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This dissertation addresses questions concerning slack's nature and its relationships with the environment and performance. The research investigates which view of slack (the operations or behavioral approach) best predicts performance. It examines the relationship of environment and slack using both interaction and mediation models. The PIMS database was used for 610 assembly manufacturing firms. The results support both the behavioral and the operations perspectives. This combined view suggests that slack capacity is optimized to improve sales while being minimized to improve profits. Excess inventory is minimized to improve sales but optimized to improve average ROS. In all cases, excess cash is minimized. In all equations, the slack variables entered the equations as costs. These results also support the argument that slack interacts with the environment rather than being in a functional relationship with it. Interaction terms of the slack types and the environment were significant in predicting sales. A mediation model was also tested but had a poorer fit with the data. Slack was found to be a multi-dimensional concept. The slack variables did not all intercorrelate positively. The negative relationships suggest that management makes decisions as when to use each slack resource. The slack variables (when lagged) had significant effects on each other, but not on performance. This indicates that the time horizon for slack may be shorter than was investigated in this research. The research demonstrated that slack inventory and non-slack supply buffers were negatively related. The conditions under which the firm trades slack for other buffering mechanisms were not clear. Predicted positive relationships between size and slack were found except that excess capacity and size were negatively related. This suggests that larger firms were holding slack in ways that are more discretionary and less obvious to their control systems. What is not clear from this research are the conditions under which management will choose a specific type of slack. In one case (excess working capital), technology predicts the level of this variable. Additional research is suggested to determine how, when and where these decisions are made.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 220-230). / Microfiche. / xiv, 230 leaves, bound 29 cm

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Also available in print.

Jiao, Lin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 44-48). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.2 / 摘要 --- p.3 / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.6 / Chapter 2. --- Theoretical Background --- p.12 / Chapter 3. --- Data --- p.15 / Chapter 4. --- Measuring Geographic Concentration/Specialization --- p.16 / Chapter 4.1 --- Various Measurements --- p.16 / Chapter 4.2 --- Geographic Concentration of Industries in China --- p.19 / Chapter 5. --- Geographic Concentration and Firm Size --- p.21 / Chapter 5.1 --- Approach of Holmes and Stevens (2002) --- p.22 / Chapter 5.2 --- Case in China --- p.24 / Chapter 5.3 --- An Alternative Approach --- p.26 / Chapter 6. --- Across Industries and Ownerships --- p.28 / Chapter 6.1 --- Across Industries --- p.28 / Chapter 6.2 --- Across Ownerships --- p.31 / Chapter 7. --- Conclusion --- p.42 / References --- p.44 / Appendix --- p.58

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

This dissertation investigates the question of whether political influence in the business sector is distributed disproportionately among firms in a manner which favors large economic units. The factors which are likely to be sources of variation in the market for political influence faced by economic units of different sizes are isolated and studied. Relying upon pre-existing research by scholars in the area of public choice, a production cost function for legislative political influence is developed. It is demonstrated that supply conditions are likely to vary between corporate units of different sizes favoring small firms. An analysis of the demand for political influence is then presented in which government is treated as an intermediate input in the firm's production function. It is argued that forms of influence may not only serve to alter a firm's cost and demand conditions, but that the economic unit may also enjoy a reduction in the bounded rationality problems which it faces.These internal transactions costs are not generally reduced to a significant degree when influence is produced for the large firm because of the non-durable nature of legislation created for conspicuous corporate units. Thus, the value of the marginal product of political influence is inversely related to firm size. The analysis is then subjected to empirical testing. The results suggest that political influence and regulated firm size are positive and disproportionately related. Across unregulated firms a proportional relationship appears to exist. Finally, the policy implication of the results are explored. The conclusions suggest that policy implemented to reduce the extent of special interest legislation for business by limiting the growth of firms may not only be unsuccessful, but will likely lead to serious market distortions. / Ph. D.

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published_or_final_version / Economics / Master / Master of Social Sciences