Forum of International Business & Economic Affairs
The Forum of International Business & Economic Affairs @ ECO-ENA, Inc., Canada provides research work in Entrepreneurship, International Business & Economic International Affairs. It holds its annual conference every year in a different country to collect intellectual material in related fields. It also sponsors the Journal of International Business & Economic Affairs (Canadian Edition). It will hold its 6th annual conference of Economic forum of entrepreneurship & International business this year in LMH, Oxford University, Oxford, UK on January 28th, 29th, and 30th, 2016. More
Journal of International Business & Economic Affairs
ISSN 1925-2986 = The Journal of International Business and Economic Affairs (CD-ROM):
ISSN 1916-8748 (Online), Library & Archive Canada. Only CD-ROM & On-Line versions are available.
Library & Archive Canada legal deposit: Click here
Welcome to the first volume of the Journal of International Business and Economic Affairs.
Economics is the study of humanity’s stewardship of resources, be it the individual’s own wealth, property held on trust for another person, the assets of a business enterprise, public monies or the reserves of nature. As such it is the study of all deliberate human action which employs resources to attempt to achieve an intended outcome, whether the efforts are successful or unsuccessful and whether the aims are commendable or immoral. Economic theory does not exclude the duty to comment on the moral aspect of human behaviour or the evaluation of the advisability of human actions but it does not take as its premise that our behaviour is always intelligent or that it is bounded by morality. Economics concerns itself with all purposeful activity by human beings in the tangible world and within those confines it is the study and philosophy of virtue and wisdom, vice and folly.
It is the duty of the academic researcher – and we may speak of a duty inasmuch as the public purse pays the researcher’s wages – to achieve four things: to describe accurately what happens in the human world; to explain why it happens; to propose improvements in the way that people strive to achieve their goals; and to warn of the consequences if those goals are achieved. That is not to say that the economist or the accountant has any power to improve the morals of humanity. Their task is restricted at best to advising on how human beings can better attain their goals, whether those goals are the aggregation of riches, the raising of the poor to positions of power, the protection of the natural environment or merely the promotion of branded eye shadow – or for that matter the overthrow of the financial bases of civic society. It must be left to the politician or the preacher to engage in debate with the public on the question of whether any of these goals is worthy of human effort or whether it is a dangerous scheme to be opposed and prevented. The social scientist can generally do no more than to say how it might best be done if it is to be done at all.
Nevertheless, the economist, the accountant and any other social scientist must be aware of their duty to warn of the consequences of achieving our short or long term goals. It is, for example, foolish to ask how manufacturing industry may be promoted in low-income countries without warning of the consequences of trapping millions upon hundreds of millions of poorer workers in jobs which are all too vulnerable to mechanization. Likewise, it is not sufficient to explain how free trade and the exploitation of comparative advantage can make the world as a whole a wealthier and more efficient place without acknowledging that the livelihoods of the less efficient may be destroyed in the process, regardless of whether their inefficiency is their own fault or the fault of others or merely the consequence of natural geography. Again, the economist may discuss whether, in peacetime, any particular country can more efficiently import its basic foodstuffs or produce them within its own borders but must not be oblivious to the dangers of over-reliance on a single food source when faced with wars or revolutions which may devastate domestic farmland and call labourers from the fields or, alternatively, sever supply lines from abroad. Although it is the job of the politician to consider whether benefits outweigh the costs in any particular policy decision, it is nevertheless the duty of the social scientist to point out what those costs might be.
It is the mission of this journal to publish articles of high quality relating to all aspects of human economic activity. In this first issue we present three papers, which concern themselves with themes which can be expected to feature significantly in any account of the development of the world economy in the 21st Century, namely, risk management, knowledge management and the orderly management of deregulation.
The management of risk has long been the key to the orderly conduct of business, both in industry and in government and the reporting of risk is a vital requirement for the understanding of the performance of any operation. However, the accurate reporting of risk, both internally and externally, requires a willingness on the part of both the reporter and the reader not only to accept uncertainties but also to consider the full extent and consequences of those uncertainties in detail. The desire of the professional accountant to provide a single definite number for the value of each asset or liability is a worthy desire when reporting what has happened in the past or is true in the present but when the theme strays into future outcomes, as is expected by planners and investors, the pretence of certainty cannot be reasonably maintained, especially as many future events will fall into the extensive category of the foreseeable but unforeseen.
Yet the difficulties inherent in describing and quantifying risk do not remove the responsibility of management in the public and private sectors to form a proper assessment of risk and to act accordingly, by avoiding unjustified risks and being prepared for the potential consequences of unavoidable or acceptable risks.
If the recent global and financial and economic crisis has highlighted the fact that risk is unavoidable in modern business, it has also highlighted the danger of believing that the mechanical management of risks by means of novel financial instruments or, worse still, by creative compliance with regulations and codes of practice, without taking proper account of global risk, is an acceptable alternative to the proper analysis of risk and the acceptance of the full consequences of misjudging those risks. It may also be said that it has highlighted a worrying difference between the treatment of high-profile totemic multinationals whose failure is deemed too embarrassing to national governments and the treatment of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) whose owners and employees are expected to suffer in silence in the face of all risks, regardless of whether those risks fall within their own control, that of other SMEs or that of highly paid lenders, vendors and purchasers in government-protected firms.
The threats to which SMEs are exposed, however, make it all the more imperative that they do whatever they can to manage those risks. Thomas Henschel’s researches on risk management of SMEs, part of which we publish here, are therefore extremely welcome. It is evident from this research that the quality and style of risk management in German SMEs varies a great deal, not only in terms of the extent of application of established management tools such as the balanced scorecard but also in terms of their integration into project management processes. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to ongoing discussions about risk management in the vital SME sector.
One vital area of management which is inevitably the subject of risks and uncertainties is the management of human knowledge. The features and uses of knowledge, intellect and human capacity, whether individual or collective, defy straightforward economic analysis, because they are subject to human fallibility and inconsistency, human frailty and mortality. At the social level, the application of knowledge is a prey to character and emotion. The same knowledge or intellect at the disposal of a lethargic dreamer will not produce the same results as if it is in the hands of a driven obsessive with material goals. Likewise, the exercise of the same sum total of intelligence and technology held by a multiplicity of small cells who are jealous of their crafts may not have the same end results as the exercise of the same abilities by a more naturally co-operative society which is prepared to sacrifice some narrower collective advantages at the guild, family or workshop level for the benefit of society as a whole. How to create incentives for the development of the most serviceable forms of knowledge and how the use of such knowledge and access to it is to be managed, with a view to fairness and profit to the individual, the collective unit and the wider public, are complex matters for politicians, lawyers and managers, while the measurement of the potential and actual benefits of knowledge is an intricate question for the economist and the accountant. The economist must also be concerned with the basic structures which can facilitate or impede the development and application of knowledge and with the incentives and disincentives to knowledge development which may be inherent in laws, contracts and working environments.
Innovation and knowledge transfers now form a substantial area of social and economic activity. This is especially true in high-tech scientific companies which are involved in the exchange of knowledge with the higher education sector. We here publish a paper by Dai Yun which explores the mechanisms for knowledge transfer between universities and biotechnology companies. The channels for knowledge transfer are varied, including personal contacts and consultancy agreements and may be used at any stage in the product development process. The goodness of the technological fit between academic expertise and company plans, the quality of communication between partners and the level of commitment shown by both sides are the most important success factors in knowledge transfers.
The linked banking and economic crises of the last two years have also highlighted another management issue for industry and government in the management of one of the world’s most powerful intangibles: money. Money as a measure of obligations and rights provides a powerful tool for the allocation of resources between competing enterprises and between competing groups of workers, making it an attractive target for manipulation, by governments and speculators as much as by fraudsters. The provision of money and the matching of the money supply to the supply of goods and services is a process in which governments and central banks may have a leading role but in which retail banks card issuers and sellers of goods and services on credit are all involved. At the same time, these providers of money and credit may compete within the same currency area or within zones with managed currency exchange rates or with floating currencies. They may compete on the basis of interest rates, credit timescales and levels of service. The management and regulation of banking and credit and the management of the national currency are major issues in the management of a national economy which is open to the outside world.
John Adams and Karlo Jouan examine the order of events in financial liberalization in emerging markets. Based on an extensive review of the literature, they conclude that the sequencing of orderly liberalization measures is important, with the deregulation of inter-bank lending rates preferably preceding the liberalization of deposit rates. In addition, they propose that domestic banking reform and the introduction of competition within national boundaries should precede the opening of the sector to foreign competition, in order to allow the development and maintenance of a viable banking industry within the country to support economic growth and the efficient allocation of resources.
We welcome submissions on all areas of business and economics, including development economics, environmental sustainability, risk management, macroeconomics and government policy, business economics, accounting and auditing.
New - Our Journals are related to our conferences - Papers should be discussed in our intellectual symposium to be edited depending on received comments during the conferences - Considered after October 1st, 2016
