企业资金管理中英文对照外文翻译文献
中小企业融资渠道中英文对照外文翻译文献
中小企业融资渠道中英文对照外文翻译文献Title: Financing Channels for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: A Comparative Analysis of Chinese and English LiteratureIntroduction:Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role in driving economic growth, job creation, and innovation. However, they often face challenges in accessing finance due to limited assets, credit history, and information transparency. This article aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of financing channels for SMEs, comparing existing literature in both Chinese and English.1. Overview of SME Financing Channels:1.1 Bank Loans:Traditional bank loans are a common financing option for SMEs. They offer advantages such as long-term repayment periods, lower interest rates, and established banking relationships. However, obtaining bank loans may be challenging for SMEs with insufficient collateral or creditworthiness.1.2 Venture Capital and Private Equity:Venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) attract external investments in exchange for equity stakes. These financing channels are particularly suitable for high-growth potential SMEs. VC/PE investors often provide not only financial resources but also expertise and networks to support SMEs' growth. However, SMEs may face challenges in meeting the stringent criteria required by VC/PE firms, limiting accessibility.1.3 Angel Investment:Angel investors are wealthy individuals who provide early-stage funding to SMEs. They are often interested in innovative and high-potential ventures. Angel investments can bridge the funding gap during a company's initial stages, but SMEs need to actively seek out and convince potential angel investors to secure funding.1.4 Government Grants and Subsidies:Governments offer grants and subsidies to support SMEs' business development and innovation. These resources play a pivotal role in ensuring SMEs' survival and growth. However, the application process can be cumbersome, and the competition for these funds is usually high.1.5 Crowdfunding:Crowdfunding platforms allow SMEs to raise capital from a large poolof individual investors. This channel provides opportunities for SMEs to showcase their products or services and engage directly with potential customers. However, the success of crowdfunding campaigns depends on effective marketing strategies and compelling narratives.2. Comparative Analysis:2.1 Chinese Literature on SME Financing Channels:In Chinese literature, research on SME financing channels focuses on the unique challenges faced by Chinese SMEs, such as information asymmetry, high collateral requirements, and insufficient financial transparency. Studiesemphasize the importance of government policies, bank loans, and alternative financing channels like venture capital and private equity.2.2 English Literature on SME Financing Channels:English literature encompasses a broader range of financing channels and their implications for SMEs worldwide. It highlights the significance of business angel investment, crowdfunding, trade credit, factoring, and peer-to-peer lending. The literature also emphasizes the role of financial technology (fintech) in expanding SMEs' access to finance.3. Recommendations for SMEs:3.1 Enhancing Financial Literacy:SMEs should invest in improving their financial literacy to understand different financing options and strategies. This knowledge will help them position themselves more effectively when seeking external funding.3.2 Diversifying Funding Sources:To mitigate financing risks, SMEs should explore multiple channels simultaneously. A diversified funding portfolio can help SMEs access different sources of capital while reducing dependence on a single channel.3.3 Building Relationships:Developing relationships with banks, investors, and relevant stakeholders is crucial for SMEs seeking financing. Strong networks and connections can provide valuable support and increase the likelihood of securing funding.Conclusion:Access to appropriate financing channels is crucial for the growth and development of SMEs. This analysis of financing channels for SMEs, comparing Chinese and English literature, highlights the diverse options available. By understanding the strengths and limitations of each channel, SMEs can make informed decisions and adopt strategies that align with their unique business requirements. Governments, financial institutions, and other stakeholders should continue to collaborate in creating an enabling environment that facilitates SMEs' access to finance.。
企业营运资金管理中英文对照外文翻译文献
中英文对照外文翻译文献(文档含英文原文和中文翻译)原文：Effects Of Working Capital Management On Sme ProfitabilityThe corporate finance literature has traditionally focused on the study of long-term financial decisions. Researchers have particularly offered studies analyzing investments, capital structure, dividends or company valuation, among other topics. But the investment that firms make in short-term assets, and the resources used with maturities of under one year, represent the main share of items on a firm’s balance sheet. In fact, in our sample the current assets of small and medium-sized Spanish firms represent 69.48 percent of their assets, and at the same time their current liabilities represent more than 52.82 percent of their liabilities.Working capital management is important because of its effects on the firm’s profitability and risk, and consequently its value (Smith, 1980). On the one hand, maintaining high inventory levels reduces the cost of possible interruptions in the production process, or of loss of business due to the scarcity of products, reducessupply costs, and protects against price fluctuations, among other advantages (Blinder and Manccini, 1991). On the other, granting trade credit favors the firm’s sales in various ways. Trade credit can act as an effective price cut (Brennan, Maksimovic and Zechner,1988; Petersen and Rajan, 1997), incentivizes customers to acquire merchandise at times of low demand (Emery, 1987), allows customers to check that the merchandise they receive is as agreed (quantity and quality) and to ensure that the services contracted are carried out (Smith, 1987), and helps firms to strengthen long-term relationships with their customers (Ng, Smith and Smith, 1999). However, firms that invest heavily in inventory and trade credit can suffer reduced profitability. Thus,the greater the investment in current assets, the lower the risk, but also the lower the profitability obtained.On the other hand, trade credit is a spontaneous source of financing that reduces the amount required to finance the sums tied up in the inventory and customer accounts. But we should bear in mind that financing from suppliers can have a very high implicit cost if early payment discounts are available. In fact the opportunity cost may exceed 20 percent, depending on the discount percentage and the discount period granted (Wilner,2000; Ng, Smith and Smith, 1999). In this respect, previous studies have analyzed the high cost of trade credit, and find that firms finance themselves with seller credit when they do not have other more economic sources of financing available (Petersen and Rajan, 1994 and 1997).Decisions about how much to invest in the customer and inventory accounts, and how much credit to accept from suppliers, are reflected in the firm’s cash conve rsion cycle, which represents the average number of days between the date when the firm must start paying its suppliers and the date when it begins to collect payments from its customers. Some previous studies have used this measure to analyze whether shortening the cash conversion cycle has positive or negative effects on the firm’s profitability.Specifically, Shin and Soenen (1998) analyze the relation between the cash conversion cycle and profitability for a sample of firms listed on the US stock exchange during the period 1974-1994. Their results show that reducing the cash conversion cycle to a reasonable extent increases firms’ profitability. More recently,Deloof (2003) analyzes a sample of large Belgian firms during the period 1992-1996. His results confirm that Belgian firms can improve their profitability by reducing the number of days accounts receivable are outstanding and reducing inventories. Moreover, he finds that less profitable firms wait longer to pay their bills.These previous studies have focused their analysis on larger firms. However, the management of current assets and liabilities is particularly important in the case of small and medium-sized companies. Most of these companies’ assets are in the form of current assets. Also, current liabilities are one of their main sources of external finance in view of their difficulties in obtaining funding in the long-term capital markets(Petersen and Rajan, 1997) and the financing constraints that they face (Whited, 1992; Fazzari and Petersen, 1993). In this respect, Elliehausen and Woken (1993), Petersen and Rajan (1997) and Danielson and Scott (2000) show that small and medium-sized US firms use vendor financing when they have run out of debt. Thus, efficient working capital management is particularly important for smaller companies (Peel and Wilson,1996).In this context, the objective of the current work is to provide empirical evidence about the effects of working capital management on profitability for a panel made up of 8,872 SMEs during the period 1996-2002. This work contributes to the literature in two ways. First, no previous such evidence exists for the case of SMEs. We use a sample of Spanish SMEs that operate within the so-called continental model, which is characterized by its less developed capital markets (La Porta, López-de-Silanes, Shleifer, and Vishny, 1997), and by the fact that most resources are channeled through financial intermediaries (Pampillón, 2000). All this suggests that Spanish SMEs have fewer alternative sources of external finance available, which makes them more dependent on short-term finance in general, and on trade credit in particular. As Demirguc-Kunt and Maksimovic (2002) suggest, firms operating in countries with more developed banking systems grant more trade credit to their customers, and at the same time they receive more finance from their own suppliers. The second contribution is that, unlike the previous studies by Shin and Soenen (1998) and Deloof (2003), in the current work we have conducted tests robust to the possible presence ofendogeneity problems. The aim is to ensure that the relationships found in the analysis carried out are due to the effects of the cash conversion cycle on corporate profitability and not vice versa.Our findings suggest that managers can create value by reducing their firm’s number of days accounts receivable and inventories. Similarly, shortening the cash conversion cycle also improves the firm’s profitability.We obtained the data used in this study from the AMADEUS database. This database was developed by Bureau van Dijk, and contains financial and economic data on European companies.The sample comprises small and medium-sized firms from Spain. The selection of SMEs was carried out according to the requirements established by the European Commission’s recommendation 96/280/CE of 3 April, 1996, on the definition of small and medium-sized firms. Specifically, we selected those firms meeting the following criteria for at least three years: a) have fewer than 250 employees; b) turn over less than €40 million; and c) possess less than €27 million of total assets.In addition to the application of those selection criteria, we applied a series of filters. Thus, we eliminated the observations of firms with anomalies in their accounts, such as negative values in their assets, current assets, fixed assets, liabilities, current liabilities, capital, depreciation, or interest paid. We removed observations of entry items from the balance sheet and profit and loss account exhibiting signs that were contrary to reasonable expectations. Finally, we eliminated 1 percent of the extreme values presented by several variables. As a result of applying these filters, we ended up with a sample of 38,464 observations.In order to introduce the effect of the economic cycle on the levels invested in working capital, we obtained information about the annual GDP growth in Spain from Eurostat.In order to analyze the effects of working capital management on the firm’s profitability, we used the return on assets (ROA) as the dependent variable. We defined this variable as the ratio of earnings before interest and tax to assets.With regards to the independent variables, we measured working capitalmanagement by using the number of days accounts receivable, number of days of inventory and number of days accounts payable. In this respect, number of days accounts receivable (AR) is calculated as 365 ×[accounts receivable/sales]. This variable represents the average number of days that the firm takes to collect payments from its customers. The higher the value, the higher its investment in accounts receivable.We calculated the number of days of inventory (INV) as 365 ×[inventories/purchases]. This variable reflects the average number of days of stock held by the firm. Longer storage times represent a greater investment in inventory for a particular level of operations.The number of days accounts payable (AP) reflects the average time it takes firms to pay their suppliers. We calculated this as 365 × [accounts payable/purchases]. The higher the value, the longer firms take to settle their payment commitments to their suppliers.Considering these three periods jointly, we estimated the cash conversion cycle(CCC). This variable is calculated as the number of days accounts receivable plus thenumber of days of inventory minus the number of days accounts payable. The longerthe cash conversion cycle, the greater the net investment in current assets, and hence the greater the need for financing of current assets.Together with these variables, we introduced as control variables the size of the firm, the growth in its sales, and its leverage. We measured the size (SIZE) as the logarithm of assets, the sales growth (SGROW) as (Sales1 –Sales0)/Sales0, the leverage(DEBT) as the ratio of debt to liabilities. Dellof (2003) in his study of large Belgian firms also considered the ratio of fixed financial assets to total assets as a control variable. For some firms in his study such assets are a significant part of total assets.However our study focuses on SMEs whose fixed financial assets are less important. In fact, companies in our sample invest little in fixed financial assets (a mean of 3.92 percent, but a median of 0.05 percent). Nevertheless, the results remain unaltered whenwe include this variable.Furthermore, and since good economic conditions tend to be reflected in a firm’sprofitability, we controlled for the evolution of the economic cycle using the variable GDPGR, which measures the annual GDP growth.Current assets and liabilities have a series of distinct characteristics according to the sector of activity in which the firm operates. Thus, Table I reports the return on assets and number of days accounts receivable, days of inventory, and days accounts payable by sector of activity. The mining industry and services sector are the two sectors with the highest return on their assets, with a value of 10 percent. Firms that are dedicated to agriculture, trade (wholesale or retail), transport and public services, are some way behind at 7 percent.With regard to the average periods by sector, we find, as we would expect, that the firms dedicated to the retail trade, with an average period of 38 days, take least time to collect payments from their customers. Construction sector firms grant their customers the longest period in which to pay –more than 145 days. Next, we find mining sector firms, with a number of days accounts receivable of 116 days. We also find that inventory is stored longest in agriculture, while stocks are stored least in the transport and public services sector. In relation to the number of days accounts payable, retailers (56 days) followed by wholesalers (77 days) pay their suppliers earliest. Firms are much slower in the construction and mining sectors, taking more than 140 days on average to pay their suppliers. However, as we have mentioned, these firms also grant their own customers the most time to pay them. Considering all the average periods together, we note that the cash conversion cycle is negative in only one sector – that of transport and public services. This is explained by the short storage times habitual in this sector. In this respect, agricultural and manufacturing firms take the longest time to generate cash (95 and 96 days, respectively), and hence need the most resources to finance their operational funding requirements.Table II offers descriptive statistics about the variables used for the sample as a whole. These are generally small firms, with mean assets of more than €6 milli on; their return on assets is around 8 percent; their number of days accounts receivable is around 96 days; and their number of days accounts payable is very similar: around 97 days. Together with this, the sample firms have seen their sales grow by almost 13percent annually on average, and 24.74 percent of their liabilities is taken up by debt. In the period analyzed (1996-2002) the GDP has grown at an average rate of 3.66 percent in Spain.Source: Pedro Juan García-Teruel and Pedro Martínez-Solano ,2006.“Effects of Working Capital Management on SME Profitability” .International Journal of Managerial Finance ,vol. 3, issue 2, April,pages 164-167.译文：营运资金管理对中小企业的盈利能力的影响公司理财著作历来把注意力集中在了长期财务决策研究，研究者详细的提供了投资决策分析、资本结构、股利分配或公司估值等主题的研究，但是企业投资形成的短期资产和以一年内到期方式使用的资源，表现为公司资产负债表的有关下昂目的主要部分。
企业财务管理研究外文文献翻译
文献出处：Bromiley P, McShane M. Enterprise Risk Management: Review, Critique, and Research Directions[J]. Long Range Planning, 2015，12（03）：61-71.原文The Research of Enterprise Financial ManagementBromiley P, McShane MAbstractEnterprise production and operation process of socialization and modernization level is continuously improved, enterprise financial management and control in the core position in the enterprise management has been gradually revealed. Practice has proved that by strengthening financial management and control is advantageous to the enterprise reasonable and effective use of funds, increasing the use of funds effect; Is advantageous to the enterprise budget, and strive to reduce costs; Easier to find the problems existing in the production and operation enterprises, reduce the economic loss; Is beneficial to improve the level of enterprise production and management, enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. Financial management is the core of enterprise management, seize the financial management, and seize the key to enterprise management.Key words: enterprise financial management; Money management;1IntroductionEnterprise financial management work of the importance of modern enterprise is a lawfully established for the purpose of profit, is engaged in the production and business operation activities of the independent accounting economic organization, its starting point and develops well is the profit. Enterprises in order to achieve the purpose of its survival and development and implementation of management of its final result to financial index to reflect, and financial management object is the enterprise of cash (or cash) and benign circulation and turnover process, so also has established the corresponding the core position of financial management in enterprise management. Enterprise production management is the process of capital movement and value-added process, management and financial management, as a kind of value form into all production and business operation activities, it is implementationmanagement means on the one hand, through the control of the enterprise production and business operation activities of each link, standardize enterprise management, on the other hand, through the scientific financial analysis, provide the basis for enterprise production and management decision-making, it is through the financial management work to make the management of enterprise production and operation have full control over the whole process.2 Related theories2.1 The fine financial managementThe fine financial management is to "fine" as the foundation, do meticulous, for every post, every business, have set up a corresponding with the work process and business norms, practices the key in implementing, and to extend the scope of financial management to unit of each area, fully exercise the financial supervision function, to make the development of financial management and service function, realize financial management no dead Angle, explore the potential value of the financial activities.As a way of modern financial management, the fine financial management is modern enterprise constantly explore the process of adapting to the market economy development, and is suitable for the market rules and the requirements of the development of enterprise financial management, efforts to promote the fine financial management, to improve enterprise financial management ability, is significant to promote enterprise development, at the same time can also keep to further reform and opening up, promote the internationalization of our country economy level unceasingly, really realize the sustainable development of economy in our country. 2.2 The enterprise value maximizationEnterprise value maximization is reasonable on the enterprise financial management, adopt the optimum financial policy, and give full consideration to the relationship between the value of money and pay, in ensuring long-term stable development of enterprises to maximize the enterprise value. The advantages of the enterprise value maximization is that it considers the paid time and risk, to overcome the short-term behavior in the pursuit of profit. Economic added value maximizationgoal refers to the enterprise by means of the reasonable financial management, take the optimization of financial policy, give full consideration to the time value of money and the relationship between risk and reward, on the basis of the guarantee enterprise long-term stable development, the pursuit of a certain period of time has created the maximization of economic value added and the ratio of the invested capital.3 Enterprise financial management statuses3.1 Status of financial management, enterprise management goal is not clearIn the past most of the companies did not improve the status of financial management to an important problem of position, just think corporate profit is good, as long as don't consider reasonable fund raising and reasonable application, regardless of the benefit maximization problem. Lead to some enterprises for the sake of short-term profit after facing the danger of collapse. And although many enterprise financial management attaches great importance to, but for the financial management target is fuzzy.3.2 The lack of a sound and effective budget management systemMany enterprises not to establish and perfect effective budget management system, enterprise management with no clear goal and direction, entirely by "follow", to advance planning and matter controls, afterwards, analyze and audit is in order to cope with the task of "above", bring a lot of enterprise financial management risk. Some companies even compiled the budget, but as a result of budget management system is not sound, or budget is the financial department shall, according to the management intention "behind closed doors", can't reach the effect of beforehand control, the so-called budget only become "decoration" or "face project".3.3 Money is messy, the use of inefficientSaving is the biggest save money, a waste of money is the biggest waste. In the currency as the medium of the market economy condition, enterprise operation must be firmly established with the concept of capital as the core, maximum limit the use efficiency of the pursuit of money. At present, the needs of the enterprise group funds centralized management and multistage corporate funds dispersed to take up its internal contradiction has become the most prominent problems in the presententerprise financial fund management investment decision-making optional the gender is big, some enterprises regardless of their own ability and the development goals, blind investment, keen to spread new stall, investments, more serious loss, compounded of already very tense capital position. Capital precipitation, takes up unreasonable, high of payment default, finished goods continued to grow, capital turnover is slow, enterprise credit and profitability decline.3.4 Distortion of accounting information, disclosure delayMany enterprises did not form a unified accounting and financial reporting system, and not build a unified financial management system, totally "free" in the group members, by financial personnel according to their own ideas to establish financial accounting and management system, lead to each member's financial information between businesses than, data and information disorder; Plus members affected by the "personal interest", insisting that the performance of rise, make the accounts receivable is high and increasing the enterprise financing costs, management costs and bad debt losses, on the other hand, the members of the enterprise financial personnel adjustment index through a variety of artificial means, cause the distortion of accounting data, report false, completely cover up the real operating conditions of the enterprise. If the enterprise can't solve the problem of distortion of accounting information in time, will lead to policy maker’s mistake, for the survival and development of the enterprise is very bad.4 The improvement of the enterprise financial management measures4.1 The financial management personnel must set up the modern financial management the new ideaThe establishment of modern enterprise system not only gives enterprise active rights, as well as the modern enterprise financial management in a rapidly changing, highly risky market economy environment. These put forward higher requirements for enterprise financial management personnel, financial personnel must be established to adapt to finance a new concept of the knowledge economy era. To strengthen information idea, in the modern society, economic information is a commodity; the accounting information is also a commodity. Any commodity value, accountinginformation has value. On the one hand, financial personnel through the rapid, accurate and comprehensive information collection, provide the basis for enterprise financing and investment decisions. Analysis of enterprise production and operation situation, on the other hand, the information provided by, become the enterprises to improve management decision-making basis, have a significant impact to the enterprise management strategy, objectively to create value for the enterprise.4.2 Led to budget as the main body, implements the comprehensive budget managementUnder the market economy system, the allocation of resources will become complicated, management function diversity, only implements the comprehensive budget management, to carry out effective control, the main work is: first, making enterprise management budget; Second, in an orderly way of budget management, including the implementation of budget tracking, analysis, evaluation and assessment; Third, fix the settlement of the monthly, quarterly and annual accounts. By budget control and avoid waste and loss, increase savings, increasing earnings and practicing economy, ensure the realization of enterprise economic benefits.4.3 Make capital use plan, optimizing the allocation of fundsEnterprise can control the amount of money at any time is limited, but the demand for money is unlimited, the enterprise should through scientific analysis of the prediction, the disposable funds raised together effectively, maintain reasonable configuration structure. Including fixed capital and liquidity structure, capital structure, reserves and production in stock funds and quick assets structure, declines at the same time, determine the structure of capital plan, and break it down to the relevant units, for minimum cost and footprint, realize the biggest capital gains. Strengthening the management of procurement funds. A merit, Zelman, choose close to purchase materials, to prevent indirect procurement, procurement blindly, compressed procurement costs, cut down the cost of purchasing, locked good capital expenditures mainstream. Strengthening the management of production capital. Enterprises should start from the implementation of economic responsibility system, in order to reduce the consumption as the breakthrough point, in order to improve thelabor productivity as the basis, focusing on compression controllable costs, reduce production costs, thereby reducing production funds utilization. Strictly control the daily cost, implement cost and expenditure, saving the prize, overruns the report; For some expenses are tough freezing method, which in a certain period of time will not be spending, promote management thrift, lavish in preventing the black sheep of his family.4.4 To actively promote the enterprise's financial and business integration of the workFinancial management is the highest level of the perfect combination of business and finance, that is, financial and business integration. Therefore, unified financial management software, computer is applied to implement financial information and business process integration, and gradually introduce, digest, development, using international advanced ERP system software, is the basic direction of the development of the enterprise internal information. Enterprises should be combined with practice, actively introduce the development use unified integration of financial and business management software, gradually realize the whole process of production and operation of information flow, logistics, capital integration and data sharing, security enterprise budget, settlement, monitoring and so on financial management work standardization, efficient. Enterprises with financial management as the center, with an emphasis on cost control, realizes the financial system and sales system, supply and production of data sharing, unified management.译文企业财务管理研究Bromiley P, McShane M.摘要企业生产经营过程社会化程度和现代化水平正不断得以提高，企业财务管理与控制在企业管理中的核心地位已逐渐显示出来。
现代企业财务管理中英文对照外文翻译文献
Discussion on the Modern Enterprise Financial ControlRyanDavidson ,JennyGoodwin-Stewart ,PamelaKentThis paper discusses the The modern enterprise is becoming China's economic development in the process of an important new force. However, with the modern enterprise investment on the scale of the expansion and extension of the growing investment levels, the modern enterprise financial control is becoming increasingly urgent. This is common in state-owned enterprise groups and private enterprise groups, a common predicament. At present, the modern enterprise is becoming China's enterprises to compete in the international market, the leading force. In a market economy under the conditions of modern business success or failure depends largely on the Group's financial management and financial control is a modern enterprise financial management of the link. Many of the modern enterprise by strengthening the financial control so that the Group significant increase efficiency, and even some loss-making by strengthening the financial control of the modern enterprise to enable companies to achieve profitability. In this paper, expounding China's modern enterprises the main problems of financial control, based on the choice of financial control method was summarized and analyzed the content of the modern enterprise financial controls, the final resolution of the financial control mode selected key factors for the modern enterprise the improvement of financial control to provide a degree of meaningful views.1 IntroductionWith China's accession to WTO, China's enterprise groups must be on the world stage to compete with TNCs from developed countries. At present the development of enterprise groups in China is not satisfactory, although there are national policies and institutional reasons, but more important is its financial management in particular, caused by inadequate financial controls. For a long time, China's enterprise group cohesion is not strong, their respective subsidiaries within the Group for the array, can not play the whole advantage; redundant construction and haphazard introduction of frequent, small investments, decentralized prominent problem: financial management is chaotic, resulting in frequent loss of control, a waste of money the phenomenon of serious; ineffective financial control, financial management loopholes. In recent years, enterprise group's financial control has been our country's financial circles. In short, the problem of exploration in our country has obvious practical significance. Clearly, China's modern enterprise financial controls are the main problem is to solve the problem of financial control method based on the choice of financial control method is the key financial control of the modern enterprise content is content, while the financial control method of choice is the ultimate ownership of the main factors that point, This train of thought here on the modern enterprise's financial control method were analyzed.2. An overview of the modern enterprise financial controlInternal control over financial control is an important part, is a subsidiary of parent company control of an important part of its financial management system is the core of. The concept of modern enterprise financial controls in accordance with the traditional definition, financial control refers to the "Financial Officers (sector) through the financial regulations, financial systems, financial scale, financial planning goals of capital movement (or the daily financial activities, and cash flow) for guidance, organization, supervision and discipline, to ensure that the financial plan (goals) to achieve the management activities. financial control is an important part of financial management or basic functions, and financial projections, financial decision-making, financial analysis and evaluation together with a financial management system or all the functions.The modern enterprise's financial control is in the investor's ownership and corporate property rights based on the generated surrounding the Group's overall objective, using a variety of financial means, the members of the enterprise's economic activities, regulation, guidance, control and supervision, so that it Management Group's development activities are consistent with the overall goal of maintaining the group as a whole. Financial control is a power to control one side of the side control, inevitably based on one or several powers. Financial control is essentially related to the interests of enterprises in the organization, the conduct of control, namely, by controlling the financial activities of the assets, personnel actions, to coordinate the objectives of the parties to ensure that business goals. The modern enterprise financial control includes two aspects: the owner funded financial control and corporate managers financial control. From the donors point of view, the essence of the modern enterprise is characterized by investor and corporate property rights of ownership and separation. Investors will invest its capital to the enterprise after their capital combined with debt capital, constitute the enterprise's capital, the formation of corporate business assets is funded by corporate property, then lost direct control over the funders in order to achieve itsCapital maintenance and appreciation of the goal, only through control of its capital manipulation of corporate assets in order to achieve the maximum capital value donors. The control of capital controls is an important property is the prerequisite and foundation for financial control. From the perspective of internal management of enterprises and its financial control target is the legal property of its operations.3 China's modern enterprises the main problems of financial controlAt present, the modern enterprise is becoming China's enterprises to compete in the international market, the leading force. In a market economy under the conditions of modern business success or failure depends largely on the Group's financial management and financial control is a modern enterprise financial management of the link. China's modern enterprise financial controls are still in the stage to be further improved, to varying degrees, there are some urgent need to address the problem: 3.1 Financial control set decentralized model of polarization, lowefficiencyIn the financial control of the set of decentralized model, China's modern enterprise polarization. The current group of financial control either over-centralization of power, the members of the business has no legal status as a subsidiary factory or workshop, the group is seen as a big business management, leadership financial rights absolute; or excessive decentralization, a large number of decentralized financial control to a subsidiary, any of its free development.In addition, the modern enterprise financial control system suited the needs of a market economy, financial control and flexibility of principle there is no organic unity. If the subordinate enterprises, with few financial decision-making power, then the temporary financial problems occur at every level always reported to the Group's headquarters, and then from the headquarters down the implementation of the decision-making at every level, so it is easy to miss market opportunities. On the contrary, when the subsidiary of financial decision-making power is too large, they easily lead to financial decision-making blind and mistakes, not only for the Group's staff to participate in market competition, failed to exercise any decision-making role, but will also become a competitor to the market to provide a tool for competitive information, hinder the the further development of enterprises.3.2 One of the lack of financial contro lFinancial control in accordance with the owner of intention, in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, systems and standards, through certain financial activities and financial relations, and financial activities to promote all aspects of the financial requirements in accordance with a code of conduct to conduct his activities. From China's current situation, the financial control of a modern enterprise mainly focused on ex post facto control, is often the lack of critical pre-budget and to control things. Many modern enterprises, after a decision is in advance, for further financial control tended to focus on the annual profit plan, to meet on the development of a full-year sales revenue, cost, target profit, and several other overarching objectives, without further specific decision-making technology to compile for control and management, according to the month, quarterly, annual financial budget. Therefore, the interim budget and thus difficult to compare operating performance is a matter to control the empty words. As for the ex post facto control, although based on the year-end assessment of the needs and to get some attention, they can still profit in the annual plan, based on the relevant accounting information barely supported by whom, but the effects are pretty effective. Since the ex ante control may not be effective, so subordinate enterprises throughout the implementation process of decision-making are largely outside the core business of financial control, divorced from the core business of financial control.Modern enterprises themselves do not establish a parent-subsidiary link up the financial control mechanisms, financial control their own ways, the parent company of the modern enterprise can not come to the unified arrangement of a strategic investment and financing activities, the group blindly expand the scale of investment,poor investment structure, external borrowing out of control, financial structure is extremely weak, once the economic downturn or product sales are sluggish, there barriers to capital flows, the Group into trouble when they become addicted. An internal financial assessment indicators are too single, not fully examine the performance of subsidiaries. A considerable number of modern enterprise's internal assessment targets only the amount of the contract amount and profit 2.3.3 regardless of the financial and accounting functions, institutional settings are not standardizedAt present, China's financial and accounting sector enterprises are usually joined together, such a body set up under the traditional planned economic system, still capable to meet the management needs, but the requirements of modern enterprise system, its shortcomings exposed. Manifested in: (1) financial services targeted at business owners, it is the specific operation and manipulation of objects is the enterprise's internal affairs, while the accounting of clients within the enterprise and external stakeholders, would provide open accounting information must reflect the "true and fair" principle. Will be different levels of clients and flexibility in a merger of two tasks, will inevitably lead to interference with the financial flexibility of the fairness of accounting. (2) The financial sector is committed to the financial planning, financial management, the arduous task, but flexible in its mandate, procedures and time requirements more flexible, but assume that the accounting information collection, processing, reporting and other accounting work, and flexibility in work assignments weak, procedures and time requirements more stringent and norms. If the enterprises, especially in modern enterprises to financial management and accounting work are mixed together, is likely to cause more "rigid" in accounting work runs more "flexible" financial management is difficult to get rid of long-standing emphasis on accounting, financial management light situation.3.4 irregularities in the operation of a modern enterprise fundsAt present, the modern enterprise fund operation of the following problems: First, a serious fragmentation of the modern enterprise funds. Some of the modern enterprise have not yet exceeded a certain link between the contractual relationship to conduct capital, operating, and its essence is still the executive order virtual enterprise jointly form of intra-group members are still strict division of spheres of influence, difficult to achieve centralized management of funds, unification deployment of large groups is difficult to play the role of big money. Second, the stock of capital make an inventory of modern enterprise poor results. Result of the planned economy under the "re-output, light efficiency, re-extension, light content, re-enter, light output" of inertia, making the enterprise carrying amount of funds available to make an inventory of large, but the actual make an inventory of room for small, thus affecting the to the effect of the stock of capital. Third, the modern enterprise funds accumulated a lot of precipitation.3.5 Internal audit exists in name onlyAt present, enterprises in the financial monitoring of internal audit work to become a mere formality process. The first formal audit management. Hyundai organized every year in different forms of audit, has become a fixed procedure, but because the internal audit staff and the audited entity at the same level, thus in the company's financial problems can not get to the bottom, just a form of and going through the motions. This audit not only failed to exercise any oversight role, to some extent encouraged the small number of staff violations of law. Second, nothing of audit responsibilities. Internal audit is a modern enterprise group commissioned by the audit staff members of Corporate Finance to conduct inspection and supervision process, and therefore the auditors have had an important mandate and responsibilities. But in reality, become a form of audit work, audit officers, whether seriously or not, are not required to bear the responsibility, thus making the audit is inadequate supervision. Third, the audit results and falsified. Audit results should be true and can be *, but in reality the different audit bodies of the same company during the same period of the audit, results are often different, and a far cry from, these are false true performance of the audit findings.4. Selected financial control model should be considered a major factor Generally speaking, the modern enterprise selects the financial control mode, the main consideration should be given these factors: equity concentration, a subsidiary of the degree of influence of the parent company financial strategy, organizational structure, development strategy, the group scale.From the group-level point of view, the parent company of the subsidiaries of the associated control to be strict control of the company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the control to be strict control of the relatively holding subsidiaries, therefore, the parent company of the wholly owned subsidiary of and advantages of holding subsidiaries with centralized control, the quality holding subsidiaries and any shares of a subsidiary of the separation of powers system. To maintain and enhance the core competitiveness of modern enterprises of different degree of importance of a subsidiary should be taken to a different control mode. Have a significant impact on the subsidiary, the parent company must maintain a high degree of centralized control and management right, even partially, the separation of powers must be confined within the framework of centralized; right with the Group's development strategy, core competencies, core business and for the foreseeable the future development of relations in general, a subsidiary of little impact, from improving management efficiency, play to their enthusiasm and enhance the resilience of the market competition point of view, using decentralized type of management system, a better option.From the organizational structure point of view, U-type structure is a typical centralized structure, and accordingly, its financial control model should also be authoritarian style. H-is an organic organizational structure, a more loose linkages between various departments, departments have greater flexibility in the organization structure, with decentralized financial control model is more suitable, while the M-type structure belonging to phase Rong-type organizational structure, so the use of centralized financial control model can be used either decentralized model.From the operating characteristics of point of view, the different characteristics of the modern enterprise management, financial control mode selection will be different. And integration operations in a single case, all units within the group has a great business contacts, financial control naturally require higher degree of centralization. Enterprises to adopt diversification, because each subsidiary where the industry is different from the operational linkages between the various subsidiaries is relatively small, difficult to implement a modern enterprise integrated centralized control, and therefore the financial control of all subsidiaries should be given to the appropriate authority.From the development stage point of view, the modern enterprises in the different stages of development, in order to meet the needs of business development will take a different mode of financial control. Generally speaking, companies in the early stages of the development of small, relatively simple operations, using centralized financial control mode, you can better play the same decision-making and resource integration advantages in the industry has created a scale. With the continuous expansion of company size, business areas and constantly open up, Centralized financial control mode can not meet the company's financial controls and management methods on the need for diversification, and this time, we need more subsidiaries in all aspects of and more authority, so that the financial control model of a modern enterprise gradually to decentralized development.In addition, the financial control model should be subject to the enterprise's development strategy, fully reflects the company's strategic thinking. The company's development strategy can be divided into stable angina strategy, expansion-type strategy, tight-based strategies and hybrid strategies. Enterprises at different stages of the strategic choice of a particular need for financial control in accordance with * a different pattern. Stable implementation of the strategy is usually within the company can be a high degree of centralization of some; to implement expansionary strategy, companies tend to a more flexible decentralized type control mode to suit their developing needs of the market; the implementation of tight-based company's business strategy, all major financial activities must be strictly controlled, thus emphasizing centralization; hybrid strategy for the implementation of the company, it should be operated according to the characteristics of each subsidiary to take a different control mode.References:[1] Han Wei mold. Finance and Accounting Review of regulatory hot spots [M]. Beijing: Economic Science Press, 2004[2] Lin Zhong-gao. Financial governance. Beijing: Economic Management Publishing House [M], 2005[3] Yan Li Ye. Xu Xing-US; Enterprise Group Financial Control Theory and Its Implications, economics, dynamic [J], 2006[4] Lu Jie. On the internal financial control system improvements and management of popular science (research and practice) [J], 2007[5] Chen Chao-peng. Improve the corporate financial control measures, business accounting [J], 2007[6] Huang Xi. On the Enterprise Group Financial Control [J]. Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs, 2006, (06)[7] Jiang-feng tai. Enterprise Group Financial Control Studies [J]. Marketing Week. Theoretical study, 2006, (08)现代企业财务管理的探讨瑞安戴维森，珍妮古德温-斯图尔特，帕梅拉肯特本文探讨现代企业正在成为中国经济发展过程中的一个重要的新力量。
最新版经济金融企业管理外文翻译外文文献英文文献
经济金融企业管理外文翻译外文文献英文文献附录【原文】Upgrading in Global Value ChainsThe aim of this paper is to explore how small- and medium-sized Latin American enterprises ( SMEs) may participate in global markets in a way that provides for sustainable growth. This may be defined as the‘‘highroad’’ to competitiveness, contrasting with the ‘‘low road,’’ typical of firms from developing countries, which often compete by squeezing wages and profit margins rather than by improving productivity, wages, and profits. The key difference between the highand the low road to competitiveness is often explained by the different capabilities of firms to ‘‘upgrade.’ In this paper, upgrading refers to the capacity of a firm to innovate to increase the value added of its products and processes (Humphrey & Schmitz, 2002a; Kaplinsky&Readman, 2001; Porter, 1990).Capitalizing on one of the most productive areas of the recentliterature on SMEs, we restrict our field of research to small enterprises located in clusters. There is now a wealth ofempirical evidence (Humphrey, 1995; Nadvi &Schmitz, 1999; Rabellotti, 1997) showing that small firms in clusters, both in developed and developing countries, are able to over come some of the major constraints they usually face: lack of specialized skills, difficult access to technology, inputs, market, information, credit, and external services. Nevertheless, the literature on clusters, mainly focused on the local sources of competitiveness coming from intracluster vertical and horizontal relationships generating ‘‘collective efficiency’’ (Schmitz, 1995), has often neglected theincreasing importance of external link ages. Due to recent changes in production systems, distribution channels, and financial markets, and to the spread of information technologies, enterprises and clusters are increasingly integrated in value chains that often operate across many different countries. The literature on global value chains (GVCs)(Gereffi, 1999; Gereffi& Kaplinsky, 2001) calls attention to the opportunities for local producers to learn from the global leaders ofthe chains that may be buyers or1producers. The internal governance of the value chain has an important effect on the scope of local firms’ upgrading (Humphrey& Schmitz, 2000).Indeed, extensive evidence on Latin America reveals that both the local and the global dimensions matter, and firms often participate inclusters as well as in value chains (Pietrobelli& Rabellotti, 2004).Both forms of organization offer opportunities to foster competitiveness via learning and upgrading. However, they also have remarkable drawbacks, as, for instance, upgrading may be limited in some forms of value chains, and clusters with little developed external economies and joint actions may have no influence on competitiveness.Moreover, both strands of literature were conceived and developed to overcome the sectoral dimension in the analysis of industrial organization and dynamism. On the one hand, studies on clusters,focusing on agglomerations of firms specializing in different stages of the filie′re, moved beyond the traditional units of analysis of industrial economics: the firm and the sector. On the other hand, according to the value chain literature, firms from different sectors may all participate in the same value chain (Gereffi, 1994). Nevertheless, SMEs located in clusters and involved in value chains, may undertake a process of upgrading in order to increase and improve their participation in the global economy, especially as the industrial sector plays a role and affects the upgrading prospects of SMEs.The contribution this paper makes is by taking into account all of these dimensions together. Thus, within this general theoretical background, this study aims to investigate the hypothesis that enterprise upgradingis simultaneously affected by firm-specific efforts and actions, and by the environment in which firms operate. The latter is crucially shapedby three characteristics: (i) the collective efficiency of the clusterin which SMEs operate, (ii) the pattern of governance of the value chain in which SMEs participate, and (iii) the peculiar features that characterize learning and innovation patterns in specific sectors.The structure of the paper is the following: in Section 2, we briefly review the concepts of clustering and value chains, and focus on their overlaps and complementarities. Section 3 first discusses the notion of SMEs’ upgrading and then2introduces a categorization of groups of sectors, based on the notions underlying the Pavitt taxonomy, and applied to the present economic reality of Latin America. Section 4reports the original empirical evidence on a large sample of Latin American clusters, and shows thatthe sectoral dimension matters to explain why clustering andparticipating in global value chains offer different opportunities for upgrading in different groups of sectors. Section5 summarizes and concludes.2. CLUSTERS AND VALUE CHAINSDuring the last two decades, the successful performance of industrial districts in the developed world, particularly in Italy, has stimulated new attention to the potential offered by this form of industrial organization for firms of developing countries. The capability of clustered firms to be economically viable and grow has attracted a great deal of interest in development studies. 1In developing countries, the sectoral and geographical concentration of SMEs is rather common, and a wide range of cases has since been reported.2 Obviously, the existence of acritical mass of specialized and agglomerated activities, in a number of cases with historically strong roots, does not necessarily imply that these clusters share all the stylized facts which identify the Marshall type of district, as firstly defined by Becattini (1987).3 Nonetheless, clustering may be considered as a major facilitating factor for a number of subsequent developments (which may or may not occur): division and specialization of labor, theemergence of a wide network of suppliers, the appearance of agents who sell to distant national and international markets, the emergence of specialized producer services, the materialization of a pool of specialized and skilled workers, and the formation of business associations.To capture the positive impacts of these factors on the competitiveness of firms located in clusters, Schmitz (1995) introduced the concept of ‘‘collective efficiency’’ (CE) defined as the competitive advantage derived from local external economies and joint action. The concept of external economies 4 was first introduced by Marshall in his Principles of Economics(1920). According to Schmitz (1999a), incidental external economies (EE) are of importance in explaining the competitiveness of industrial clusters, but there is also a deliberate force at work: consciously pursued joint action3(JA).Such joint action can be within vertical or horizontal linkages. 5The combination of both incidental external economies and the effects of active cooperation defines the degree of collective efficiency of a cluster and, dynamically, its potential for fostering SMEs’ upgrading. Both dimensions are crucial: Only incidental, passive external economies may not suffice without joint actions, and the latter hardly develop in the absence of external economies. Thus, our focus is on the role of intracluster vertical and horizontal relationships generating collective efficiency.However, recent changes in production systems, distribution channels and financial markets, accelerated by the globalization of product markets and the spread of information technologies, suggest that more attention needs to be paid to external linkages. 6 Gereffi’s global value chain approach (Gereffi, 1999) helps us to take into account activities taking place outside the cluster and, in particular, to understand thestrategic role of the relationships with key external actors.From an analytical point of view, the value chain perspective is useful because (Kaplinsky,2001; Wood, 2001) the focus moves from manufacturing only to the other activities involved in the supply of goods and services, including distribution and marketing. All these activities contribute to add value. Moreover, the ability to identify theactivities providing higher returns along the value chain is key to understanding the global appropriation of the returns to production.Value chain research focuses on the nature of the relationships among the various actors involved in the chain, and on their implications for development (Humphrey & Schmitz, 2002b). To study these relationships, the concept of ‘‘governance’’ is central to the analysis. At any point in the chain, some degree of governance or coordination is required in order to take decisions not only on ‘‘what’’ should be, or ‘‘how’’ something should be, produced but sometimes also‘‘when,’’‘‘how much,’’ and even ‘‘at what price.’’Coordination may occur through arm’s-length market relations or non market relationships. In the latter case, following Humphrey and Schmitz (2000), we distinguish three possible types of governance:(a) network implying cooperation4between firms of more or less equal power which share their competencies within the chain; (b) quasi-hierarchy involving relationships between legally independent firms in which one is subordinated to the other, with a leader in the chain defining the rules to which the rest of the actors have to comply; and (c) hierarchy when a firm is owned by an external firm.Also stressed is the role played by GVC leaders, particularly by the buyers, in transferring knowledge along the chains. For small firms in less developed countries (LDCs), participation in value chains is a way to obtain information on the need and mode to gain access to global markets. Yet, although this information has high value for local SMEs, the role played by the leaders of GVCs in fostering and supporting the SMEs’ upgrading process is less clear. Gereffi (1999), mainly focusing。
企业流动资产管理外文文献翻译2015年译文字数3650字
文献出处:Alalwan J A. Enterprise content management research: A comprehensive review [J]. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 2015, 5(2): 441-451.原文The Research of Enterprise current assets managementAlalwan J A.AbstractCurrent assets management mainly includes cash, various deposits, short term investment, receivables and advance payment, inventory management, etc. Current asset allocation is an important part of enterprise financial management, if there is excessive liquidity, will increase the financial burden of the enterprise, thus affect the profitability of the enterprise; On the contrary, the lack of liquidity, the capital turnover is ineffective, affect the operation of the enterprise. Enterprise current assets management problems, however, need to take the corresponding management strategies and measures, in order to promote the healthy and orderly development of enterprises.Keywords: Enterprise management; Current assets management; Problems and strategies1 IntroductionEssential component of current assets is the enterprise assets, refers to the enterprise can be in one year or within an operating cycle longer than a year to liquidate assets or consumed, mainly can be divided into monetary capital and physical capital. Monetary fund mainly include cash, bank deposits, accounts receivable money, pending payment, etc. Physical capital refers to the stock, such as raw materials, semi-finished products, finished goods, etc. Due to its flow is relatively frequent, strong cash ability, current assets are basically with enterprise production process flow from the money form began to change its form in turn: part of the monetary fund as a reserve fund in storage, the other part as fixed capital investment, production into finished products, then change back into monetary form.As is known to all, the ratio of current assets to current liabilities, generally shows that the enterprise to repay the short-term ability strong and the weak, the greater the ratio, shows that the greater the liquidity of enterprise assets, enterprises have enough assets can be sold to repay the debt, in contrast ratio is smaller, the less liquidity, debt paying ability is weaker. But it is not the bigger the ratio, the better, if the enterprise current assets take up too much proportion, will affectthe operating efficiency of capital turnover and profitability.2 Enterprise current assets management problemsIn the process of enterprise investment, because of the lack of necessary, real market research and feasibility study, causing some products can not be marketable; Schedule of some investment projects due to a lack of strength, not put into production, the vast amounts of investment have become a huge burden, not only failed to establish a new economic growth point instead become a heavy burden of enterprises. At present, many enterprises was affected by these reasons of large, poor cash ability of non-performing assets of liquid assets, as well as invalid occupy and backlog, the serious influence the flow of the enterprise capital turnover, increased business costs, and greatly influenced the economic benefits of enterprises. If you want to take the long-term deposited heavy baggage, will weaken the solvency of the enterprise, form a vicious circle, even difficult to maintain normal production and operation. Specifically, the current corporate liquidity management exists some problems as follows:2.1 Repeat construction cause waste of resourcesBecause of the influence of the macro economy to enterprise, some enterprises in the current assets investment process due to the actual demand for liquid assets without careful planning, so will appear the phenomenon of blind investment, repeat construction. Blind investment caused lots of waste materials and reduces the return on equity.2.2 The financial fraud resulting in the loss of liquid assetsMany enterprise operators and financial personnel to the current minority performance and interest on the financial fraud, cause enterprise financial situation serious false, form a lot of hidden loss, make the enterprise have no staying power, facing bankruptcy; A large number of state-owned assets by private occupy, divert, erosion is serious; Some units, use their rights, head with public spending, causing huge loss of enterprise liquid assets.2.3 Daily management is not standardLack of effective management, some enterprise current assets can verify on schedule, without someone who's in charge, a take random phenomenon; Some units for the development of the third industry, placing surplus staff, transferring large amounts of money, equipment, long-term bill is not clear; Still exists the phenomenon of "zombie" companies, due to the non-standard operation in the business, not abide by the credibility, each other is not responsible for, payment ofa come-and-go funds for the enterprise long-term is not clear, which seriously affect the enterprise working capital turnover.2.4 The bad assets are widespreadWhen some of the economic resources can't provide the needed for the enterprise economic benefit, also lost its resources of economic value, can form the bad assets of the enterprise. Bad assets to the enterprise and national bring serious harm and economic loss is the important factors influencing the development and expansion. One is the bad assets in the accounts receivable is a common phenomenon existing in the present enterprise, some payment of accounts receivable long-term unmanned cleaning has been unable to recover, lose the practical significance of the creditor's rights; Second, some companies inventory backlog of lost sales in the value of the products, or because of blind procurement, or switch to cannot use of raw materials, elimination of equipment spare parts, etc., have already lost the value of the cash.3 The strategies and measures of enterprise liquid assets management3.1 Liquidity management strategyIn theory, if can correctly predict, enterprises should hold the exact amount of monetary funds, ready for the payment of necessary productive expenditure; Keep the exact number of inventory, in order to meet the needs of production and sales; Under the condition of the optimal credit investment in accounts receivable, and not as a short-term investment in securities. If we can achieve this goal, the total current assets can be in the lowest level, current assets structure is the most reasonable. As long as the total current assets more than or less than this level, the most reasonable structure of liquid assets will be damaged, corporate profits will drop. But in practice, because of the uncertainty of the future situation, the enterprise may not accurately predict liquid assets of project amount and the total amount of liquid assets, which must make different liquidity management strategy.Cautious strategy. Cautious type liquid assets management strategy refers to the current assets accounted for the proportion of total assets is higher, while maintaining the low level of current liabilities ratio, make the enterprise net working capital levels increase, cash ability improve, make the enterprise insolvency risk and risk of shortage of funds tend to be minimal. That is to say, this strategy not only requires enough total corporate liquidity abundant, the total amount of funds accounted for than major, but also the requirements of current assets and short-term monetary fundsecurities investment also wants to keep sufficient amount, account for larger proportion of the total amount of liquid assets. This strategy is the basic purpose of enterprise’s cash ability remains at a high level, and can be enough to meet all kinds of unexpected circumstances. Cautious type liquid assets management strategy is to reduce the advantages of the enterprise risk, but a disadvantage of low yield. Usually, it is only applicable to enterprise external environment is highly uncertain.Radical strategy. Radical policy requires low current assets accounted for the proportion of total assets, at the same time improve the proportion of current liabilities financing make smaller or even negative net working capital, make the enterprise funds shortage risk and solvency risk tend to be the biggest. This strategy is the basic purpose of trying to cut the liquidity that takes money to improve the yield of enterprises. Enterprises to adopt this kind of radical liquidity management strategy, while it is possible to increase the income of the enterprise, but also increased the risk of the enterprise. So, radical liquidity management strategy is a big risk, high yield management strategy. In general, it is only applicable to enterprise external environment is quite uncertain.3, medium type strategy. Moderate type strategy can be divided into two kinds: one kind is current assets total assets ratio is higher, and maintain a higher level of current liabilities; Another kind is the proportion of current assets to current liabilities of all assets fall at the same time, the proportion of investment in fixed assets and long-term financing proportion increase at the same time, make the enterprise risk center. Because of the risks and benefits is dialectical, although high risk can bring higher yields, but companies must master a degree, so, most companies usually choose between caution and aggressive type of moderate management strategy.3.2 Liquidity management measures3.2.1 Daily cash management measuresPeriodically prepare the cash budget, cash receipts and cash disbursements reasonably, timely reflect cash we situation, is the important content of cash management. The cash budget establishment has a leading role in the cash management, the whole of the enterprise financial management has essential meaning, is the direction of the enterprise cash management. In cash management, is the top priority for the establishment of management measures.(1) the payment as soon as possible. Company payment as soon as possible is not only to expire the accounts receivable to recover as soon as possible, but also these receivables into cash available as soon aspossible. The crux of the cash management is the recovery time. How to shorten the collection time, accelerate the capital turnover is to solve the main problem of cash management. Enterprise to science using the method of "lock box", "focus on banking law", "discounts and receivable hook" to speed up recovery companies such as payment methods, improve the ability of cash management, improve the economic benefits of enterprises.(2) control spending. The crux of the cash management is spending time. In the opposite direction, to stand in the Angle of the payer, the enterprise, of course, the longer spending cash, the better, but the premise is not damage enterprise reputation, increase the "cost" with each other. Therefore, the enterprise cash management focus should be on how to scientifically delay payment on time. The specific methods used are "delayed payment of accounts payable by draft" payment ", "payment by installments" and "outsourcing processing and reduce the curing", etc. In addition, cash is the most liquid assets in the enterprise assets; the security is the top priority of cash management. Although in the past cash security has many effective measures and systems, but there are many management loopholes, as long as there is a little slack, the enterprise will pay a heavy price, teach is more similar. Therefore, enterprises must ensure the safety of the cash one hundred percent.3.2.2 Daily management of receivablesInvestment is the necessity of competition in the market for enterprise receivables, but the risk of accounts receivable is everywhere, we don't have. To strengthen the accounting and management of accounts receivable, in relation to the capital turnover of the enterprise, affect the enterprise's survival. Therefore, the enterprise should stick to it as a long-term and institutionalized work to grasp, strive for the various measures put in place.(1) to strengthen customer credit management, credit policy. Establish special credit management department, credit investigation and analysis, a reasonable credit policy, etc., it is very important to strengthen the management of accounts receivable in the first. Because of the credit policy is the enterprise to accounts receivable for the planning and control of basic strategy and measures. Must be according to their actual management and customer credit conditions for a reasonable credit policy. Reasonable credit policy should be credit standards, credit and collection policy during the period of the three combination, considering the change of the influence of various cost of sales, accounts receivable.(2) the careful analysis of the accounts receivable aging. In general, the longer the customer overdue payments, payment collection difficulty, the greater the chance that a loss ofbecome non-performing loans will be high. Enterprises have to do accounts receivable aging analysis, pay close attention to accounts receivable recovery progress and change. Through the analysis of the aging of accounts receivable, the enterprise financial management department can take the accounts receivable inventory, incremental, and become the information such as the possibility of bad debts. If the aging of accounts receivable aging analysis showed that enterprise has started to extend or proportion of overdue accounts increase gradually, then must take timely measures to adjust the enterprise credit policy, efforts to improve the efficiency of accounts receivable collection. From accounts receivable not expire, also can't loosen supervision, to prevent the new default.(3) establish a responsibility system for the collection of receivables. The responsibility of the enterprise shall implement the internal overdue receivables, accounts receivable and recycle and internal performance evaluation and rewards and punishment from various business units. For the overdue accounts receivable of the business department and related personnel, enterprise should be in inside in the proper way to give warning, accept the supervision of the staff.译文企业流动资产管理研究Alalwan J A.摘要流动资产管理主要包括现金、各种存款、短期投资、应收及预付账款、存货等的管理。
经济金融企业管理外文翻译外文文献英文文献
附录【原文】Upgrading in Global Value ChainsThe aim of this paper is to explore how small- and medium-sized Latin American enterprises ( SMEs) may participate in global markets in a way that provides for sustainable growth. This may be defined as the ‘‘highroad’’ to competitiveness, contrasting with the ‘‘low road,’’ typical of firms from developing countries, which often compete by squeezing wages and profit margins rather than by improving productivity, wages, and profits. The key difference between the high and the low road to competitiveness is often explained by the different capabilities of firms to ‘‘upgrade.’ In this paper, upgrading refers to the capacity of a firm to innovate to increase the value added of its products and processes (Humphrey & Schmitz, 2002a; Kaplinsky&Readman, 2001; Porter, 1990).Capitalizing on one of the most productive areas of the recent literature on SMEs, we restrict our field of research to small enterprises located in clusters. There is now a wealth ofempirical evidence (Humphrey, 1995; Nadvi &Schmitz, 1999; Rabellotti, 1997) showing that small firms in clusters, both in developed and developing countries, are able to over come some of the major constraints they usually face:lack of specialized skills, difficult access to technology, inputs, market, information, credit, and external services.Nevertheless, the literature on clusters, mainly focused on the local sources ofcompetitiveness coming from intracluster vertical and horizontal relationshipsgenerating ‘‘collective efficiency’’ (Schmitz, 1995), has often neglected theincreasing importance of external link ages. Due to recent changes in productionsystems, distribution channels, and financial markets, and to the spread of informationtechnologies, enterprises and clusters are increasingly integrated in value chains thatoften operate across many different countries. The literature on global value chains(GVCs) (Gereffi, 1999; Gereffi& Kaplinsky, 2001) calls attention to the opportunitiesfor local producers to learn from the global leaders of the chains that may be buyers or1producers. The internal governance of the value chain has an important effect on the scope of local firms’ upgrading (Humphrey& Schmitz, 2000).Indeed, extensive evidence on Latin America reveals that both the local and the global dimensions matter, and firms often participate in clusters as well as in value chains (Pietrobelli& Rabellotti, 2004). Both forms of organization offer opportunities to foster competitiveness via learning and upgrading. However, they also have remarkable drawbacks, as, for instance, upgrading may be limited in some forms of value chains, and clusters with little developed external economies and joint actions may have no influence on competitiveness.Moreover, both strands of literature were conceived and developed to overcome the sectoral dimension in the analysis of industrial organization and dynamism. On the one hand, studies on clusters, focusing on agglomerations of firms specializing in different stages of the filie′re, moved beyond the traditional units of analysis of industrial economics: the firm and the sector. On the other hand, according to the value chain literature, firms from different sectors may all participate in the same value chain (Gereffi, 1994). Nevertheless, SMEs located in clusters and involved in value chains, may undertake a process of upgrading in order to increase and improve their participation in the global economy, especially as the industrial sector plays a role and affects the upgrading prospects of SMEs.The contribution this paper makes is by taking into account all of these dimensions together. Thus, within this general theoretical background, this study aims to investigate the hypothesis that enterprise upgrading is simultaneously affected by firm-specific efforts and actions, and by the environment in which firms operate. The latter is crucially shaped by three characteristics: (i) the collective efficiency of the cluster in which SMEs operate, (ii) the pattern of governance of the value chain in which SMEs participate, and (iii) the peculiar features that characterize learning and innovation patterns in specific sectors.The structure of the paper is the following: in Section 2, we briefly review theconcepts of clustering and value chains, and focus on theiroverlaps andcomplementarities. Section 3 first discusses the notion of SMEs’ upgrading and then2introduces a categorization of groups of sectors, based on the notions underlying the Pavitt taxonomy, and applied to the present economic reality of Latin America. Section 4reports the original empirical evidence on a large sample of Latin American clusters, and shows that the sectoral dimension matters to explain why clustering and participating in global value chains offer different opportunities for upgrading in different groups of sectors. Section5 summarizes and concludes.2. CLUSTERS AND VALUE CHAINSDuring the last two decades, the successful performance of industrial districts in the developed world, particularly in Italy, has stimulated new attention to the potential offered by this form of industrial organization for firms of developing countries. The capability of clustered firms to be economically viable and grow has attracted a great deal of interest in development studies. 1In developing countries, the sectoral and geographical concentration of SMEs israther common, and a wide range of cases has since been reported. 2 Obviously, theexistence of acritical mass of specialized and agglomerated activities, in a number ofcases with historically strong roots, does not necessarily imply that these clustersshare all the stylized facts which identify the Marshall type of district, as firstlydefined by Becattini (1987). 3 Nonetheless, clustering may be considered as a majorfacilitating factor for a number of subsequent developments (which may or may notoccur): division and specialization of labor, the emergence of a wide network ofsuppliers, the appearance of agents who sell to distant national and internationalmarkets, the emergence of specialized producer services, the materialization of a poolof specialized and skilled workers, and the formation of business associations.To capture the positive impacts of these factors on the competitiveness of firmslocated in clusters,Schmitz (1995)introduced the concept of ‘‘collective efficiency’’(CE) defined as the competitive advantage derived from local external economies andjoint action. The concept of external economies 4 was first introduced by Marshall inhis Principles of Economics(1920). According to Schmitz (1999a), incidental externaleconomies (EE) are of importance in explaining the competitiveness of industrialclusters, but there is also a deliberate force at work: consciously pursued joint action3(JA).Such joint action can be within vertical or horizontal linkages. 5The combination of both incidental external economies and the effects of activecooperation defines the degree of collective efficiency of a cluster and, dynamically,its potential for fostering SMEs’ upgrading. Both dimensions are crucial: Onlyincidental, passive external economies may not suffice without joint actions, and thelatter hardly develop in the absence of external economies. Thus, our focus is on therole of intracluster vertical and horizontal relationships generating collectiveefficiency.However, recent changes in production systems, distribution channels and financial markets, accelerated by the globalization of product markets and the spread of information technologies, suggest that more attention needs to be paid to external linkages. 6 Gereffi’s global value chain approach (Gereffi, 1999) helps us to take into account activities taking place outside the cluster and, in particular, to understand the strategic role of the relationships with key external actors.From an analytical point of view, the value chain perspective is useful because (Kaplinsky,2001; Wood, 2001) the focus moves from manufacturing only to the other activities involved in the supply of goods and services, including distribution and marketing. All these activities contribute to add value. Moreover, the ability to identify the activities providing higher returns along the value chain is key to understanding the global appropriation of the returns to production.Value chain research focuses on the nature of the relationships among the various actors involved in the chain, and on their implications fordevelopment (Humphrey & Schmitz, 2002b). To study these relationships, theconcept of ‘‘governance’’ is central to the analysis.At any point in the chain, some degree of governance or coordination isrequired inorder to take decisions not only on ‘‘what’’ should be, or ‘‘how’’something shouldbe, produced but sometimes also ‘‘when,’’ ‘‘how much,’’ and even‘‘at what price.’’Coordination may occur through arm’s-length market relations ornon marketrelationships. In the latter case, following Humphrey and Schmitz(2000), wedistinguish three possible types of governance:(a) network implying cooperation4between firms of more or less equal power which share their competencies within the chain; (b) quasi-hierarchy involving relationships between legally independent firms in which one is subordinated to the other, with a leader in the chain defining the rules to which the rest of the actors have to comply; and (c) hierarchy when a firm is owned by an external firm.Also stressed is the role played by GVC leaders, particularly by the buyers, intransferring knowledge along the chains. For small firms in less developed countries(LDCs), participation in value chains is a way to obtain information on the need andmode to gain access to global markets. Yet, although this information has high valuefor local SMEs, the role played by the leaders of GVCs in fostering and supportingthe SMEs’ upgrading process is less clear.Gereffi (1999), mainly focusing on EastAsia, assumes a rather optimistic view, emphasizing the role of the leaders that almostautomatically promote process, product, and functional upgrading among small localproducers.Pietrobelli and Rabellotti (2004)present a more differentiated picture forLatin America.In line with the present approach, Humphrey and Schmitz (2000) discuss the prospects of upgrading with respect to the pattern of value chain governance. They conclude that insertion in a quasi-hierarchical chain offers very favorable conditions for process and product upgrading, but hinders functional upgrading. Networks offer ideal upgrading conditions, but they are the least likely to occur for developing country producers.In addition, a more dynamic approach suggests that chain governance is not given forever and may change because(Humphrey & Schmitz, 2002b): (a) power relationships may evolve when existing producers, or their spin offs, acquire new capabilities;(b) establishing and maintaining quasi-hierarchical governance is costly for the lead firm and leads to inflexibility because of transaction specific investments; and (c) firms and cluster soften do not operate only in one chain but simultaneously in several types of chains, and they may apply competencies learned in one chain to supply other chains.In sum, both modes of organizing production, that is, the cluster and the valuechain, offer interesting opportunities for the upgrading and modernization of local5firms, and are not mutually exclusive alternatives. However, in order to assess their potential contribution to local SMEs’ innovation and upgrading, we need to understand their organization of inter firm linkages and their internal governance. Furthermore, as we explain in the following section, the nature of their dominant specialization also plays a role and affects SMEs’ upgrading prospects.3. THE SECTORAL DIMENSION OFSMEs’ UPGRADING(a) The concept of upgradingThe concept of upgrading—making better products, making them more efficiently, or moving in to more skilled activities—has often been used in studies on competitiveness (Kaplinsky,2001; Porter, 1990), and is relevant here.Following this approach, upgrading is decisively related to innovation. Here wedefine upgrading as innovating to increase value added. 7 Enterprises achieve this invarious ways, such as, for example, by entering higher unit value market niches ornew sectors, or by undertaking new productive (or service) functions. The concept ofupgrading may be effectively described for enterprises working within a value chain,where four types of upgrading are singled out (Humphrey & Schmitz, 2000):—Process upgrading is transforming inputs into outputs more efficiently by reorganizing the production system or introducing superior technology (e.g., footwear producers in the Sinos Valley; Schmitz, 1999b).—Product upgrading is moving into more sophisticated product lines in terms of increased unit values (e.g., the apparel commodity chain in Asia upgrading from discount chains to department stores; Gereffi,1999).—Functional upgrading is acquiring new, superior functions in the chain, such as design or marketing or abandoning existing low-value added functions to focus on higher value added activities (e.g., Torreon’s blue jeans industry upgrading from maquila to ‘‘full-package’’ manufacturing; Bair&Gereffi, 2001).—Inter sectoral upgrading is applying the competence acquired in a particularfunction to move into a new sector. For instance, in Taiwan, competence in producingTVs was used to make monitors and then to move into the computer sector (Guerrieri& Pietrobelli,2004; Humphrey & Schmitz,2002b). In sum, upgrading within a value6chain implies going up on the value ladder, moving away from activities in which competitionis of the ‘‘low road’’ type and entry barriers are low.Our focus on upgrading requires moving a step forward and away from Ricardo’s static concept of ‘‘Comparative Advantage’’ (CA). While CA registers ex-post gaps in relative productivity which determine international trade flows, success in firmlevel upgrading enables the dynamic acquisition of competitiveness in new market niches, sectors or phases of the productive chain (Lall, 2001; Pietrobelli, 1997). In sum, the logic goes from innovation, to upgrading, to the acquisition of firm-level competitiveness(i.e., competitive advantage). 8In this paper, we argue that the concept of competitive advantage increasinglymatters. In the theory of comparative advantage, what matters is relative productivity,determining different patterns of inter industry specialization. Within such atheoretical approach, with perfectly competitive markets, firms need to target onlyproduction efficiency. In fact, this is not enough, and competitive advantage is therelevant concept to analyze SMEs’ performance because of (i) the existence of formsof imperfect competition in domestic and international markets and (ii) the presenceof different degrees of (dynamic) externalities in different subsect or sand stages ofthe value chain.More specifically, in non perfectly competitive market rents and niches of ‘‘extra-normal’’ profits often emerge, and this explains the efforts to enter selectively specificsegments rather than simply focusing on efficiency improvements, regardless of theprevailing productive specialization (as advocated by the theory of CA). Moreover,different stages in the value chain offer different scope for dynamic externalities.Thus, for example, in traditional manufacturing, the stages of design, productinnovation, marketing, and distribution may all foster competitiveness increases inrelated activities and sectors. The advantage of functional upgrading is in reducing thefragility and vulnerability of an enterprise’s productive specialization. Competitionfrom new entrants—i.e., firms from developing countries with lower production costs,crowding out incumbents—is stronger in the manufacturing phases of the value chainthan in other more knowledge and organization-intensive phases (e.g., product design7and innovation, chain management, distribution and retail, etc.).Therefore, functionalupgrading may bring about more enduring and solid competitiveness.For all these reasons, the concept of production efficiency is encompassed withinthe broader concept of competitiveness, and the efforts to upgrade functionally andinter sectorally (and the policies to support these processes) are justified to reap largerrents and externalities emerging in specific stages of the value chain, market niches,or sectors.An additional element that crucially affects the upgrading prospects of firms and clusters is the sectoral dimension. Insofar as we have defined upgrading as innovating to increase value added, then all the factors influencing innovation acquire a new relevance. This dimension is often overlooked in studies on clusters, perhaps due to the fact that most of these studies are not comparative but rather detailed intra industry case studies.In order to take into account such a sectoral dimension, and the effect this may have on the firms’ pattern of innovation and learning, we need to introduce the concept of ‘‘tacit knowledge.’’ This notion was first introduced by Polanyi(1967)and then discussed in the context of evolutionary economics by Nelson and Winter(1982). It refers to the evidence that some aspects of technological knowledge are well articulated, written down in manuals and papers, and taught. Others are largely tacit, mainly learned through practice and practical examples. In essence, this is knowledge which can be freely used by its owners, but that can not be easily expressed and communicated to anyone else.The tacit component of technological knowledge makes its transfer andapplicationcostly and difficult. As a result, the mastery of a technologymay require anorganization to be active in the earlier stages of its development,and a close andcontinuous interaction between the user and the producer—ortransfer—of suchknowledge. Inter firm relationships are especially needed in thiscontext. Tacitknowledge is an essential dimension to define a useful groupingof economicactivities.(b) Sectoral specificities in upgrading and innovation: a classification for Latin8American countriesThe impact of collective efficiency and patterns of governance on the capacity of SMEs to upgrade may differ across sectors. This claim is based upon the consideration that sectoral groups differ in terms of technological complexity and in the modes and sources of innovation and upgrading. 9 As shown by innovation studies, in some sectors, vertical relations with suppliers of inputs may be particularly important sources of product and process upgrading (as in the case of textiles and the most traditional manufacturing), while in other sectors, technology users, organizations such as universities or the firms themselves (as, for example, with software or agro industrial products) may provide major stimuli for technical change (Pavitt,1984; Von Hippel, 1987).Consistently with this approach, the properties of firm knowledge bases acrossdifferent sectors (Malerba & Orsenigo, 1993) 10 mayaffect the strategic relevance ofcollective efficiencyfor the processes of upgrading in clusters. Thus, for example, intraditional manufacturing sectors, technology has important tacit and idiosyncraticelements, and therefore, upgrading strongly depends on the intensity of technologicalexternalities and cooperation among local actors (e.g., firms, research centers, andtechnology and quality diffusion centers), in other words, upgrading depends on thedegree of collective efficiency. While in other groups (e.g., complex products or largenatural resource-based firms) technology is more codified and the access to externalsources of knowledge such as transnational corporations(TNCs, or researchlaboratories located in developed countries become more critical for upgrading.Furthermore, the differences across sectoral groups raise questions on the role ofglobal buyers in fostering (or hindering) the upgrading in different clusters. Thus, forexample, global buyers may be more involved and interested in their providers’upgrading if the technology required is mainly tacit and requires intense interaction.Moreover, in traditional manufacturing industries, characterized by a low degree oftechnological complexity, firms are likely to be included in GVCs even if they havevery low technological capabilities. Therefore, tight supervision and direct supportbecome necessary conditions for global buyers who rely on the competencies of their9local suppliers and want to reduce the risk of non compliance(Humphrey & Schmitz,2002b). The situation is at the opposite extreme in the case of complex products,where technology is often thoroughly codified and the technological complexityrequires that firms have already internal technological capabilities to be subcontracted,otherwise large buyers would not contract them at all.In order to take into account the above-mentioned hypotheses, we develop asectoral classification, adapting existing taxonomies to the Latin American case. 11On the basis of Pavitt’s seminal work (1984), we consider that in Latin America, in-house R&D activities are very low both in domestic and foreign firms (Archibugi&Pietrobelli, 2003), domestic inter sectoral linkages have been displaced by tradeliberalization(Cimoli & Katz, 2002), and university-industry linkages appear to bestill relatively weak (Arocena & Sutz, 2001). 12 Furthermore, in the past 10 years,Latin America has deepened its productive specialization in resource based sectors and has weakened its position in more engineering intensive industries (Katz,2001), reflecting its rich endowment of natural resources, relatively more than human and technical resources (Wood & Berge,1997).Hence, we retain Pavitt’s key notions and identify four main sectoral groups for Latin America on the basis of the way learning and upgrading occur, and on the related industrial organization that most frequently prevails. 13The categories are as follows:1. Traditional manufacturing, mainly labor intensive and ‘‘traditional’’ technology industries such as textiles, footwear, tiles, and furniture;2. Natural resource-based sectors (NRbased),implying the direct exploitation of natural resources, for example, copper, marble, fruit, etc.;3. Complex products industries (COPs), including, among others, automobiles,autocomponents and aircraft industries, ICT and consumer electronics;4. Specializedsuppliers, in our LA cases, essentially software.Each of these categories tends to havea predominant learning and innovating behavior, in terms of main sources of technicalchange, dependence on basic or applied research, modes of in-house innovation (e.g.,‘‘routinized’’ versus large R&D laboratories), tacitness or codified nature ofknowledge, scale and relevance of R&D activity, and appropriability of10innovation(Table 1).Traditional manufacturing and resource-based sectors are by far the mostpresent in Latin America, and therefore especially relevant toour presentaims of assessing SMEs’ potential for upgrading within clustersand value chains. Traditional manufacturing is defined as supplier dominated, because major process innovations are introduced by producersof inputs (e.g., machinery, materials, etc.). Indeed, firm shave room toupgrade their products (and processes)by developing or imitating newproducts’ designs, often interacting with large buyers that increasinglyplay a role in shaping the design of final products and hence thespecificities of the process of production (times, quality standards, andcosts).Natural resource-based sectors crucially rely on the advancement ofbasic and applied science, which, due to low appropriability conditions, is most often undertaken by public research institutes,possibly in connection with producers (farmers, breeders, etc.). 14 Inthese sectors, applied research is mainly carried out by input suppliers(i.e., chemicals, machinery, etc.) which achieve economies of scale andappropriate the results of their research through patents.Complex products are defined as ‘‘high cost, engineering-intensive products,subsystems, or constructs supplied by a unit of production’’ (Hobday,1998), 15where the local network is normally anchored to one ‘‘assembler,’’ whichoperates asa leading firm characterized by high design and technological capabilities. To ouraims, th e relationships of local suppliers with these ‘‘anchors’’may be crucial tofoster (or hinder) firms’ upgrading through technology and skill transfers(or the lackof them).Scale-intensive firms typically lead complex product sectors (Bell& Pavitt,1993), where the process of technical change is realized within an architectural set(Henderson & Clark, 1990), and it is often incremental and modular.Among the Specialized Suppliers, we only consider software, which is typicallyclient driven. This is an especially promising sector for developing countries’ SMEs,due to the low transport and physical capital costs and the high information intensityof the sector, which moderates the importance of proximity to final markets andextends the scope for a deeper international division of labor. Moreover, the11disintegration of some productive cycles, such as for example of telecommunications,opens up new market niches with low entry barriers(Torrisi, 2003). However,at thesame time, the proximity of the market and of clients may cruciallyimprove thedevelopment of design capabilities and thereby foster product/process upgrading.Thus, powerful pressures for cluste ring and globalization coexist in thissector.The different learning patterns across these four groups of activities areexpected to affect the process of upgrading of clusters in value chains.This paper also aims at analyzing with original empirical evidence whether—and how—the sectoral dimension influences this process in LatinAmerica.4. METHODOLOGY: COLLECTIONAND ANALYSIS OF DATAThis study is based on the collection of original data from 12 clusters in LatinAmerica that have not hitherto been investigated, and on an extensivereview of cluster studies available. The empirical analysis was carried outfrom September 2002 to June 2003 with the support of the Inter American Development Bank. An international team of 12 experts in Italy andin four LA countries collected and reviewed the empirical data.Desk and field studies were undertaken following the same methodology,whichinvolved field interviews with local firms, institutions, and observers,interviews withforeign buyers and TNCs involved in the local cluster, and secondary sourcessuch aspublications and reports.16 Case studies were selected which fulfilled the followingconditions: (1) agglomeration: all cases show some degree of geographical SMEclustering; 17 (2) upgrading: the clusters selected have experienced some degree ofupgrading, of whatever nature (i.e., product, process, functional, inter sectoral); and (3)policy lessons: all cases offer relevant policy lessons for future experiences either in terms of successesor failures.A total of 40 case studies were selected forth is analysis. 18 The list of cases,albeit incomplete, is—to our knowledge—the largest available on which comparativeexercises have been carried out, and provides a good approximation to the reality ofclusters and value chains in LA. Thus, although it cannot claim to correspond to theuniverse of clusters in the region, it represents a database that allows reasonable12。
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附录【原文】Upgrading in Global Value ChainsThe aim of this paper is to explore how small- andmedium-sized Latin American enterprises ( SMEs) may participate in global markets in a way that providesfor sustainable growth. This may be defined asthe ‘‘highroad'' to competitiveness,contrasting with the ‘‘low road,'' typical offirms from developing countries, which often competeby squeezing wages and profit margins rather thanby improving productivity, wages, and profits. Thekey difference between the high and the low road to competitiveness is often explained by the different capabilities of firms to ‘‘upgrade.' In thispaper, upgrading refers to the capacity of a firmto innovate to increase the value added of its productsand processes (Humphrey & Schmitz, 2002a;Kaplinsky&Readman, 2001; Porter, 1990).Capitalizing on one of the most productive areas ofthe recent literature on SMEs, we restrict our fieldof research to small enterprises located in clusters.There is now a wealth ofempirical evidence (Humphrey, 1995; Nadvi &Schmitz, 1999; Rabellotti, 1997)showing that small firms in clusters, both in developed and developing countries, are able to overcome some of the major constraints they usually face:lack of specialized skills, difficult access totechnology, inputs, market, information, credit, andexternal services.Nevertheless, the literature on clusters, mainly focused on the local sources ofcompetitiveness coming from intraclustervertical and horizontal relationshipsgenerating ‘‘collective efficiency'' (Schmitz,1995), has often neglected theincreasing importance of external link ages. Due torecent changes in productionsystems, distribution channels, and financial markets,and to the spread of informationtechnologies,enterprisesandclustersareincreasingly integrated in value chains thatoften operate across many different countries. Theliterature on global value chains(GVCs) (Gereffi, 1999; Gereffi& Kaplinsky, 2001) callsattention to the opportunitiesfor local producers to learn from the global leadersof the chains that may be buyers or1producers. The internal governance of the value chain has an important effect on the scope of local firms' upgrading (Humphrey& Schmitz, 2000). Indeed, extensive evidence on Latin America reveals that both the local and the global dimensions matter, and firms often participate in clusters as well as in value chains (Pietrobelli& Rabellotti, 2004). Both forms oforganization offer opportunities to foster competitiveness via learningand upgrading. However, they also have remarkable drawbacks, as, forinstance, upgrading may be limited in some forms of value chains, and clusters with little developed external economies and joint actions may haveno influence on competitiveness.Moreover, both strands of literature were conceived and developed to overcome the sectoral dimension in the analysis of industrial organizationand dynamism. On the one hand, studies on clusters, focusing on agglomerations of firms specializing in different stages of the filie′re,moved beyond the traditional units of analysis of industrial economics:the firm and the sector. On the other hand, according to the value chain literature, firms from different sectors may all participate in the same value chain (Gereffi, 1994). Nevertheless, SMEs located in clusters and involved in value chains, may undertake a process of upgrading in order toincrease and improve their participation in the global economy, especiallyas the industrial sector plays a role and affects the upgrading prospects of SMEs.The contribution this paper makes is by taking into account all of these dimensions together. Thus, within this general theoreticalbackground, this study aims to investigate the hypothesis that enterpriseupgrading is simultaneously affected by firm-specific efforts and actions,and by the environment in which firms operate. The latter is crucially shapedby three characteristics: (i) the collective efficiency of the cluster in which SMEs operate, (ii) the pattern of governance of the value chain in which SMEs participate, and (iii) the peculiar features that characterizelearning and innovation patterns in specific sectors.The structure of the paper is the following: in Section 2, we briefly review theconcepts of clustering and value chains, and focus on their overlaps andcomplementarities. Section 3 first discusses the notion of SMEs' upgradingand then2introduces a categorization of groups of sectors, based on the notions underlying the Pavitt taxonomy, and applied to the present economicreality of Latin America. Section 4reports the original empirical evidenceon a large sample of Latin American clusters, and shows that the sectoral dimension matters to explain why clustering and participating in globalvalue chains offer different opportunities for upgrading in differentgroups of sectors. Section5 summarizes and concludes.2. CLUSTERS AND VALUE CHAINSDuring the last two decades, the successful performance of industrial districts in the developed world, particularly in Italy, has stimulated new attention to the potential offered by this form of industrial organization for firms of developing countries. The capability of clusteredfirms to be economically viable and grow has attracted a great deal of interest in development studies. 1In developing countries, the sectoral and geographical concentration of SMEs israther common, and a wide range of cases has since been reported. 2 Obviously, theexistence of acritical mass of specialized and agglomerated activities, in a number ofcases with historically strong roots, does not necessarily imply that these clustersshare all the stylized facts which identify the Marshall type of district, as firstlydefined by Becattini (1987). 3 Nonetheless, clustering may be considered as a majorfacilitating factor for a number of subsequent developments (which may or may notoccur): division and specialization of labor, the emergence of a wide network ofsuppliers, the appearance of agents who sell to distant national andinternationalmarkets, the emergence of specialized producer services, the materialization of a poolof specialized and skilled workers, and the formation of business associations.To capture the positive impacts of these factors on the competitiveness of firmslocated in clusters, Schmitz (1995) introduced the concept of‘‘collective efficiency''(CE) defined as the competitive advantage derived from local external economies andjoint action. The concept of external economies 4 was first introduced by Marshall inhis Principles of Economics(1920). According to Schmitz (1999a), incidentalexternaleconomies (EE) are of importance in explaining the competitiveness of industrialclusters, but there is also a deliberate force at work: consciously pursuedjoint action3(JA).Such joint action can be within vertical or horizontal linkages. 5 The combination of both incidental external economies and the effects of activecooperation defines the degree of collective efficiency of a cluster and, dynamically,its potential for fostering SMEs' upgrading. Both dimensions arecrucial: Onlyincidental, passive external economies may not suffice without joint actions, and thelatter hardly develop in the absence of external economies. Thus, our focus is on therole of intracluster vertical and horizontal relationships generating collectiveefficiency.However, recent changes in production systems, distribution channels and financial markets, accelerated by the globalization of product marketsand the spread of information technologies, suggest that more attentionneeds to be paid to external linkages. 6 Gereffi's global value chain approach (Gereffi, 1999) helps us to take into account activities taking place outside the cluster and, in particular, to understand the strategic role of the relationships with key external actors.From an analytical point of view, the value chain perspective is useful because (Kaplinsky,2001; Wood, 2001) the focus moves from manufacturing onlyto the other activities involved in the supply of goods and services, including distribution and marketing. All these activities contributeto add value. Moreover, the ability to identify theactivities providinghigher returns along the value chain is key to understanding the globalappropriation of the returns to production.Value chain research focuses on the nature of the relationships among the forimplications their on and chain, the in involved actors various development (Humphrey & Schmitz, 2002b). To study these relationships, theconcept of ‘‘governance'' is central to the analysis.At any point in the chain, some degree of governance or coordination is required inorder to take decisions not only on ‘‘what'' should be, or ‘‘how'' something shouldbe, produced but sometimes also ‘‘when,'' ‘‘how much,'' and even‘‘at what price.''Coordination may occur through arm's-length market relationsornon marketrelationships. In the latter case, following Humphrey and Schmitz(2000), wedistinguish three possible types of governance:(a) network implying cooperation4between firms of more or less equal power which share their competencieswithin the chain; (b) quasi-hierarchy involving relationships between legally independent firms in which one is subordinated to the other, with a leader in the chain defining the rules to which the rest of the actors have to comply; and (c) hierarchy when a firm is owned by an external firm. Also stressed is the role played by GVC leaders, particularly by the buyers, intransferring knowledge along the chains. For small firms in less developed countries(LDCs), participation in value chains is a way to obtain information on the need andmode to gain access to global markets. Yet, although this information has high valuefor local SMEs, the role played by the leaders of GVCs in fostering and supportingthe SMEs' upgrading process is less clear. Gereffi (1999), mainly focusing on EastAsia, assumes a rather optimistic view, emphasizing the role of the leadersthat almostautomatically promote process, product, and functional upgrading among small localproducers. Pietrobelli and Rabellotti (2004) present a more differentiated picture forLatin America.In line with the present approach, Humphrey and Schmitz (2000)discuss the prospects of upgrading with respect to the pattern of value chain governance. They conclude that insertion in a quasi-hierarchical chainoffers very favorable conditions for process and product upgrading, but hinders functional upgrading. Networks offer ideal upgrading conditions,producers.country developing for occur to likely least the are theybutIn addition, a more dynamic approach suggests that chain governanceis not given forever and may change because(Humphrey & Schmitz, 2002b):(a) power relationships may evolve when existing producers, or their spin offs, acquire new capabilities;(b) establishing and maintaining quasi-hierarchical governance is costly for the lead firm and leads to inflexibility because of transaction specific investments; and (c) firms andcluster soften do not operate only in one chain but simultaneously in severaltypes of chains, and they may apply competencies learned in one chainto supply other chains.In sum, both modes of organizing production, that is, the cluster and the valuechain, offer interesting opportunities for the upgrading and modernization of local5firms, and are not mutually exclusive alternatives. However, in order to assess their potential contribution to local SMEs' innovationandupgrading, we need to understand their organization of inter firm linkages and their internal governance. Furthermore, as we explain in the following section, the nature of their dominant specialization also playsa role and affects SMEs' upgrading prospects.3. THE SECTORAL DIMENSION OFSMEs' UPGRADING(a) The concept of upgradingThe concept of upgrading—making better products, making them more efficiently, or moving in to more skilled activities—hasoftenbeen used in studies on competitiveness (Kaplinsky,2001; Porter, 1990),and is relevant here.Following this approach, upgrading is decisively related to innovation. Here wedefine upgrading as innovating to increase value added. 7 Enterprises achieve this invarious ways, such as, for example, by entering higher unit value market niches ornew sectors, or by undertaking new productive (or service) functions. The concept ofupgrading may be effectively described for enterprises working within a value chain,where four types of upgrading are singled out (Humphrey & Schmitz, 2000): —Process upgrading is transforming inputs into outputs more efficiently by reorganizing the production system or introducing superiortechnology (e.g., footwear producers in the Sinos Valley; Schmitz,1999b).—Product upgrading is moving into more sophisticated product lines in terms of increased unit values (e.g., the apparel commodity chain in ).Gereffi,1999Asia upgrading from discount chains to department stores;—Functional upgrading is acquiring new, superior functions in the chain, such as design or marketing or abandoning existing low-value added functions to focus on higher value added activities (e.g.,Torreon'sblue jeans industry upgrading from maquila to ‘‘full-package'' manufacturing; Bair&Gereffi, 2001).—Inter sectoral upgrading is applying the competence acquired in a particularfunction to move into a new sector. For instance, in Taiwan, competenceinproducingTVs was used to make monitors and then to move into the computer sector (Guerrieri& Pietrobelli,2004; Humphrey & Schmitz,2002b). In sum, upgrading withina value6chain implies going up on the value ladder, moving away from activities in which competitionis of the ‘‘low road'' type and entry barriers are low.Our focus on upgrading requires moving a step forward and away from Ricardo's static concept of ‘‘Comparative Advantage'' (CA). While CA registers ex-post gaps in relative productivity which determine international trade flows, success in firmlevel upgrading enables the dynamic acquisition of competitiveness in new market niches, sectors or phases of the productive chain (Lall, 2001; Pietrobelli, 1997). In sum,the logic goes from innovation, to upgrading, to the acquisition of firm-level competitiveness(i.e., competitive advantage). 8In this paper, we argue that the concept of competitive advantage increasinglymatters. In the theory of comparative advantage, what matters is relative productivity,determining different patterns of inter industryspecialization.Within such atheoretical approach, with perfectly competitive markets, firms need to target onlyproduction efficiency. In fact, this is not enough, and competitive advantage is therelevant concept to analyze SMEs' performance because of (i) the existence of formsof imperfect competition in domestic and international markets and (ii)the presenceof different degrees of (dynamic) externalities in different subsect or sand stages ofthe value chain.More specifically, in non perfectly competitive market rents and niches -of ‘‘extranormal'' profits often emerge, and this explains the efforts to enter selectively specificsegments rather than simply focusing on efficiency improvements, regardless of theprevailing productive specialization (as advocated by the theory of CA). Moreover,different stages in the value chain offer different scope for dynamic externalities.Thus, for example, in traditional manufacturing, the stagesofdesign, productinnovation, marketing, and distribution may all foster competitiveness increases inrelated activities and sectors. The advantage of functional upgrading is in reducing thefragility and vulnerability of an enterprise's productive specialization. Competitionfrom new entrants—i.e., firms from developing countries with lower production costs,crowding out incumbents—is stronger in the manufacturing phases of the value chainthan in other more knowledge and organization-intensive phases (e.g., product design7and innovation, chain management, distribution and retail,etc.).Therefore,functionalupgrading may bring about more enduring and solid competitiveness. For all these reasons, the concept of production efficiency is encompassed withinthe broader concept of competitiveness, and the efforts to upgrade functionally andinter sectorally (and the policies to support these processes) are justifiedto reap largerrents and externalities emerging in specific stages of the value chain, market niches,or sectors.An additional element that crucially affects the upgrading prospects of firms and clusters is the sectoral dimension. Insofar as we have defined upgrading as innovating to increase value added, then all the factors influencing innovation acquire a new relevance. This dimension is often overlooked in studies on clusters, perhaps due to the fact that most ofthese studies are not comparative but rather detailed intra industrycase studies.In order to take into account such a sectoral dimension, and the effect this may have on the firms' pattern of innovation and learning, we need tointroduce the concept of ‘‘tacit knowledge.'' This notion wasfirstintroduced by Polanyi(1967) and then discussed in the context of evolutionary economics by Nelson and Winter(1982). It refers to the evidence that some aspects of technological knowledge arewellarticulated, written down in manuals and papers, and taught. Others are largely tacit, mainly learned through practice and practical examples. Inessence, this is knowledge which can be freely used by its owners, but communicated to anyone else.that can not be easily expressed andThe tacit component of technological knowledge makes its transfer and applicationcostly and difficult. As a result, the mastery of a technologymay require anorganization to be active in the earlier stages of its development, and a close andcontinuous interaction between the user and the producer—or transfer—of suchknowledge. Inter firm relationships are especially needed in thiscontext. Tacitknowledge is an essential dimension to define a useful groupingof economicactivities.(b) Sectoral specificities in upgrading and innovation: a classification for Latin8American countriesThe impact of collective efficiency and patterns of governance on the capacity of SMEs to upgrade may differ across sectors. This claimis based upon the consideration that sectoral groups differ in terms of technological complexity and in the modes and sources of innovationand upgrading. 9 As shown by innovation studies, in some sectors, verticalrelations with suppliers of inputs may be particularly important sourcesofproduct and process upgrading (as in the case of textiles and the most traditional manufacturing), while in other sectors, technologyusers, organizations such as universities or the firms themselves (as,for example, with software or agro industrial products) may provide majorstimuli for technical change (Pavitt,1984; Von Hippel, 1987). Consistently with this approach, the properties of firm knowledge basesacrossdifferent sectors (Malerba & Orsenigo, 1993) 10 mayaffect the strategic relevance ofcollective efficiencyfor the processes of upgrading in clusters. Thus, for example, intraditional manufacturing sectors, technology has important tacit and idiosyncraticelements, and therefore, upgrading strongly depends on the intensity of technologicalexternalities and cooperation among local actors (e.g., firms, research centers, andtechnology and quality diffusion centers), in other words, upgrading depends on thedegree of collective efficiency. While in other groups (e.g., complex products or largenatural resource-based firms) technology is more codified and the access to externalsources of knowledge such as transnational corporations(TNCs,or researchlaboratories located in developed countries become more critical for upgrading.Furthermore, the differences across sectoral groups raise questions on the role ofglobal buyers in fostering (or hindering) the upgrading in different clusters. Thus, forexample, global buyers may be more involved and interestedintheir providers'upgrading if the technology required is mainly tacit and requires intense interaction.Moreover, in traditional manufacturing industries, characterized by a low degree oftechnological complexity, firms are likely to be included in GVCs even if they havevery low technological capabilities. Therefore, tight supervision and direct supportbecome necessary conditions for global buyers who rely on the competencies of their9local suppliers and want to reduce the risk of non compliance(Humphrey &Schmitz,2002b). The situation is at the opposite extreme in the case of complex products,where technology is often thoroughly codified and the technologicalcomplexityrequires that firms have already internal technological capabilities to besubcontracted,otherwise large buyers would not contract them at all.In order to take into account the above-mentioned hypotheses, wedevelop asectoral classification, adapting existing taxonomies to the Latin American case. 11On the basis of Pavitt's seminal work (1984), we consider that in Latin America, in-house R&D activities are very low both in domestic and foreign firms (Archibugi&Pietrobelli, 2003), domestic inter sectoral linkages have been displaced by tradeliberalization(Cimoli & Katz, 2002), and university-industry linkages appear to bestill relatively weak (Arocena & Sutz, 2001). 12 Furthermore, in the past 10 years,Latin America has deepened its productive specialization in resourcebasedsectors and has weakened its position in more engineering intensive industries (Katz,2001), reflecting its rich endowment of natural resources,Berge,& Wood (resources technical and human than more relatively1997).Hence, we retain Pavitt's key notions and identify four main sectoralgroups for Latin America on the basis of the way learning and upgrading occur,and on the related industrial organization that most frequently prevails. 13The categories are as follows:1.Traditionalmanufacturing,mainlylaborintensiveand‘‘traditional'' technology industries such as textiles, footwear, tiles,and furniture;2. Natural resource-based sectors (NRbased),implying the direct exploitation of natural resources, for example, copper, marble, fruit, etc.;3. Complex products industries (COPs), including, among others, automobiles,autocomponents and aircraft industries, ICT and consumer electronics;4. Specializedsuppliers, in our LA cases, essentially software.Each of these categories tends to havea predominant learning and innovating behavior, in terms of main sources of technicalchange, dependence on basic or applied research, modes of in-house innovation (e.g.,‘‘routinized'' versus large R&D laboratories), tacitness or codified nature ofknowledge, scale and relevance of R&D activity, and appropriability of10innovation(Table 1).Traditional manufacturing and resource-based sectors are by far the most present in Latin America, and therefore especially relevant toour presentaims of assessing SMEs' potential for upgrading within clusters and value chains. Traditional manufacturing is defined as supplier dominated, because major process innovations are introduced by producers of inputs (e.g., machinery, materials, etc.). Indeed, firm shave room to upgrade their products (and processes)by developing or imitating new products' designs, often interacting with large buyers that increasingly play a role in shaping the design of final products and hence the specificities of the process of production (times, quality standards, and costs).Natural resource-based sectors crucially rely on the advancement ofbasic and applied science, which, due to low appropriability conditions, is most often undertaken by public research institutes,possibly in connection with producers (farmers, breeders, etc.). 14 Inthese sectors, applied research is mainly carried out by input suppliers (i.e., chemicals, machinery, etc.) which achieve economies of scale and appropriate the results of their research through patents.Complex products are defined as ‘‘high cost,engineering-intensive products,subsystems, or constructs suppliedby a unit of production'' (Hobday,1998), 15where the local network is normally anchored to one ‘‘assembler,'' which operates asa leading firm characterized by high design and technological capabilities. To ouraims, the relationships of local suppliers with these ‘‘anchors'' may be crucial tofoster (or hinder) firms' upgrading through technology and skill transfers(or the lackBell(sectors product complex lead typically firms them).Scale-intensive of & Pavitt,1993), where the process of technical change is realized within an architectural set(Henderson & Clark, 1990), and it is often incremental and modular. Among the Specialized Suppliers, we only consider software, which is typicallyclient driven. This is an especially promising sector for developing countries' SMEs,due to the low transport and physical capital costs and the high information intensityof the sector, which moderates the importance of proximity to final markets andextends the scope for a deeper international division of labor.Moreover, the11disintegration of some productive cycles, such as for example of telecommunications,opens up new market niches with low entry barriers(Torrisi, 2003). However,at thesame time, the proximity of the market and of clients may crucially improve thedevelopment of design capabilities and thereby foster product/process up grading.Thus, powerful pressures for cluste ring and globalization coexist in this sector.The different learning patterns across these four groups of activities areexpected to affect the process of upgrading of clusters in value chains. This paper also aims at analyzing with original empirical evidence whether—and how—the sectoral dimension influences this process in LatinAmerica.4. METHODOLOGY: COLLECTIONAND ANALYSIS OF DATAThis study is based on the collection of original data from 12 clustersin LatinAmerica that have not hitherto been investigated, and on an extensivereview of cluster studies available. The empirical analysis was carried outfrom September 2002 to June 2003 with the support of the Inter AmericanDevelopment Bank. An international team of 12 experts in Italy andin four LA countries collected and reviewed the empirical data. Desk and field studies were undertaken following the same methodology, whichinvolved field interviews with local firms, institutions, and observers, interviews withforeign buyers and TNCs involved in the local cluster, and secondary sourcessuch aspublications and reports.16 Case studies were selected which fulfilled。
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企业资金管理中英文对照外文翻译文献(文档含英文原文和中文翻译)An Analysis of Working Capital Management Results Across IndustriesAbstractFirms are able to reduce financing costs and/or increase the fund s available for expansion by minimizing the amount of funds tied upin current assets. We provide insights into the performance of surv eyed firms across key components of working capital management by usi ng the CFO magazine’s annual Working CapitalManagement Survey. We discover that significant differences exist b etween industries in working capital measures across time.In addition.w e discover that these measures for working capital change significantl y within industries across time.IntroductionThe importance of efficient working capital management is indisputa ble. Working capital is the difference between resources in cash or readily convertible into cash (Current Assets) and organizational commi tments for which cash will soon be required (Current Liabilities). Th e objective of working capital management is to maintain the optimum balance of each of the working capital components. Business viabilit y relies on the ability to effectively manage receivables. inventory.a nd payables. Firms are able to reduce financing costs and/or increase the funds available for expansion by minimizing the amount of funds tied up in current assets. Much managerial effort is expended in b ringing non-optimal levels of current assets and liabilities back towa rd optimal levels. An optimal level would be one in which a balance is achieved between risk and efficiency.A recent example of business attempting to maximize working capita l management is the recurrent attention being given to the applicatio n of Six Sigma®methodology. Six S igma®methodologies help companies measure and ensure quality in all areas of the enterprise. When used to identify and rectify discrepancies.inefficiencies and erroneous tra nsactions in the financial supply chain. Six Sigma®reduces Days Sale s Outstanding (DSO).accelerates the payment cycle.improves customer sati sfaction and reduces the necessary amount and cost of working capital needs. There appear to be many success stories including Jennifertwon’s(2002) report of a 15percent decrease in days that sales are outstanding.resulting in an increased cash flow of approximately $2 million at Thibodaux Regional Medical Cenrer.Furthermore bad debts declined from 3.4millin to $6000000.However.Waxer’s(2003)study of multiple firms employing Six Sig ma®finds that it is really a “get rich slow”technique with a r ate of return hovering in the 1.2 – 4.5 percent range.Even in a business using Six Sigma®methodology. an “optimal”level of working capital management needs to be identified. Industry factors may impa ct firm credit policy.inventory management.and bill-paying activities. S ome firms may be better suited to minimize receivables and inventory. while others maximize payables. Another aspect of “optimal”is the extent to which poor financial results can be tied to sub-optimal pe rformance.Fortunately.these issues are testable with data published by CFO magazine. which claims to be the source of “tools and informati on for the financial executive.”and are the subject of this resear ch.In addition to providing mean and variance values for the working capital measures and the overall metric.two issues will be addressed in this research. One research question is. “are firms within a p articular industry clustered together at consistent levels of working capital measures?For instance.are firms in one industry able to quickl y transfer sales into cash.while firms from another industry tend to have high sales levels for the particular level of inventory . The other research question is. “does working capital management perform ance for firms within a given industry change from year-to-year?”The following section presents a brief literature review.Next.the r esearch method is described.including some information about the annual Working Capital Management Survey published by CFO magazine. Findings are then presented and conclusions are drawn.Related LiteratureThe importance of working capital management is not new to the f inance literature. Over twenty years ago. Largay and Stickney (1980) reported that the then-recent bankruptcy of W.T. Grant. a nationwide chain of department stores.should have been anticipated because the co rporation had been running a deficit cash flow from operations for e ight of the last ten years of its corporate life.As part of a stud y of the Fortune 500s financial management practices. Gilbert and Rei chert (1995) find that accounts receivable management models are used in 59 percent of these firms to improve working capital projects.wh ile inventory management models were used in 60 percent of the compa nies.More recently. Farragher. Kleiman and Sahu (1999) find that 55 p ercent of firms in the S&P Industrial index complete some form of a cash flow assessment. but did not present insights regarding account s receivable and inventory management. or the variations of any curre nt asset accounts or liability accounts across industries.Thus.mixed ev idence exists concerning the use of working capital management techniq ues.Theoretical determination of optimal trade credit limits are the s ubject of many articles over the years (e.g. Schwartz 1974; Scherr 1 996).with scant attention paid to actual accounts receivable management.Across a limited sample. Weinraub and Visscher (1998) observe a tend ency of firms with low levels of current ratios to also have low l evels of current liabilities. Simultaneously investigating accounts rece ivable and payable issues.Hill. Sartoris.and Ferguson (1984) find diffe rences in the way payment dates are defined. Payees define the date of payment as the date payment is received.while payors view paymen t as the postmark date.Additional WCM insight across firms.industries.a nd time can add to this body of research.Maness and Zietlow (2002. 51. 496) presents two models of value creation that incorporate effective short-term financial management acti vities.However.these models are generic models and do not consider uni que firm or industry influences. Maness and Zietlow discuss industry influences in a short paragraph that includes the observation that. “An industry a company is located in may have more influence on th at company’s fortunes than overall GNP”(2002. 507).In fact. a car eful review of this 627-page textbook finds only sporadic information on actual firm levels of WCM dimensions.virtually nothing on industr y factors except for some boxed items with titles such as. “Should a Retailer Offer an In-House Credit Card”(128) and nothing on WC M stability over time. This research will attempt to fill this void by investigating patterns related to working capital measures within industries and illustrate differences between industries across time.An extensive survey of library and Internet resources provided ver y few recent reports about working capital management. The most relev ant set of articles was Weisel and Bradley’s (2003) article on cash flow management and one of inventory control as a result of effect ive supply chain management by Hadley (2004).Research Method The CFO RankingsThe first annual CFO Working Capital Survey. a joint project with REL Consultancy Group.was published in the June 1997 issue of CFO (Mintz and Lezere 1997). REL is a London. England-based management co nsulting firm specializing in working capital issues for its global l ist of clients. The original survey reports several working capital b enchmarks for public companies using data for 1996. Each company is ranked against its peers and also against the entire field of 1.000 companies. REL continues to update the original information on an a nnual basis.REL uses the “cash flow from operations”value located on firm cash flow statements to estimate cash conversion efficiency (CCE). T his value indicates how well a company transforms revenues into cash flow. A “days of working capital”(DWC) value is based on the d ollar amount in each of the aggregate.equally-weighted receivables.inven tory.and payables accounts. The “days of working capital”(DNC) repr esents the time period between purchase of inventory on acccount fromvendor until the sale to the customer.the collection of the receiva bles. and payment receipt.Thus.it reflects the companys ability to fin ance its core operations with vendor credit. A detailed investigation of WCM is possible because CFO also provides firm and industry val ues for days sales outstanding (A/R).inventory turnover.and days payabl es outstanding (A/P).Research FindingsAverage and Annual Working Capital Management Performance Working capital management component definitions and average values for the entire 1996 –2000 period .Across the nearly 1.000 firms in the survey.cash flow from operations. defined as cash flow from operations divided by sales and referred to as “cash conversion ef ficiency”(CCE).averages 9.0 percent.Incorporating a 95 percent confide nce interval. CCE ranges from 5.6 percent to 12.4 percent. The days working capital (DWC). defined as the sum of receivables and invent ories less payables divided by daily sales.averages 51.8 days and is very similar to the days that sales are outstanding (50.6).because the inventory turnover rate (once every 32.0 days) is similar to the number of days that payables are outstanding (32.4 days).In all ins tances.the standard deviation is relatively small.suggesting that these working capital management variables are consistent across CFO report s.Industry Rankings on Overall Working Capital Management Perfo rmanceCFO magazine provides an overall working capital ranking for firms in its ing the following equation:Industry-based differences in overall working capital management are presented for the twenty-s ix industries that had at least eight companies included in the rank ings each year.In the typical year. CFO magazine ranks 970 companies during this period. Industries are listed in order of the mean ove rall CFO ranking of working capital performance. Since the best avera ge ranking possible for an eight-company industry is 4.5 (this assume s that the eight companies are ranked one through eight for the ent ire survey). it is quite obvious that all firms in the petroleum in dustry must have been receiving very high overall working capital man agement rankings.In fact.the petroleum industry is ranked first in CCE and third in DWC (as illustrated in Table 5 and discussed later i n this paper).Furthermore.the petroleum industry had the lowest standar d deviation of working capital rankings and range of working capital rankings. The only other industry with a mean overall ranking less than 100 was the Electric & Gas Utility industry.which ranked secon d in CCE and fourth in DWC. The two industries with the worst work ing capital rankings were Textiles and Apparel. Textiles rank twenty-s econd in CCE and twenty-sixth in DWC. The apparel industry ranks twenty-third and twenty-fourth in the two working capital measures ConclusionsThe research presented here is based on the annual ratings of wo rking capital management published in CFO magazine. Our findings indic ate a consistency in how industries “stack up”against each other over time with respect to the working capital measures.However.the wor king capital measures themselves are not static (i.e.. averages of wo rking capital measures across all firms change annually); our results indicate significant movements across our entire sample over time. O ur findings are important because they provide insight to working cap ital performance across time. and on working capital management across industries. These changes may be in explained in part by macroecono mic factors Changes in interest rates.rate of innovation.and competitio n are likely to impact working capital management. As interest rates rise.there would be less desire to make payments early.which would stretch accounts payable.accounts receivable.and cash accounts. The ra mifications of this study include the finding of distinct levels of WCM measures for different industries.which tend to be stable over ti me. Many factors help to explain this discovery. The improving econom y during the period of the study may have resulted in improved turn over in some industries.while slowing turnover may have been a signal of troubles ahead. Our results should be interpreted cautiously. Our study takes places over a short time frame during a generally impr oving market. In addition. the survey suffers from survivorship bias –only the top firms within each industry are ranked each year and the composition of those firms within the industry can change annua lly.Further research may take one of two lines.First.there could bea study of whether stock prices respond to CFO magazine’s publication of working capital management rating.Second,there could be a study of which if any of the working capital management components relate to share price performance.Given our results,there studies need to take industry membership into consideration when estimating stock price reaction to working capital management performance.对整个行业中营运资金管理的研究格雷格Filbeck.Schweser学习计划托马斯M克鲁格.威斯康星大学拉克罗斯摘要:企业能够降低融资成本或者尽量减少绑定在流动资产上的成立基金数额来用于扩大现有的资金。