Summarizes the positive and negative sides of American industrial practices determined by the Commission on Industrial Productivity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Describes five imperatives recommended by the commission based on its study of current weakness and best practices in American industry. (YP)

Innovation is the key to productivity growth and prosperity. Most empirical cross-country analysis of the determinants of innovation focus mainly on developed countries. The objective of this study is to fill this gap in the research and analyze the determinants of innovation in transition countries of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.…

While the Milwaukee region's economic base is rooted in its manufacturing history, many believe that the region's future prosperity will be tied to its ability to successfully transition its economy into one that is based on knowledge and innovation. Indeed, fostering innovation has become the call to action for business and political leaders…

The international business community relies heavily on English Lingua Franca (ELF) as a shared means of communication, and English business language programmes thus feature prominently within the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Business ESP programmes, however, have little focus on active listening, which previous research has…

Higher education is the education level under the most pressure to be internationally liberalized. Currently, the main global instrument to achieve this liberalization goal is the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization. In this paper, the process of trade liberalization of higher education in the GATS…

Outcome-based education is a pedagogical process which focuses on the achievement of certain specified results. Outcome-based teaching and learning (OBTL), therefore, is concerned with curriculum design and ensuring that the contents, delivery, activities, and assessments are all aligned to help facilitate students to attain specific intended…

This investigation of French mercantilist initiatives and policies in the seventeenth century focuses on the attempts of Colbert, the controller general of finance to Louis XIV, to stimulate French trade with the Baltic by establishing a Company of the North. (RM)

The factor proportions model of international trade is one of the most influential theories in international economics. Its central standing in this field has appropriately prompted, particularly recently, intense empirical scrutiny. A substantial and growing body of empirical work has tested the predictions of the theory on the net factor content…

We exploit Japan's sudden and complete opening up to international trade in the 1860s to test the empirical validity of one of the oldest and most fundamental propositions in economics: the theory of comparative advantage. Historical evidence supports the assertion that the characteristics of the Japanese economy at the time were compatible with…

This article compares Chinese students' responses to local Chinese versus American professors, and the effectiveness of the professors' respective teaching techniques. A case study made at a single university in China, which had a joint academic program with the United States, found that Chinese students preferred local Chinese professors to…

Subsequent to hurricane Katrina, Mississippi Gulf Coast businesses are rebuilding and rewriting rules. This catastrophic event has offered the coast a tremendous opportunity to write new rules furthering the redevelopment and expansion of international trade through the ports of Gulfport and Pascagoula and the expansion of the tourism industry.

We evaluate the argument that international trade influences disproportionate cross-national utilization of global renewable natural resources. Such uneven dynamics are relevant to the consideration of inequitable appropriation of environmental space in particular and processes of ecological unequal exchange more generally. Using OLS regression…

Immiserizing growth is a long-term phenomenon that occurs when the gain in a country's social welfare arising from economic growth is more than offset by the loss in such welfare associated with an adverse shift in the terms of trade. In one case explored many years ago by Jagdish Bhagwati, immiserizing growth occurs in a developing nation that…

Last fall, in an effort to raise awareness of Canadian table wines, the Consulate General commissioned a group of International Business MBA students from Walsh College, in suburban Detroit, to create the "Canadian Wine Exporter's Guide." This report, which was officially presented to Canadian wine producers prior to the tasting,…

This review shows how the Internet can support learning about the process of internationalization. A description of how Internet-based sources of information can be used by students when investigating internationalization has not been made. However, the Internet and its role during a corporation's foreign market expansion has not been investigated…