ECONOMICS

A Case Study of a Strategic Partnership (PDF file)
This case study describes a real partnership between three classes at Allegheny College and Acutec, Inc., to explore the feasibility of wind power generation at the company’s facility in Saegertown, PA, in spring 2007. (See also Natural Sciences for related research.)

Since the late 1990’s a number of small, local tool and die shops have closed their doors eliminating over 1,000 jobs in the Meadville area. CEED’s Green Business Coalition has taken a closer look at the environmental and business practices of the tool and die industry because it has been so vital to the economic health of northwest Pennsylvania.

Dr. Stephen Onyeiwu, Assistant Professor of Economics and co-director of CEED’s Green Business Coalition, with student interns Katie Wheeler and Lauren Destefano, surveyed 50 local tool and die companies in an effort to find out why the shops had closed. In August of 2004, they published the resulting report: “Firm Closures in the Tool and Die Industry in Crawford County of Northwest Pennsylvania.” (PDF file)

Paper by Dr. Stephen Onyeiwu presented at the DRUID Ten Years Anniversary Summer Conference, Copenhagen, CBS, Denmark, June 2005, “ Creative Destruction or Organizational Ineptitude: Explaining the Decline in the US Machine Tool Industry.”(PDF file)