With Google Chrome recently introducing a revamped sync feature which now makes it easy for users to share settings and even themes between different Chrome installs, Mozilla Weave for Firefox is finally getting some serious competition. But Mozilla developers aren’t sitting idly by, the Firefox add-on has just gotten som… (read more)
Author: Serkadis
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Mozilla Weave Sync 1.2.1 for Firefox Will Work with Future Versions
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Citroën: C4 Hatch e Pallas tem recall anunciado
Foi anunciado hoje pela divisão brasileira da Citroën, o recall dos modelos C4 Hatch e Pallas ano 2009/2010. A razão pela qual o recall foi anunciado foi um possível defeito no sistema de direção assistida.
Os modelos com esse problema são os de chassi de número 9G533889 a AG518279, só que é importante lembrar que nem todos os veículos estão envolvidos com esse defeito. Para tirar suas dúvidas, pode entrar em contato no número 0800 011 8088.
A Citroën pode fazer uma atualização no módulo de controle da direção, uma vez que esse defeito pode fazer com que a direção do carro fique mais rígida em curvas rápidas e isso pode provocar acidentes. Para quem possui um dos veículos citados acima, aproveite para agendar a sua manutenção!
Via | Motorpasion
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Peugeot to run a pair of diesel RCZ coupes at 24 Hrs of Nürburgring
Filed under: Motorsports, Peugeot, Diesel
Peugeot RCZ racer – Click above for high-res image galleryJust in time to celebrate its bicentennial next month, Peugeot is expanding its diesel-powered racing efforts. The French automaker will compete in the 24 Hours of Nürburgring for the first time this May with a pair of its new RCZ coupes. The Nürburgring race has become increasingly important in recent years, as automakers have begun to use it as a venue to do final prove-out of new performance oriented cars.
For this years race Peugeot will bring a pair of nearly stock 2.0-liter HDi FAP RCZs with 200 horsepower to the mighty ‘Ring. The only modifications to the cars are the removal of unnecessary equipment like audio systems and the addition of race safety equipment like roll cages, fire suppression, upgraded brakes and a rear wing. The four man driving crew for each car will consist of a mix of pro-drivers and Peugeot staff including PSA vice-chairman Stéphane Caille.
[Source: Peugeot]
Continue reading Peugeot to run a pair of diesel RCZ coupes at 24 Hrs of Nürburgring
Peugeot to run a pair of diesel RCZ coupes at 24 Hrs of Nürburgring originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Manhattan’s New Real Estate Problem: The Strong Dollar Is Pricing Rich Euros Out Of The Market
Back in 2008, before the financial crisis, we heard a story about a Manhattan real estate shop that was listing its prices primarily in euros because folks in Europe were the only ones who could afford real estate here, helped in large part by the strength of their currency.
It’s possible the story was apocryphal.
Anyway, we’re definitely seeing the opposite now.
Over at UrbanDigs, broker Noah Rosenblatt Writes:
‘Euro’ Outta Here! Foreigners Lose Purchasing Power
Okay so my headline could be a bit better. The reason I have fewer real time reports from the field is that most of my clients that intended to purchase a new home, already have. I have seven deals done in the last two quarters, three of which sold and four of which are still pending. Currently I have two active negotiations ongoing with a third on its way. But my schedule is no where near as hectic as it was for the first three months of 2010. That means, I am not out there viewing property and submitting offers as actively as I was for the past 6-8 months or so – as many of my clients are aggressively looking for months before ultimately signing a contract for their new home. However, I thought it would be interesting to see how the dollar’s rise might affect a foreigner who might be looking to buy in our market over the past few months. The findings may intrigue you.
Rosenblatt then walks through the past several months of EUR/USD and GBP/USD fluctuations and notes:
Based on currency trends over the past five months, look at how much less house an investor with Euros can buy right now of US assets – including Manhattan real estate! In this case, the foreign investor can buy $132,100 LESS HOUSE! All this because of the rising value of the US dollar! If it were British pounds and the same time period, the 1M pound investor would see a $124,000 reduction in purchasing power. All on currency trends alone.
Put this together with rising interest rates, and the ongoing threat from Fannie and Freddie, and the the prospect of a strong recovery in Manhattan housing looks dimmer.
Join the conversation about this story »
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On Shelves This Week: April 11-17, 2010
Another week, another batch of games into the market. Big improvement on this one compared to last week’s two-DLC-packs-and-a-shovelware (qjnet/news/on-shelves-this-week-april-4-10-2010.html) batch because among them is Sam Fisher’s edgy return in Splinter Cell: Conviction. He’s not the
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Brabus Vanish: When a Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series just ain’t enough
Filed under: Aftermarket, Coupe, Performance, Mercedes-Benz, Middle East
Brabus Vanish – Click above for high-res image galleryThe Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series doesn’t leave much room for improvement. It hardly even leaves you with enough time, in fact, to say its name in full before it’s already up to highway speeds from a standstill. It runs the 0-62 mph sprint in 3.8 seconds, passes 124 in 11 flat and tops out just under 200 miles per hour. Short of the SLR McLaren and the newer SLS AMG, the Black Series is the fastest roadcar Mercedes has ever made. But one customer in Dubai wasn’t satisfied. So neither was Brabus.
The quintessential Benz tuner fitted the client’s matte Black with bigger turbos, a new gearbox, bigger brakes and a new exhaust. The result is a 130-horsepower boost from the stock 670hp twin-turbo V12 for a total of 800. Brabus calls it the Vanish, which is probably just about right. For our part, we’ll give kudos where kudos are due to the owner who went with a decidedly more understated look than the typical Dubai’d out gold-chrome Benzes we’ve come, however lamentably, to expect.
Gallery: Brabus Vanish
[Source: TopSpeed via eMercedes-Benz]
Brabus Vanish: When a Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series just ain’t enough originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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O exótico conceito elétrico Saic Leaf será apresentado em Pequim
A companhia chinesa SAIC – Shangai Automotive Industry Corporation, 3ª maior companhia do país, nos mostrou o seu exótico carro conceito que será apresentado no Salão do Automóvel de Pequim, mostrando a alternativa da companhia no combate a poluição da atmosfera. Ele se chama Leaf, folha em inglês.
Embora com o mesmo nome, ele não tem nada a ver com o Nissan Leaf que possui motorização elétrica, tendo em comum apenas o fato de serem ecologicamente correto. Sua carroceria mistura elementos antigos com os atuais. Seu design nos lembra dos antigos calhambeques das décadas de 30,40 e 50, princialmente pelo formato de seu teto.
Contudo é no teto em forma de folha do conceito Saic Leaf que está uma de sua principais características, já que ele é equipado com painéis solares que produzem e armazenam energia elétrica. Além disso, o seu teto pode movimentar-se para obter uma melhor posição na obtenção dos raios solares e ainda é capaz de produzir uma certa quantidade de O2 (oxigênio).
Alem disso, o Saic Leaf possui uma especie de hélice em suas rodas, que de acordo com a companhia conseguem transformar a força do vento em outra fonte de energia para o veiculo, através de sua movimentação. Essa uma das novidades que serão apresentadas no Salão do Automóvel de Pequim 2010.
Fonte: AutoCar
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Volkswagen pode se unir à Suzuki para construção de carros ecológico na Tailândia
A mais nova parceria entre as grandes montadoras da indústria automobilística pode ser entre o Grupo Volkswagen e a Suzuki Motor, que pretendem iniciar um projeto de carro ecologicamente correto na Tailândia. As duas companhias (que compartilham suas ações no mercado financeiro) planejam agora se ajudarem em projetos ao redor do mundo para reduzir custos.
Como era de se esperar, a maior parte de seus projetos estarão concentrados em países emergentes, e serão investidos pela Sukuzi cerca de $235 milhões em uma fábrica que produzirá 120.000 unidades por ano de veículos ecológicos, sob as normas do programa tailandês de carros ecológicos.
Outro setor que vai ser alvo de uma força-tarefa entre montadoras vai ser provavelmente a Índia. Curiosamente, a Nissan se mostrou insatisfeita com a atual parceria entre a Suzuki e a Volks no mercado.
Via | Inside Line
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IMS, NEW PERSPECTIVE FROM FOREIGN MARKETS
IMS was established, in 1969, in the fruitful North West of Italy, exactly near Cuneo. Since then the company have kept a “familiar way” about its organization, that has grown up and improved to become a world leader about the tool holder production for CNC machinery.
The challenge of the present CEO, Alberto Aprà, have been to optimize the productive chain, to internationalize the company, keeping its freshness (the average age of the employees is about 35 years old) and to catch every single change of the time, to make IMS promoting the innovation and not just staring and it. The new branch office in Thomasville, North Carolina (USA) make the company able to reach the huge American clientele, to offer a timely service, while other branch offices are to be open in countries that represent new and fresh market niches.
The constant technological research, the obstinacy not to be flattered by its goals, the desire to improve leads IMS to the top of the tool holders production for CNC machinery for wood, metal and marble. And once you reach the top, you have to keep the position. Our clients satisfaction is the first sign and that’s why IMS conducted a satisfaction survey, the result of which is that almost the 90% of the clientele is satisfied or very satisfied about relationship with IMS. This result is a spur to understand and regain the low percentage of not very satisfied clients, offering them a ”tailor made” service, that will be appreciated.
IMS is lead by the conviction that to come out of the crisis it takes research instead of inactivity, innovation instead of conventionalism, action instead of complaint.
For this reason, IMS will be exhibitor in many fairs such as the Drema fair in Polony (april), Piedra fair (Spain) and Xylexpo fair in Milan (May) and Atlanta (USA, August): to be close to its clients and those who will be.
Because in order to win the crisis, everyone has to do his own part and men and women from IMS commit themselves in this every day with constancy and devotion. -
GrindTec 2010: Large Interest in the MAXFLOW Compact Filter System
Stringent standards with regard to surface quality, shape accuracy and tolerances are the challenges faced by metal grinding companies today. The requirements on grinding technologies and the efficiency of metalworking lubricants are equally as high. Efficient lubricant filtration is a decisive factor governing both service life and finishing quality. The metalwork industry and its suppliers met up at the International Trade Show for Grinding Technology, GrindTec 2010, in Augsburg, a forum for exchanging new ideas and making new contacts. Over a period of five days, more than 400 businesses from 23 countries presented new machines, technologies and processes. GKD-CompactFiltration, a system provider for filtration technology and systems engineering, was also represented at the show for a second time with its patented MAXFLOW concept.
Wide range of solutions for typical process requirements
Whether as an individual or stand-alone solution or a bypass filter unit: MAXFLOW’s custom-designed, tailor-made application attracted the visitors’ attention at the GrindTec. Particular attention was paid to the plug-and-play version, a stand-alone solution that can fast and effectively fulfil a wide range of typical process demands of oil or emulsion-based grinding. With process-specific dimensioning and an extendible tank system, this compact system is a sustainable solution for a wide variety of applications. Convenient operation and efficient maintenance make MAXFLOW the preferred system among users.Promising discussions
Many visitors to the stand in Augsburg were so impressed by the system’s efficiency exhibited in numerous demanding applications that they engaged in lively talks. The efficiency of MAXFLOW in the filtration of aluminium filings as well as in steel and brass work was at the centre of visitor interest. “The MAXFLOW system has landed on the market”, Sascha Schönecken, Sales Manager at GKD-CompactFiltration is pleased. Customer talks were both engaging and very promising. Intelligent solutions like MAXFLOW, that can optimise central processes in the metalwork industry with efficiency and modularity, are particularly in demand in difficult economic times. “The market is witnessing more activity”, says Sascha Schönecken. With incoming orders growing in the grinding technology sector, the investment mood is also lifting. First-class filtration results and modular system components make MAXFLOW the solution to choose. -
High Strength Sensor Adhesive Survives High Temperatures
Master Bond’s sensor epoxy, Supreme 45HTQ is an extremely stable and durable epoxy for bonding and encapsulating transducers, gauges, actuators and sensors in harsh environments such as those found in downhole applications. The combination of a quartz filler and a special amine compound forms a tough superlative epoxy that will survive the high temperatures and natural gamma radiation found in drilling and extraction operations. When used to attach sensor and transducer elements to a wide variety of substrates, Master Bond’s Supreme 45HTQ is capable of withstanding even the most severe conditions. Its superb resistance to chemicals, especially acids and oils as well as water and steam is ideally suited for this aggressive environment. Also, long term exposures of 205-260°C will not adversely affect the performance of this system.
To ensure accurate pressure and temperature measurements, Master Bond’s
Supreme 45HTQ sensor bonding compound has been designed with a low
CTE. Its rate of thermal expansion is low 30-35 X 10 -6 in/in°C but it retains remarkable thermal cycling capabilities. Supreme 45HTQ will retain its physical strength properties at doses up to 1010 rads. The physical properties include a tensile strength exceeding 8,500 psi and a compressive strength greater than 20,000 psi. Supreme 45HTQ is available in pint, quart, gallon and 5 gallon container kits.About Master Bond’s compounds for the oil and gas industry:
Master Bond offers outstanding, specially formulated epoxy compounds for numerous downhole applications. These epoxies are characterized by superb resistance to hostile environments, especially aggressive chemicals and high temperatures. Master Bond’s products are used within petroleum facilities and oil rigs in tanks, pipes, hole drilling equipment, pumps, valves and reservoirs.Read more about Master Bond’s adhesives for the oil and chemical industry:
http://www.masterbond.com/lp/lpoilandchem.html or contact Sheila Frankel: Phone: +44-207-100-7251Fax: 44-207-060-0628 E-mail: [email protected] -
Beakbane engineers safety skirt for Avon Barrier
When Avon Barrier needed a safety skirt for its new shallow-bed road-blocker it turned to bellows and machinery protection specialist Beakbane. The specially designed and manufactured bellows-type safety skirt ensures people, animals or objects cannot get trapped under the barrier when it is lowered, and prevents leaves and litter collecting in the sub-surface housing.
Beakbane is the UK’s leading manufacturer of bellows, safety covers and slideway covers in materials that include fabric, polymers, sheet metal and composites. Its products are used in industries that range from machine tool building and medical equipment to power generation and security equipment.
The new RB880CR Defender PAS68 high-security road-blocker is designed to protect against terrorist attacks using vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.
Placed in the access points to sensitive areas, such as government premises, power stations, airports and high-risk companies, the road-blockers can be lowered to allow traffic to pass, but in the raised position can stop a speeding truck in its tracks.
Traditional designs of retractable road-blockers use a solid quadrant section barrier that retracts completely into the ground. This requires a housing below the ground at least as big as the barrier – maybe over 1m deep – so installing one of these barriers requires extensive civil engineering works.
The new shallow-bed road-blockers are designed to offer the same high level of protection where deep foundations are not practical or possible. They feature a fabricated steel impact wedge that pivots upwards to provide a 1m high and 2m wide barrier when raised, but retracts into a buried frame just 300mm deep.
In the raised position there is a space between the impact wedge and the ground frame. Avon wanted to be able to offer customers some kind of protective safety skirt. This would need to prevent access to the underside of the barrier and fold flat when it was lowered.
Using its knowledge of developing and manufacturing bespoke protection systems, Beakbane worked with Avon to come up with the best possible solution – a flexible, fabricated, bellows-type cover. The material used was a specially-formulated polymer that would withstand long-term outdoor exposure anywhere in the world.
The covers have already been deployed in secure installations and are performing exactly as required.
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VIRTUAL MODULES FOR WATERJET CUTTERS
With the interactive configurator from STM, the construction of an STM waterjet cutting machine is illustrated in 3D
Bischofshofen. Even if wajerjet cutting is experiencing a permanent boom, for many people the technology remains a mystery. Now however, the Austrian waterjet specialist STM is offering the chance of getting a much better understanding of the technology using an unusual graphical approach. Using a virtual configurator, interested parties can look at the essential components of a waterjet cutting machine in 3D and query all the necessary details. If somebody wants to get further information, they can request free test-cuts and individual analyses. Thus any conceivable investment in waterjet cutting technology can be investigated down to the smallest detail. You can carry out a detailed investigation into the workings of a waterjet cutting machine using the STM configurator at anytime under http://www.stm.at/configurator/stm_configurator_de.html.
If you want to discover the interactive modules for yourself, you can either use the configurator’s horizontal menu-bar to appraise the individual components from all perspectives or simply move the mouse over the elements of the futuristic image. In total, the ten main components of an STM waterjet cutting system are clearly explained. This includes control unit, abrasive pressure-based transport system and storage bin, as well as the abrasive dosing system, the Z-axle, the cutting valve, the abrasive mixing head, the basic system with bridge, the high pressure pump and the abrasive desludging system. This set represents the basis of the STM modular system. The STM waterjet cutting machine can be configured and upgraded at any time using countless additional components so that it precisely fulfils any individual requirement. In spite of the consistent use of branded components and first-class materials, STM can guarantee an unmatched price/performance ratio and optimised commercial operation.
Further Information:
Stein-Moser GmbH I Salzburger Straße 77 I 5500 Bischofshofen I Austria I Telefon +43. (0) 6462. 30 30 0 I Fax +43. (0) 6462. 30 30 5 I [email protected] I www.stm.at
Pressekontakt: YNet – Agentur für Kommunikation & Mediendesign | Wilfried Hummel | Dorfwerfen 66 | 5452 Pfarrwerfen | Austria I Telefon +43. (0) 6468 8911-0 Fax +43. (0) 6468 8911-12 | [email protected]
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ADVANCES IN FINE WATERJET TECHNOLOGY
As a specialist, STM already has 10 years experience in fine waterjet technology, as impressively demonstrated by the JETMax precision compact cutting system.
Bischofshofen. Fine waterjet cutting technology is the shooting star of the miniaturised components industry. By reducing the kerf to only
0.3 mm, accuracies as fine as 10 µm are attainable. Filigrees and highly precise workpieces from a wide range of materials can be cut without problem using a fine waterjet, where use of alternative, heat-generating cutting technologies would cause distortion or edge hardening. This benefit is especially advantageous in hard metal processing, particularly in the production of hard metal tools. In general, the smallest metal, composite, plastic, ceramic and glass components as used in the mechanical engineering, electronics, automotive, chemical, jewellery, watch making and food industries can be optimally processed. Even now there are still only very few systems available on the market which can meet the challenges of this technically supreme discipline. In contrast to many new providers, the waterjet specialists from STM, Austria and Maximator JET, Germany have been developing fine waterjet cutting machines since 2001 and today have available
a wide range of high-performance compact systems. Thanks to the modular configuration of these precision compact cutting systems, they can be perfectly matched to highly specialised cutting tasks and cut workpieces ten times as accurately as traditional waterjet cutting systems.Further information:
Stein-Moser GmbH I Salzburger Straße 77 I 5500 Bischofshofen I Austria I Phone +43. (0) 6462. 30 30 0 I Fax +43. (0) 6462. 30 30 5 I [email protected] I www.stm.at
Press contact: YNet – Agency for Communication & Media Design | Wilfried Hummel | Dorfwerfen 66 | 5452 Pfarrwerfen | Austria I Phone +43. (0) 6468 8911-0 Fax +43. (0) 6468 8911-12 | [email protected]
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First Look: April 13
“Just Say No to Wall Street: Putting a Stop to the Earnings Game” by the Monitor Group’s Joseph Fuller and HBS professor emeritus Michael C. Jensen explains the temptations facing analysts and managers to cook up unrealistic and potentially dangerous earnings expectations. After reviewing Wall Street’s complicity in the implosions of Enron and Nortel Networks, the authors recommend and explain new “rules of engagement” such as “Managers must work to make their organizations far more transparent to investors and to the markets” and “Managers should not simply presume that analysts are wrong when disagreement occurs.” Fuller and Jensen’s article appears in the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance.
Heads-up for summer: Driven to Lead: Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership by HBS professor emeritus Paul R. Lawrence outlines a framework for leadership development using the four drive theory of human behavior (to acquire, to defend, to comprehend, and to bond). Jossey-Bass publishes Driven to Lead in August.
The case “International Lobbying and The Dow Chemical Company” addresses how Dow’s CEO, Andrew Liveris, should adapt to developments in regulation of the chemical industry. How should he assess and balance company strategy, business-government relations both domestically and internationally, and the demands of stakeholders such as environment nongovernmental organizations?
— Martha Lagace
Publications
Driven to Lead: Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership
Author: Paul R. Lawrence Publication: Jossey-Bass, forthcoming (2010) Abstract
The author applies the four drive theory of human behavior (to acquire, to defend, to comprehend, to bond) to the leadership realm and explains the history of leadership in political, economic, and symbolic institutions as a result of one of three types of leadership: good leadership, misguided leadership, and evil leadership. This innovative book outlines a framework of human behavior that can be used to cultivate stellar leadership/leaders, which balances the four drives while avoiding negative leadership and leaders who are missing the drive to bond.
Order the Book: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470623845.html
Market Heterogeneity and Local Capacity Decisions in Services
Authors: Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei Publication: Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (forthcoming) Abstract
We empirically document factors that influence how local operating managers use discretion to balance the tradeoff between service capacity costs and customer sensitivity to service time. Our findings, using data from one of the largest financial services providers in the U.S., indicate that customer sensitivity to service time varies widely and predictably with observable market characteristics. In turn, we find evidence that local operating managers account for market specific customer sensitivities to service times by deviating frequently and in predictable ways from the recommendations offered by a centralized capacity planning model. Finally, we document that these discretionary capacity supply decisions exhibit a strong learning effect whereby experienced operating managers place more weight than their less experienced counterparts on the market-specific tradeoff between service capacity costs and customer sensitivity to service times. Overall, our results demonstrate both the importance of local knowledge as an input in service operations and the potential for incorporating richer data on customer behavior and preferences into service cost and productivity standard metrics.
Optimal Value and Growth Tilts in Long-Horizon Portfolios
Authors: W. Jakub Jurkek and Luis M. Viceira Publication: Review of Finance (forthcoming) Abstract
We develop an analytical solution to the dynamic portfolio choice problem of an investor with power utility defined over wealth at a finite horizon, who faces a time-varying investment opportunity set, parameterized using a flexible vector autoregression. We apply this framework to study the horizon effects in the allocations of equity-only investors, who hold a mix of value and growth indices, and a more general investor, who also has access to Treasury bills and bonds. We find that the mean allocation of equity-only investors is heavily tilted towards value stocks at short horizons, but the magnitude of this tilt declines dramatically with the investment horizon, implying that growth is less risky than value at long horizons. Investors with access to bills and bonds exhibit similar behavior when value and growth tilts are computed relative to the total equity allocation of the portfolio. However, after accounting for the propensity of these investors to increase their total equity allocation as the horizon increases, the mean value tilt of the optimal allocation is shown to be positive and stable across time.
Download the paper: http://www.people.hbs.edu/lviceira/JV_GV_20100223.pdf
Bond Risk, Bond Return Volatility, and the Term Structure of Interest Rates
Author: Luis M. Viceira Publication: International Journal of Forecasting (forthcoming) Abstract
This paper explores time variation in bond risk, as measured by the covariation of bond returns with stock returns and with consumption growth, and in the volatility of bond returns. A robust stylized fact in empirical finance is that the spread between the yield on long-term bonds and short-term bonds forecasts positively future excess returns on bonds at varying horizons, and that the short-term nominal interest rate forecasts positively stock return volatility and exchange rate volatility. This paper presents evidence that movements in both the short-term nominal interest rate and the yield spread are positively related to changes in subsequent realized bond risk and bond return volatility. The yield spread appears to proxy for business conditions, while the short rate appears to proxy for inflation and economic uncertainty. A decomposition of bond betas into a real cash flow risk component and a discount rate risk component shows that yield spreads have offsetting effects in each component. A widening yield spread is correlated with reduced cash-flow (or inflationary) risk for bonds, but it is also correlated with larger discount rate risk for bonds. The short rate forecasts only the discount rate component of bond beta.
Download the paper: http://www.people.hbs.edu/lviceira/bbeta20100210-all.pdf
The Euro as a Reserve Currency for Global Investors
Authors: Luis M. Viceira and Ricardo Gimeno Publication: Spain in the EMU (forthcoming) An abstract is unavailable at this time.
Download the paper: http://www.people.hbs.edu/lviceira/Europroject_20091112-ALL.pdf
What Makes a City Entrepreneurial?
Authors: Edward L. Glaeser and William R. Kerr Publication: In Rappaport Institute/Taubman Center Policy Brief, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2010. An abstract is unavailable at this time.
Working Papers
The Global Agglomeration of Multinational Firms
Authors: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen Abstract
The proliferation of multinational activities has led to the emergence of new industrial clusters around the world. In this paper, we examine how “first nature” location fundamentals and “second nature” agglomeration economies jointly determine the global landscape of multinational firms. Using a unique worldwide plant dataset that reports detailed location, ownership, and operation information for plants in more than 100 countries, we construct a spatially continuous index to measure the significance and extent of agglomeration between multinational firms. Our analysis indicates that multinationals’ agglomeration goes above and beyond first-nature driven geographic concentration due to market size, comparative advantage, and trade costs. Second-nature forces including knowledge spillovers, capital-market externalities, and vertical production linkages also play a significant role. In comparison to domestic plants, knowledge spillovers and capital market externalities exert a stronger impact on multinational firms while labor market pooling has a weaker effect. These findings remain robust when we examine entry decisions and explore the process of agglomeration.
Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-043.pdf
Introductory Reading for Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model
Authors: Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen, Steve Zaffron, and Kari L. Granger Abstract
This paper is the sixth of six pre-course reading assignments for an experimental leadership course developed by the authors over five years (2004-2008) at the University of Rochester Simon School of Business working with students, alumni, executives, and faculty from various academic institutions. It is currently taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy, was taught in June 2009 at the Erasmus Academie in Rotterdam, and a version is currently taught at University of Rochester Simon School of Business and the Erasmus University Law School. This course will be taught at the Mays School of Business, Texas A&M University June 9 to June 16, 2010.
Download the paper: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1238158
Just Say No to Wall Street: Putting a Stop to the Earnings Game
Authors: Joseph Fuller and Michael C. Jensen Abstract
Putting an end to the “earnings game” requires that CEOs reclaim the initiative by avoiding earnings guidance and managing expectations in such a way that their stocks trade reasonably close to their intrinsic value. In place of earnings forecasts, management should provide information about the company’s strategic goals and main value drivers. They should also discuss the risks associated with the strategies and management’s plans to deal with them.
Using the experiences of several companies, the authors illustrate the dangers of conforming to market pressures for unrealistic growth targets. They argue that an overvalued stock, by encouraging overpriced acquisitions and other risky, value-destroying bets, can be as damaging to the long-run health of a company as an undervalued stock.CEOs and CFOs put themselves in a bind by providing earnings guidance and then making decisions designed to meet Wall Street’s expectations for quarterly earnings. When earnings appear to be coming in short of projections, top managers often react by suggesting or demanding that middle- and lower-level managers redo their forecasts, plans, and budgets. In some cases, top executives simply acquiesce to increasingly unrealistic analyst forecasts and adopt them as the basis for setting organizational goals and developing internal budgets. But in cases where external expectations are impossible to meet, either approach sets up the firm and its managers for failure, and in the process, value is destroyed.
Download the paper: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1583563
Fluid Teams and Fluid Tasks: The Impact of Diversity in Experience and Team Familiarity
Authors: Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats Abstract
In this paper, we consider how fluid teams and fluid tasks interact to affect team performance. We study the effect of diversity in experience on a team’s ability to respond to changing tasks by separately examining interpersonal team diversity (i.e., the difference in experience across the entire team) and intrapersonal team diversity (i.e., whether individuals on the team are more or less specialized). We also examine whether team familiarity—team members’ prior experience working with one another—helps teams to cope with the expected challenges created by changing tasks and greater interpersonal team diversity. Using detailed project—and individual-level data from an Indian software services firm, we find that the interaction of task change and intrapersonal diversity is related to improved project performance while the interaction of task change and interpersonal diversity is related to worse project performance. These results suggest that though diverse experience across team members decreases flexibility to change, diverse experience within team members increases flexibility. Additionally, we find that team familiarity partially alleviates the negative effect of interpersonal diversity on two of our three dimensions of project performance. Our results highlight the need for more nuanced approaches to leveraging experience in managing teams.
Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-145.pdf
Cases & Course Materials
Note on Direct Selling in Developing Economies
Michael Chu and Joel Segre
Harvard Business School Case 310-068Informal and formal direct selling play a particularly important role in developing countries characterized by markets with limited retail sectors. This note explores the practice of direct selling for the company, the sales person, and the consumer, as well as the potential of direct selling as a means of reaching the base of the pyramid for both commercial and social purposes.
Purchase this case:
http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/310068-PDF-ENGInternational Lobbying and The Dow Chemical Company (A)
Arthur A. Daemmrich
Harvard Business School Case 710-027This case explores company strategy, business-government relations, and collective action challenges associated with international and domestic lobbying regarding regulation of the chemical industry. In the fall of 2006, a five-year legislative process for a major new law regulating chemicals in the European Union appeared to be nearing its conclusion. REACH—the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals—would create a new European Chemicals Agency, require companies to submit testing data on existing and new compounds, and restrict the manufacture of hazardous substances. Andrew Liveris, CEO of the Dow Chemical Company, has to decide whether the company should engage in direct discussions with the European Parliament and Commission, with the implication that the company can influence the regulations but also would have to support the final outcome. The case summarizes Dow’s history, competitive dynamics in the sector, and regulation of the chemical industry before describing the REACH legislative process and various approaches to lobbying used by chemical companies, trade groups, and environmental NGOs.
Purchase this case:
http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/710027-PDF-ENGPurchase the supplement:
http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/710028-PDF-ENGRicoh Company, Ltd.
Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson, Marco Iansiti, and Akiko Kanno
Harvard Business School Case 610-053Ricoh, the Japanese copier manufacturer, is committed to reducing its environmental impact to one-eighth of its 2000 levels by 2050. It has already introduced three stages of environmental awareness to its operations, and its recycled copier business broke even in 2006. The company developed environmental accounting methods and produces annual environmental and sustainability reports, but Ricoh is concerned that investors may not take these efforts into account.
Purchase this case:
http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/610053-PDF-ENGLiving PlanIT
Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson, Susan Thyne, and Tiona Zuzul
Harvard Business School Case 410-081Living PlanIT is a start-up company that has developed a new, innovative business model for sustainable urbanization. This model reflects the software and technology backgrounds of its founders, Steve Lewis and Malcolm Hutchinson, and is in vivid contrast to other models for green or smart cities that are variations on a massive real estate development project. The main economic engine driving Living PlanIT’s model is a partner channel strategy adopted from the high technology industry. The case shows how the Living PlanIT business model has evolved from the original vision of Lewis and Hutchinson to radically transform the construction industry to a go-to-market partnership model using the real estate as a “showroom” for evolving sustainable urban technology—a $3 trillion global market over the next 20 years. Living PlanIT is developing its first project, a new city called PlanIT Valley, outside of Porto, Portugal. The company has clarified its vision and is moving into the implementation phase, which involves fundraising, signing up channel partners, and negotiating various issues with the Portuguese government for its pilot project. Success in PlanIT Valley will translate into a strong market position as global population and demand for new cities increases, particularly in developing countries such as China and India.
Purchase this case:
http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/410081-PDF-ENGCarolina for Kibera
Kathleen L. McGinn and Cailin B. Hammer
Harvard Business School Case 910-017A growing NGO based in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya, is facing a complete change in leadership as the founders step back. At the same time, a $1 million grant presents new opportunities and challenges.
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http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/910017-PDF-ENGTransforming ASUSTeK: Breaking from the Past
Willy Shih, Ho Howard Yu, and Hung-Chang Chiu
Harvard Business School Case 610-041What happens when an original design manufacturer (ODM) firm tries to transform itself into a branded goods seller? The case traces the evolution of ASUSTeK from a motherboard supplier, to an ODM of desktop and notebook PCs, through its split into three companies that separately pursue the branded business, ODM, and contract manufacturing. Chairman Jonney Shih has to not only confront the challenges of brand building, but he must also build new organizational capabilities in ASUSTeK, while Pegatron struggles to win business from ASUSTeK’s former customers and now competitors. The case offers an opportunity to apply the lens of disruptive innovations to a discussion of outsourcing, examining the consequences for firms like HP and Dell that have outsourced most of their computer product design to ODM firms like ASUSTeK, only to watch them morph into competitors. Students can also examine how organizational resources, processes, and values can shape or limit its ability to move into new areas.
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http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/610041-PDF-ENG
Rosenberg: Still Think The Economy Is Super Hot? Consider These Seven Facts
David Rosenberg is still at it, pouring cold water on your optimism.
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• The FASB 157 changes a year ago have allowed the banks to post great
credit-related earnings even as their asset base shrinks. Ex-financial
earnings are up the grand total of 5% in the past 12 months. That doesn’t
look so V-shaped to us – far less than the market would have you believe.
• Inventories will only take you so far in an expansion – -to perpetuate the
inventory cycle, final sales have to come through. In a normal post-
recession recovery, final sales growth averages nearly 5% in the first two
quarters. This time around, the big rebound has been barely over 1.5% —
and with record amounts of government stimulus.
• If the savings rate continues along the path it has been on so far this year it
will be back at zero by mid-summer.
• It is amazing how many people believe that home prices are stabilizing in
the United States when there is so much evidence to the contrary. The
FHGA price index is down two months in a row. Ditto for the
LoanPerformance house price survey. The Radar Logic 25 MSA price index
has deflated now for three months running. The key Case-Shiller index has
yet to decline but that is only due to the generosity offered by the seasonal
factors – the raw data show four declines in a row. With the new unsold
housing inventory rising back to a nine-month high of 9.2 months’ supply,
and to a six-month high of 8.6 months’ in the resale market, why would
anyone think that there could be anything but downside to housing values?
• We get this all the time – looking at US profits in the context of US GDP is
misleading because so much of the earnings pie is being influenced by the
global economy. Really? Well, which countries does the US really do
business with because last we saw, shipments bound for the BRICs account
for barely more 1% of U.S. GDP. Europe is three times as important and
again, last we saw, the EMU economy stagnated in Q4. When you dig
through the National Accounts data, what is apparent is that total earnings
derived from the non-U.S. economy are actually down 7.6% YoY. This has
been, and remains largely a story of the financial sector being able to
manufacture their own model-based credit-improvement-led profits
rebound.
• While everyone gazes at the drib-drab improvement in jobless claims and
the BLS data showing renewed job growth in the private sector, how much
better have conditions improved in the labour market when Congress yet
again passes a bill to extend jobless benefits? The grim reality is that the
U.S. labour market is so weak that the average number of weeks that the
unemployed have been without work at a record 31 weeks is now higher
than in Newfoundland (17 weeks) where much of the workforce is seasonal
in nature. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that after an 8.4 million
slide in payrolls to levels prevailing a decade ago, that we have likely hit
some point of inertia. But to describe the job market environment as
anything but grim – as difficult as it is to speak the truth – is nothing less
than dishonest; at a minimum, irresponsible.
• There is pervasive belief that housing has hit bottom and about to
bounce. At 10, the NAHB customer traffic sub index is back to where it
was when the equity market thought the world was coming to an end back
in March/09. How does that comport with a housing recovery view that has
become so prevalent?
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Hydrogen Fueling Station Cooperative Advocated by Greg Blencoe
Greg Blencoe, the CEO of Hydrogen Discovers, Incorporated of Oak Ridge, Tennessee is advocating for a Southern California based Hydrogen Fueling Station Cooperative system to be built by 2015 when the major automakers say they will start rolling out large numbers of production hydrogen cars. Mr. Blencoe has in the past proposed a Hydrogen Manhattan Project for putting up hydrogen fueling stations nationwide.
The system Mr. Blencoe is talking about does not involve government subsidies, but rather is a grassroots movement aimed at early adopters of technology and environmental activists. The idea is that a group of similar minded consumers who live near each other actually own a hydrogen fueling station in a cooperative system.
This group can fuel up their own cars with hydrogen or perhaps even decide to let others use the station as well, thus making a profit. Southern California would be the ideal location to start this cooperative as there are already a number of hydrogen fueling stations open in Los Angeles and Orange counties along with hydrogen cars to refuel at those stations.
This would mean that hydrogen car owners could expand their radius of travel in Southern California (SoCal). In addition, Southern Californians tend to be early adopters of green technology so the chances of marketing this plan in this location will be greatly increased.
Another spin off this same idea that comes to mind for me is for less expensive hydrogen fueling pumps to be built as part of some master planned communities in Southern California. There is already a company that is building, near Denver, Colorado, a master planned community where every residence comes with solar panels.
If a hydrogen fuel pump were installed in some master planned communities in SoCal, then homeowners would pay for it with their association fees just as they would for the swimming pool or other amenities. And, as an option, this could also be accomplished cooperative style with each homeowner owning a part of the hydrogen pump, allowing those outside the community to fuel up there as well for a profit.
I think Mr. Blencoe’s idea has merit. It doesn’t rely on government, big oil companies or even the large gas companies to make the initial investment to get the ball rolling. What it will take is a strong grassroots movement of like-minded people who advocate for hydrogen fuel and cars and want to see them succeed.
Perhaps the SoCal people involved in General Motor’s Project Driveway might want to take up the torch on this one and start their own Hydrogen Fueling Station Cooperative system? Or perhaps there is another group of green tech investors out there just itching for this opportunity. We’ll see how this develops in the weeks and months to come.
Spy Shots: Volkswagen Phaeton’s third facelift spotted nearly undisguised
Filed under: Spy Photos, Volkswagen, Luxury
You thought the Volkswagen Phaeton went away, did you? Oh no, Volkswagen has continued to fiddle with its range-topper in Europe, which has been snagged by spy photographers while the as-yet-unannounced third-generation was on a late-night photo shoot.
Volkswagen’s chutzpah is admiriable, and the Phaeton is certainly one heck of a car, but extending its lengthy tenure of could be a refusal to admit past mistakes. It’s likely that Phaeton owners tell people of the car’s mechanical similarities to the Bentley Continental GT, while the uninitiated will shrug and see a Passat. AutoExpress reports that there are rumors of a diesel V10 as one of the panoply of possible engines, and all will probably be revealed in September at the Paris Motor Show.
[Source: AutoExpress]
Spy Shots: Volkswagen Phaeton’s third facelift spotted nearly undisguised originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 08:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Q&A With Jim Chanos Part I: “Greece Is A Prelude”
Last week had the opportunity to visit Kynikos Associates in Manhattan and speak with its President, famed short-seller James S. Chanos.
The billionaire hedge funder is the stuff of legend. He made a killing shorting companies like Tyco, Worldcom, and of course, Enron. Chanos spoke with us at length on everything from how he discovered Enron’s problems to the issues at hand with Greece to the ongoing problems in China.
We’ll be running several posts on our Q&A sessions with Chanos throughout the week.
Today we talk about Dubai, Greece, and the role of derivatives in these markets.
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Business Insider: Let’s talk about Dubai and Greece. Dubai – was it just a case of a nation that saw too much growth and excessive debt?
Jim Chanos: No, no. Dubai was a property bubble. Plain and simple. Go to Dubai and see what happened. It was…what I call it the “Ediffice complex” – it’s just, we can grow by putting up lots and lots of buildings and trying to attract people to come here, stay here, and put up offices here and sooner or later, you put up too many. And whether it’s the Palm Island project or the indoor ski resort or, you know, take your pick because everyone has lots of Dubai stories. At first it seemed plausible and economic and by the end of the boom, they were putting on drawing boards all kinds of crazy projects. So it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the excesses. They were pretty visible to the naked eye.
Greece is a different issue. We’re not involved. We don’t trade sovereign debt, we don’t trade CDSes. You know I feel bad for my mother country in that they’re going through a lot of austerity now and I actually think that the Prime Minister and his team are doing the right thing. I met with them recently, actually, in Washington [DC] and they gave a pretty rational response to a problem that they, quite frankly, inherited.
You know they came in and discovered the hole in the budget deficit and discovered a lot of the off balance sheet stuff that was not of their doing. And he’s taking the politically unpopular step of extending the retirement age and cutting government wages not knowing if it’s going to be enough and so far the market is pretty skeptical, but I think the Greek government is being more courageous than some of the other western-European governments who aren’t addressing these issues and are going to be facing these same problems like Greece down the road. So Greece is a prelude to the problems that a lot of other countries will face that have made promises to their people without the ability to pay for them.
Papandreou and his team know they were dealt a bad hand. I think they’re trying to navigate a tough course and I wish them luck – it’s going to be tough. But I think they’re being rational about it, I think they’re trying the right policies, but I’m not enough of an expert to say if it’s going to be enough for them.
BI: I heard from Kyle Bass that Greece has defaulted on their debt a lot of times in the past 200 years…
JC: Yes, but so has France, so has Germany, so has Argentina – a number of western sovereign countries have defaulted repeatedly over the past 200 years. If you take a look at the recent book by Ken Rogoff, “It’s Different This Time,” where you have a table of these defaults – Greece is not alone in that table. Some would say that when the US rescinded the gold standard in the 1930s, that we did too. So you know, everyone points out Greece’s default record, but the history of a lot of sovereign nations is not a good one when it comes to lending them money.
BI: I would imagine, especially in regard to Argentina. It was very guilty in the last century. But with Greece, do you see an easy fix for the problem?
JC: They’re embarked on what they should be doing. I don’t think that austerity is going to be easy because of the political ramifications and that is the real problem that they’re fighting. They’re fighting both financial market perceptions and a bad domestic political situation. It’s a tough one. It’s really a tough set of problems. The solutions to both are almost diametrically opposite. And so he [Papandreou] is going to pay the price politically. Are they going to get EU help and IMF help? Everything seems uncertain now. But as I said, I was at least impressed that Papandreou’s team understood the problem and understood the issues and understood the magnitude of the problems even if it wasn’t of their doing. And they’re taking tough domestic political steps that I think a lot of other governments would be afraid to take. So I have to admire them for that.
BI: With Greece, it was revealed recently that Goldman got them into these currency swaps that caused problems.
JC: Who knows? I don’t want to comment on the specifics of that situation, but I think that you have a lot of sovereign banks in Europe that were also pretty much knee-deep in a lot of this stuff. There were Greek banks themselves that were trading derivatives. We did a survey of all the Greek banks as to how much of their pre-tax profit was from trading activities, including derivatives, and in many cases it was north of 20, 30%. It’s the nature of the current financial system…just how much of the profits of our banking system globally come from trading derivatives and debt. It’s a lot.
BI: And do you think that derivatives are ultimately a good thing that are there for proper hedging and speculation?
JC: I always laugh when I hear someone talking about “Well, we can’t have somebody buying CDSes on debt that they don’t own. If they don’t own the underlying…”
BI: A naked CDS.
JC: Yes, a naked CDS. But what people forget is that the CDS market was created exactly for that. Because if you are a creditor of that government with a non-marketable instrument, say Greece owes you money, say Greece has promised to fund your projects. You don’t own a Greek bond. You can’t market that IOU, but you have economic risk. Your project may be imperiled if Greece cannot fund it as promised. The only way you can hedge that off is through the CDS market.
So that’s exactly why the CDS market was invented. Not just to hedge sovereign debt instruments, because you can simply sell those instruments if you’re bearish! It’s actually to hedge off non-marketable instrument risk. We saw the same thing during the banking crisis when people started saying “Oh there’s been an explosion of buying CDSes on banks, and short-selling the shares of banks in the Spring and Fall of ’08.”
BI: So they’re offsetting risk.
JC: Yes. What I kept saying was: “Um, you might want to check with the other banks, because the biggest exposure that banks have is to each other. Their own counterparties!”
BI: Systemic risk.
JC: Yes, it’s systemic. And so it can be very much in the interest of bank A to sell-short bank B shares, or buy CDSes on bank B, because they have exposure to bank B. It’s the responsible thing to do as a fiduciary, and yet if everyone does it at the same time, it’s destabilizing because everyone is selling.
The whole CDS market criticism to me is a little bit specious in that CDSes were specifically to hedge off or speculate, to be fair, non-marketable financial exposure to companies or governments. We saw it in Enron, actually because there was a nascent CDS market in Enron debt when Enron went under, and there was a huge explosion towards the very end of Enron’s corporate life, in short-selling and CDS buying, and it was not primarily hedge funds and speculators – it was people who had had counterparty risk to Enron. Enron would be unable to perform under a contract and suddenly people realized they could abrogate that contract.
So before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, and talk about naked CDSes or whatever, we ought to start thinking about what exactly CDSes were set up to do. Derivatives in and of themselves are not evil. There’s nothing evil about how they’re traded, how they’re accounted for, and how they’re financed, like any other financial instrument, if done properly.
Long Term Capital [Management]….you know, almost brought the system down simply by leveraging government bonds 100-to-1. They didn’t need CDSes.
BI: Right…
JC: Yes, as I’ve said…people don’t think the whole thing through. And you know, I knew clients of Bear Stearns during the real estate boom. Bear Stearns had funding commitments to these people. And the only way they could get their projects funded was if Bear Stearns Realty went under, was to buy CDSes on Bear Stearns. Same thing with Lehman.
We saw it in the AIG situation where people were trying to hedge off their AIG exposure, and the government made good on AIG. This was the inter-connected nature of the risk in those markets, the over-concentration in a number of very large players, coupled in many cases with poor accounting. So it all was a witches brew that has led to the current set of problems. But before we completely blame derivatives for the downfall of western civilization, we have to first understand what they’re really all about.
Stay tuned the rest of the week for Chanos’s thoughts on China, Enron, and the state of the market.
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