation provides several advantages towards developing new products. First, international diversi? cation offers opportunities for ? rms to gain new and diverse ideas from a variety of perspectives (Hitt et al. , 1997). Being exposed to heterogeneous customers, technology, cultures, and competitive practices, internationally diversi? d ? rms are able to learn from the experience in foreign operations to ? nd new solutions to bettering product design and improving the quality of manufacturing know-how (Craig and Douglas, 2000). For example, the launch of a new cordless telephone by Sanyo, which had been adjusted to better meet the phone use habits of American consumers (Barkema and Vermeulen, 1998), consequently expanded t he companys sales in the U. S. market. 3 Prior studies have used several ways to measure the performance of innovation, which includes R intensity (Hill and Snell, 1988; Hitt et al. 1997), number of NPIs (Cardinal and Opler, 1995; Hitt et al. , 1996) and number of patents (Francis and Smith, 1995). Though they have provided valuable insights, the measures they developed have some limitations in capturing the true value of innovation (Chaney et al. , 1991; Schankerman and Pakes, 1986). For example, R intensity is more related to the input value of innovation but does not directly measure the output value of innovation. Furthermore, numbers of NPIs or patents only measure the quantity of inventive output without considering the quality of innovation. As well, patent counts often represent a very noisy measure of the underlying value of innovation because most patents are not worth anything. The measure used in our study allows us to directly measure the wealth effect of innovation, rather than only considering the quantity of inventive output as has been done in prior studies. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 335 International diversi? cation also allows ? rms to gain access to resources that may only be available in foreign markets but not frequently obtainable in the home countries to develop new products (Peng and Wang, 2000). By tapping into the technological skills and knowledge that originates from other countries, multinational ? rms may be able to successfully increase their technological strength in developing new products (Hitt et al. , 1997; Kotabe, 1990; Peng and Wang, 2000; Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). Moreover, international diversi? cation provides a ? rm with a wider national network, which helps increase its ability to effectively leverage technological resources and rationalize production processes. These economies of scale can enable the ? m to obtain higher returns from new product innovations (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989; Kogut, 1985). Furthermore, the broader market outlets available to new products create higher returns on the sunk costs of innovative spending (Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001), while cash ? ows generated from large-scale foreign operations provide ? rms with the resources needed for extra investment in new product development (Kobrin, 1991; Kotabe, 1990). Notwit hstanding the above bene? ts, international diversi? cation can bring challenges to the development of new products. The ? rst challenge comes from the dif? ulty in transferring technological knowledge between countries. The more countries within which the ? rm operates, the larger geographic distance the technological know-how has to be transferred, and the less effective the ? rm will be in developing new products. Furthermore, with increasing diversi? cation, the differences in cultural, economic and technological settings among the countries increase. These differences reduce the effectiveness in assimilating and applying the technological knowledge that is critical for new product development (Chang and Wang, 2007; Hitt et al. 1997); while knowledge diversity can create greater learning value (Inkpen, 2000), differences in knowledge does not guarantee successful learning (Bowman and Helfat, 2001; Chang and Singh, 2000; Szulanski and Winter, 2002). In addition, arguments from th e economic law of diminishing returns suggest that the higher degree of international diversi? cation a ? rm is involved in, the more likely it is to be entering markets whose marginal contributions are relatively minor (Contractor et al. , 2003). Beyond a certain point, after already having expanded into the most advantageous markets, the ? m is left with minor or peripheral foreign markets whose resources for and cash ? ow from new product development will exhibit diminishing returns. By drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the above discussions suggest that international diversi? cation not only create opportunities but also impose barriers to the value creation provided by new product innovation. With moderate levels of international diversi? cation, ? rms can capitalize on valuable bene? ts of knowledge learning, resource access and production ef? ciency in producing new products. At the same time, economic pro? ts rise as the ? xed costs of new product development are spread across more markets (Kogut, 1985; Porter, 1986). However, ? rms that expand internationally beyond an optimal level may ? nd that the costs of international diversi? cation eventually exceed the bene? ts. Firms at this stage often enter countries that are more geographically and culturally dissimilar, which increases the dif? culties of transferring technological knowledge between countries. The value of new product innovation may also exhibit diminishing returns when international diversi? ation is increased beyond the optimal level. Based on the above, this study proposes a non-linear and inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements, suggesting that the market value of NPIs is expected to improve with increasing international diversi? cation at lower levels of international diversi? cation and then decline with increasing international diversi? cation at higher levels of international diversi? cation. For these reasons, we propose our ? rst hypothesis as follows: Hypothesis 1. The relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements is inverted-U-shaped, with a positive slope at lower levels of international diversi? cation and negative at higher levels of international diversi? cation. We utilize event-study methodology to capture the valuation effect of corporate new product strategies. This approach not only permits direct investigation of changes in announcing ? rms shareholder value, but is also suited to conduct cross-sectional analysis of the strategies underlying the value creation or destruction (Reuer, 2001). Applying event-study methodology to NPIs also facilitates comparisons with previous studies on other corporate major strategic events. 4 2. 2. Interaction effects of intangible assets and international diversi? cation Although our theoretical framework should hold for all ? rms, the effect of international diversi? cation on new product performance may depend on ? rms intangible assets. Scholars in international business have shown that multinational ? rms with greater marketing and technological capabilities may receive higher returns from international expansion (Kotabe et al. , 2002; Lu and Beamish, 2004). Other researchers also document the importance of marketing and technological capabilities in the success of new products (e. g. , Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Danneels, 2002; Krasnikov and Jayachandran, 2008; Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999; Yeoh and Roth, 1999). We make advances in linking these two streams of study by investigating the moderating effect 4 Previous studies have used event-study methodology to test the wealth effect of major corporate events, such as diversi? cation (Doukas and Lang, 2003; Hoskisson et al. , 1991), divestitures (Benou et al. , 2008), alliances (Das et al. 1998; Kale et al. , 2002), regulatory change (Bowman and Navissi, 2003), NPIs (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Kelm et al. , 1995), R expenditures (Szewczyk et al. , 1996), and patents (Austin, 1993). 336 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 of internal capabilities on the association between international diversi? cation and the stock m arket reactions to NPI announcements. We suggest that internationally diversi? ed ? rms that have greater marketing and technological capabilities are more able to extract the bene? ts and reduce the costs of international diversi? ation, resulting in higher returns from NPI announcements. Each moderating effect is discussed independently below. Marketing capability is related to a ? rms ability to acquire external knowledge through the processes of gathering, interpreting, and using market information (Day, 1994). Though international diversi? cation gives ? rms opportunities to access new knowledge, ? rms that do not have ability to identify customers needs and to understand the factors that in? uence consumer choice behavior will not be able to achieve better targeting and positioning of its products. Therefore, ? rms that have invested in developing their marketing capability are more able to integrate the information on consumer needs in diverse markets into new product designs, and thus generate higher returns from the new products (Dutta et al. , 1999). In addition, marketing capability is re? ected in a ? rms ability to differentiate its products from those of competitors (Kotabe et al. , 2002). A higher level of product differentiation allows a ? rm to charge higher prices for its new products (Day, 1994; Yeoh and Roth, 1999). Furthermore, ? ms that spend more money on advertising and promoting their products are more likely to build successful brands, which are essential to building awareness, reducing the perceived risk that consumers associate with new products, and ? nally increasing the adoption rate of new products introduced (Chandy and Tellis, 2000; Dowling and Staelin, 1994; Sorescu et al. , 2003). This is particularly important for ? rms that are completely new to foreign customers (Helsen et al. , 1993; Srivastava et al. , 1998). Consequently, we expect that NPIs are expected to be more worthwhile for internationally diversi? d ? rms with greater marketing capabilities, leading to Hypothesis 2: Hypothesis 2. Marketing capability will positively moderate the relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. As mentioned, technological capability is also likely to moderate the effect of international diversi? cation on new product development. Technology capability might represent a ? rms ability to absorb external knowledge (Penner-Hahn and Shaver, 2005; Tsai, 2001). A ? rm may be able to access certain new knowledge through international diversi? ation, but without the capacity to absorb such knowledge a ? rm may not enhance its capabilities within new product innovation. Since knowledge gained from international markets is often tacit and socially complex (Zahra and Hayton, 2008), ? rms that have established a capability in a particular research skill are better able to interpret and assess the knowledge in that area. Technological capability also refers to a ? rms ability to apply knowledge gained from foreign markets to commercial ends (Krasnikov and Jayachandran, 2008; Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999). Kotabe et al. (2002) have stated that ? rms with greater technological capabilities are more capable of ? nding better product design solutions. The technical risks in developing new products are more likely to be reduced for such ? rms (Kelm et al. , 1995). Furthermore, ? rms with greater technological capability are more able to lower production costs by improving manufacturing processes. Moreover, technological capability helps ? rms to speed up the product development process and satisfy the market more quickly (Rabino and Moskowitz, 1981). Thus, ? ms that have greater technological capabilities are more likely to enhance their revenues in international markets by providing those markets with new products of better quality. Meanwhile, ? rms that leverage their technological capabilities in the greater scope of the global market may enjoy the bene? ts of economies of scale inherent in the innovation process. As a result, we expect that NPIs are more worthwhile for internationally diversi? ed ? rms with greater technological capabilities, leading to Hypothesis 3: Hypothesis 3. Technological capability will positively moderate the relationship between international diversi? ation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. 3. Sample and methodology 3. 1. Sample design We test our hypotheses using a sample of NPI announcement events. We collect the sample data on ? rms listed on either the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) from the Dow Jones News Retrieval Service (DJNRS) database, which provides news-service articles and selected stories from the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones News Wire, and Barrons. We use the words and phrases commonly used to describe NPIs as keys for a database search routine. Examples are â€Å"introduce,† â€Å"new product,† â€Å"unveil,† â€Å"launch,† â€Å"received approval,† â€Å"to market,† â€Å"test market,† â€Å"begin selling,† along with other pertinent words and phrases. When a repeat NPI announcement from a ? rm is found in a different publication, the announcement that has the earliest date is chosen as it is the earliest date when the information about the NPI is publicly available (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Kelm et al. , 1995). The sample period is from January 1997 to December 2005. Four criteria are used when selecting ? rms for our sample: (1) the announcing ? rms should not have other announcements ? e days before and after the initial announcement date in order to avoid any confounding events that could distort the measurement of the valuation effects; (2) daily stock return information must be available from the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), with a min imum of 50 daily returns in the estimation period; (3) companies ? nancial information must be available from the COMPUSTAT ? les; and (4) since we want to test the effect of international diversi? cation, only those ? rms with foreign sales data available from the COMPUSTAT ? les are included. C. -F. Wang et al. Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 337 Following these procedures, we collect a ? nal sample comprising 3061 new product announcements made by 531 ? rms in 57 industries based on the two-digit Standard Industrial Classi? cation (SIC) codes. 5 Table 1 reports the distribution of the sample by year and industry. Our data shows no obvious cluster by time period. In 2004, there are 530 announcements, accounting for 17. 32% of the total. Observations are nearly evenly distributed through the remaining years. However, our sample shows certain levels of concentration in speci? c industries. The largest concentration comes from electrical equipment (33. 61%), computer equipment (18. 09%), electro-medical instruments (9. 38%), and business services (e. g. , computer programming and the software industry) (7. 19%). These three broad categories constitute nearly 70% of the total sample. As suggested by Chaney et al. (1991), this result is expected since neither the investment opportunities nor their valuation should be random across industries. 3. 2. Measuring the stock market responses to new product announcements We employ the event study methodology to examine the stock price responses to the announcements of NPIs. This approach has been widely used in the management, accounting, economics and ? nance disciplines to examine the impact of ? rm-speci? c events on ? rm value. The event study approach suggests that, in an ef? cient capital market, the market will adjust and result in returns different from those that are normally expected if the NPI announcement has unexpect ed information content (Hoskisson et al. , 1991). We use the market model suggested by Brown and Warner (1985) to estimate the abnormal returns to NPI announcements. This model captures a ? rms stock price change after adjusting for general market-wide factors and the ? ms systematic risk (Bowman, 1983; Brown, 1989; Brown and Warner, 1980, 1985). The abnormal return for ? rm i on day t, ARit, is computed by: ARit = Rit ? E? Rit = It ? 1 ? ; where Rit is ? rm is actual returns on day t, and It ? 1 represents the information set available to the market about the ? rm at time t ? 1. The expected return for ? rm i on day t is estimated by: E? Rit = It ? 1 ? = ? i + ? i Rmt where Rmt is the return for the market portfolio on day t, ? i is the intercept, and ? i measures the risk or sensitivity of the ? rms returns relative to the market portfolio. We de? e Day 0 (t = 0) as the initial announcement date. We use the value-weighted CRSP Index as the proxy for the market portfolio. The param eters ? i and ? i are estimated using data for the period of 200 to 60 days before the initial announcement date. The two-day cumulative abnormal returns, CAR (? 1, 0), are estimated by summing the daily abnormal returns over the window period of days ? 1 and 0. The equally weighted cross-sectional average abnormal returns on ? event day t, ARt , is further calculated by: 1N ? ARt = ? ARit ; N i=1 where N is the total number of sample NPIs. The cumulative average abnormal return over the period (? , 0) is similarly de? ned. 3. 3. Measuring international diversi? cation We use the entropy index to estimate international diversi? cation. 7 The entropy measure of international diversi? cation is de? ned as ? [Pi* ln(1/Pi)], where Pi is the percentage of sales in geographic segment i, and ln(1/Pi) is the weight of each geographic segment. This measure thus considers both the number of geographic segments in which a ? rm operates and the relative importance of sales contributed by each g eographic segment. 5 For the industry classi? cation, we follow Hitt et al. (1997) and use the our-digit SIC codes as the indicator of the industry or business segment that a ? rm operates. Therefore, two variables in this study, namely product diversi? cation and industry RD intensity, are estimated basing on the four-digit SIC codes. However, for the sake of brevity, we report the sample distribution by industry on the basis of the two-digit SIC codes. 6 Other performance measures of new product strategies that are most commonly used in previous studies include return on assets, return on sales, return on equity, return on investment and pro? t margin (e. g. , Li and Atuahene-Gima, 2001; Moorman, 1995). However, these accounting measures have several limitations in measuring new product performance (Chang and Wang, 2007; Kalyanaram et al. , 1995; Pauwels et al. , 2004). For example, the differences in accounting policies across ? rms make performance comparisons dif? cult. These measures are also not risk-adjusted as they do not consider business risks associated with individual ? rms when measuring performance, and they are based on historical accounting data and thus may not adequately re? ect future expected revenue streams resulting from the new products. More importantly, these measures re? ect aggregate ? m performance, making it more dif? cult to directly link them to the effect of speci? c new product introductions. Due to these limitations we employ an event study methodology in order to examine stock price responses to announcements of NPIs. This method captures the ? rms stock price change after adjusting for the ? rms systematic risk (Bowman, 1983; Brown, 1989; Brown and Warner, 1980, 1985), as well as re? ects investors expectations of a ? rms future cash ? ow related to this new product (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Chen et al. , 2002; Kelm et al. , 1995). 7 Previous studies have used several proxies of international diversi? ation. The most commonly used measures are the ratio of foreign sales to total sales (Grant, 1987; Tallman and Li, 1996), the ratio of foreign assets to total assets (Daniels and Bracker, 1989; Ramaswamy, 1995), numbers of foreign countries in which a ? rm has subsidiaries (Delios and Beamish, 1999; Tallman and Li, 1996) or a composite index encompassing these three dimensions (Gomes and Ramaswamy, 1999; Sullivan, 1994). However, these measures only capture the extent but not the distribution of international diversi? cation. In this study, we follow Hitt et al. (1997) and use the entropy measure of international diversi? ation to account for the extent of sales in global markets and their weighting. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 338 Table 1 Distribution of new product introduction. Panel A. Sample distribution by year Year Number of announcements Percent of sample (%) 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Total 354 279 370 313 232 247 391 530 345 3061 11. 56 9. 11 12. 08 10. 22 7. 58 8. 07 12. 77 17. 32 11. 30 100. 00 Panel B. Sample distribution by industry Two-digit SIC code Industry group 01 12 13 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 34 Agricultural production crops Coal mining Oil and gas extraction Building construction: general contractors Heavy construction other than building construction contractors Construction: special trade contractors Food and kindred products Tobacco products Textile mill products Apparel, ? nished prdcts from fabrics and similar materials Lumber and wood products, except furniture Furniture and ? xtures Paper and allied products Printing, publishing, and allied industries Chemicals and allied products Petroleum re? ning and related industries Rubber and miscellaneous plastics products Leather and leather products Primary metal industries Fabricated metal products, except machinery and transportation equipment Industrial and commercial machinery and computer equipment Electronic and other electrical equipment and components, except computer equipment Transportation equipment Measuring, analyzing, and controlling instruments; photographic, medical and optical goods Miscellaneous manufacturing industries Railroad transportation Motor freight transportation and warehousing Transportation by air Pipelines, except natural gas Transportation services Communications Electric, gas, and sanitary services Wholesale trade: durable goods Wholesale trade: non-durable goods Building materials, hardware, garden supply, and mobile home dealers General merchandise stores Food stores Apparel and accessory stores Home furniture, furnishings, and equipment stores Eating and drinking places Miscellaneous retail Depository institutions Non

America Civilization essays

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Prehistoric Life During the Carboniferous Period

Prehistoric Life During the Carboniferous Period The name Carboniferous reflects the most famous attribute of the Carboniferous period: the massive swamps that cooked, over tens of millions of years, into todays vast reserves of coal and natural gas. However, the Carboniferous period (350 to 300 million years ago) was also notable for the appearance of new terrestrial vertebrates, including the very first amphibians and lizards. The Carboniferous was the second-to-last period of the Paleozoic Era (542-250 million years ago), preceded by the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian periods and succeeded by the Permian period. Climate and geography. The global climate of the Carboniferous period was intimately linked with its  geography. 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