cost benefit assessment of energy efficiency investments accounting for future resources savings and risks in the australian residential sector this article focuses on the impact of the discount rate on cost benefit assessment of investment options for residential building efficiency an integrated thermal modeling life cycle costing approach is applied to an extensive sample of dominant house designs for australian conditions the relative significance of predicted thermal performance and the applied discount rate on the present value of energy savings from alternative investment scenarios is investigated costs and benefits are also evaluated at the economy wide scale including carbon pricing considerations and for a test case household faced with alternative investment options at the point of construction the influence of the applied discount rate on produced cost benefit calculations is investigated as is the interaction between critical cost benefit input parameters findings support that the discounting framework is the primary driver of difference in estimates about costs and benefits of higher standards of efficiency in the residential sector results demonstrate that agreement on a low discount rate based on sustainability principals would prioritise those projects with significant environmental benefits

industry and country effects on managers perceptions of environmental uncertainties international management research highlights political government policy and macroeconomic uncertainties strategy studies focus on input supply product market and competitive uncertainties this study develops and tests the reliability of an instrument for measuring managers uncertainly perceptions data analyses using an international sample provide insights into the relative importance of country and industry factors for explaining managers perceptions of different environmental uncertainties

trends in the development of ecological economics from the late 1980s to the early 2000s abstract as the contributions to ecological economics are very diverse recent years have seen some discussion on both how to delimit the field and in which direction it should develop the intention with this paper is to contribute to the discussion by outlining important trends in the development of the field from the late 1980s to the early 2000s the study is inspired by other studies in the sociology and history of science in particular by the theoretical framework regarding scientific fields as reputational organizations which draws attention to both cognitive and social aspects of the formation of a field the basis for the paper is a combination of literature studies interviews with key researchers in the field and participant observations the paper outlines the characteristic cognitive features of ecological economics at the time of the birth of the field it is then described how the development in ecological economics was influenced by broader social factors during the following years and how the field was shaped by the inflow and outflow of different groups of researchers the emergence of different research programmes is outlined as is the organizational development finally the characteristics of ecological economics are summarized and the future prospects are briefly assessed

internationalisation conceptualising an entrepreneurial process of behaviour in time this paper presents a three stage process of conceptual development in response to the call for a unifying direction for research in the emergent field of international entrepreneurship drawing on classic approaches to internationalisation and importing insight from entrepreneurship as a separate and distinct field of study the paper develops three potential models of internationalisation as a time based process of entrepreneurial behaviour the models evolve from the simple through general to precise levels of conceptualisation research implications are discussed

the relationship between relative prices and the general price level it is very nearly a truismi amaong neoclassical economists that the public is wont to confuse changes in the general price level with relative price changes correspondingl y one might speak of the independence between the two as one of the central postulates of the neoclassical tradition william stanley jevons was aml ong the first to identify this basic dichotomin economic life as well as to attempt to explain the ordinary citizen s seenming incapacity to understand it

tightening environmental standards the benefit cost or the no cost paradigm ms ff ichael porter and claas van der linde have written a paper that is interesting and to us at least somewhat astonishing it is a defense of environmental regulation indeed an invitation to more stringent regulation that makes essentially no reference to the social benefits of such regulation this approach contrasts starkly with the methods that economists and other policy analysts have traditionally used when assessing environmental or other regulatory programs the traditional approach consists of comparing the beneficial effects of regulation with the costs that must be borne to secure these benefits for environmental regulation the social benefits include the reductions in morbidity or premature mortality that can accompany cleaner air the enhanced recreational opportunities that can result from water quality improvements the increased land values that might attend the cleanup of a hazardous waste site the enhanced vitality of aquatic ecosystems that might follow reductions in agricultural pesticide use or any of the other potentially significant benefits associated with tighter standards from this benefit cost approach emerges the standard tradeoff discussed in virtually every economics textbook porter and van der linde deny the validity of this approach to the analysis of environmental regulation claiming it to be an artifact of what they see as a static mindset in their view economists have failed to appreciate the capacity of

international entrepreneurship research versus international business research a false dichotomy international entrepreneurship ie research draws from work in both international business ib and general entrepreneurship it examines inter alia entrepreneurial behaviour when crossing borders first stream and makes international comparisons of entrepreneurship as found in different countries and regions second stream see wright and ricks 1994 1 two influential ie articles have been bestowed with the jibs decade award namely oviatt and mcdougall 1994 and knight and cavusgil 2004 both articles suggested the need for new theory to explain the empirical phenomenon of early internationalization these papers developed the concepts of international new venture inv and born global bg respectively and stimulated a lively debate on early internationalizing companies oviatt and mcdougall defined an inv as a business organization that from inception seeks to derive significant

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

technological change trade and the environment abstract trade policies and environmental policies have evolved largely independently and until recently their interactions attracted little attention there is much discussion of the institutional arrangements and economic instruments needed to embody environmental concerns in trade policy but relatively little discussion of the role of technology this paper describes the long term environmentally motivated technological change involved in shifting from an end of pipe approach for capturing pollutants after they are generated to a focus on the prevention of environmental degradation the new engineering field of industrial ecology promotes design and manufacturing practices that are based on an examination of the full life cycle of a product in order to improve environmental performance industrial ecology is spreading quickly in the industrialized countries but its repercussions are transmitted widely through international trade plastics provide a good example of both the opportunities and the difficulties surrounding environmental protection technological change and trade concerns over solid waste in the rich countries may result in new market opportunities for biomass based polymers but the success of these products depends upon a complex set of factors including very different alternative ways individual countries may choose to deal with solid waste the implications for the developing countries are examined for the case of plastics and more generally

the economics of corporate social responsibility a firm level perspective survey this paper analyzes the economics of corporate social responsibility csr as a private response to market imperfections in order to satisfy social preferences depending on whether they affect regulation competition or contracts market imperfections driving csr decisions are classified in three categories public goods and bads and altruism imperfect competition and incomplete contracts we successively present these drivers of csr decisions and highlight the nature of incentives external or internal at work and the testable and tested hypotheses in the reviewed studies we finally review the link between csr and financial performance as well as between csr and social and environmental performance a twofold discrepancy appears in the literature opening future research paths a disconnection between our understanding of csr drivers and csr impacts and a knowledge gap between csr financial and social consequences the latter having received little attention

the uppsala internationalization process model revisited from liability of foreignness to liability of outsidership the uppsala internationalization process model is revisited in the light of changes in business practices and theoretical advances that have been made since 1977 now the business environment is viewed as a web of relationships a network rather than as a neoclassical market with many independent suppliers and customers outsidership in relation to the relevant network more than psychic distance is the root of uncertainty the change mechanisms in the revised model are essentially the same as those in the original version although we add trust building and knowledge creation the latter to recognize the fact that new knowledge is developed in relationships

time varying parameters and the out of sample forecasting performance of structural exchange rate models varying parameter estimation techniques based on recursive application of the kalman filter are used to improve the predictive performance of a class of monetary exchange rate models i find that allowing estimated parameters to vary over time enhances the models forecasting performance for the dollar pound dollar mark and dollar yen exchange rates contrary to earlier results in the literature ex post forecasts for the dollar mark rate compare favorably with those obtained from the naive random walk forecasting rule

beyond categorization new directions for theory development about entrepreneurial internationalization categorizations emphasizing the earliness of internationalization have long been a cornerstone of international entrepreneurship research here we contend that the prominence of categories has not been commensurate with theory development associated with them we draw on categorization theory to explain why earliness based categories are persistent and argue that a greater focus on notions related to opportunity can open new avenues of research about the entrepreneurial internationalization of business we propose and discuss three directions for opportunity based research on entrepreneurial internationalization involving context dynamics and variety

a model of exchange rate pass through abstract exchange rate pass through is the phenomenon whereby changes in the value of foreign exchange are reflected in changes in import prices this paper presents a partial equilibrium model in which firms are price setters who anticipate exchange rate changes in equilibrium firms strategies incorporate expectations about the exchange rate consistently and are best responses to the strategies of all others in the world market it is shown that exchange rate changes give rise to import price changes but the degree of exchange rate pass through depends upon domestic and foreign market structures and the exchange rate regime in general exchange rate pass through is higher if the home market is monopolistic or if the foreign market is competitive

hyteresis in import prices the beachhead effect this paper shows that temporary real exchange rate fluctuations can have persistent hysteretic effects on trade specifically when market entry costs are sunk sufficiently large exchange rate shocks alter domestic market structure and thereby induce hysteresis this simple result has strong implications for exchange rate theory t rade policy and estimation of trade equations empirical evidence su ggests that the recent dollar overvaluation induced hysteresis in u s import prices namely the aggregate pass through equation of exchange rates to import prices shifted in the 1980s the shift s nature and timing is broadly consistent with the hysteresis hypothesis copyright 1988 by american economic association

trends in international business research twenty five years later international business ib research has made enormous strides in the quarter century since jibs was inaugurated this article reflects upon the development of ib research during that period it first reviews the findings and recommendations of a comprehensive survey of the embryonic field of ib research conducted twenty five years ago several early trends identified then are discussed the astonishing acceleration in the pace of ib research the broadening of research activity across a greater range of functional areas and an expanding geographic base of research outside of north america especially in europe we then discuss the evolution of ib research since that formative period growing breadth and diversity greater methodological sophistication a move toward research transcending traditional functional boundaries development of new research areas such as management information systems and international coalitions and alliances research on the phenomenon of transnational firms as complete systems and the continued broadening of the geographic base of research emerging research areas such as international entrepreneurship and small business and the greening of business are identified the article concludes with calls for more research collaboration across national boundaries and for greater synthesis of research into broader more integrative frameworks

international versus domestic entrepreneurship new venture strategic behavior and industry structure abstract international entrepreneurship is defined in this study as the development of international new ventures or start ups that from their inception engage in international business thus viewing their operating domain as international from the initial stages of the firm s operation one hundred and eighty eight new venture firms in the computer and communications equipment manufacturing industries are classified according to the percentage of their sales in the international market ventures with no sales derived from international activities are considered domestic new ventures and ventures with sales from international activities comprising greater than 5 of total sales are considered international new ventures the strategy and industry structure profiles of international new ventures are significantly different from domestic new ventures the internationals pursue much broader market based strategies seeking a strategy of broad market coverage through developing and controlling numerous distribution channels serving numerous customers in diverse market segments and developing high market or product visibility the internationals also emphasize a more aggressive entry strategy building on outside financial and production resources to enter numerous geographical markets on a large scale securing patent technology is also an important component of their strategy this suggests that the internationals compete by entering the industry on a large scale seeking to penetrate multiple markets with the recognition that external resources are necessary to support such an entry whereas both the domestics and the internationals characterize domestic competition as being relatively intense the international new ventures compete in industries with higher levels of international competition it is not clear from this research whether the new venture selects an industry with a high degree of international competition and therefore responds with an international orientation or because the new venture has an international orientation it perceives or recognizes a higher degree of international competition another industry structure difference is the internationals perceived higher degree of restrictiveness due to government regulation it is unclear whether this restrictiveness motivates new ventures to seek less regulated international environments or if it indicates that when competing internationally the new venture is confronted with increased regulatory requirements domestic new ventures are distinguished by their emphasis on a production expansion strategy and customer specialization strategy the production specialization strategy consists of focusing on limited geographical markets maintaining excess capacity and pursuing forward integration the customer specialization strategy incorporates the production of a specialty product that is purchased infrequently thus for both of the domestic strategies a consistent closeness between the producer and consumer is implied this may be an important basis underlining the new venture s decision to compete in an exclusive domestic context this study offers initial support for the notion of international entrepreneurship by its findings that there are significant differences between new venture firms competing domestically and new ventures choosing to also enter international markets

academic and professional communities of discourse generating knowledge on transnational human resource management increasing global competition is changing the nature of knowledge needed for international human resource management this article assesses the publishing trends in international organizational behaviour and human resource management ob hrm and interprets their implications for conducting transnational business a review of over 28 000 articles in seventy three academic and professional journals identified three important trends in international ob hrm first the focus has shifted from single country and comparative research to studies on international interaction second culture s impact on managerial behaviour has become well recognized and third the community of discourse uniting academics and professionals leads in generating knowledge relevant to transnational firms the first two trends bode well for the relevance of international management research to practising managers the third trend delineates the domain in which the majority of rigorous and relevant research is published and therefore the domain in which knowledge is advancing most rapidly

exchange rates and import prices in the united states a varying parameter estimation of exchange rate pass through this article estimates the import price function in the united states using a varying parameter model the results show that the short run nonoil import price changes have become relatively less responsive to exchange rate changes than to foreign cost changes since the generalized floating began in the early 1970s concomitantly the markup has varied significantly falling when the dollar fell and rising when it rose thus pricing to market is confirmed even for overall u s imports

born global or born regional evidence from an exploratory study in the costa rican software industry this paper provides empirical evidence about born global firms in the software industry of a small developing country with an open economy costa rica the paper is based on data collected through interviews with ceos or founders of 40 costa rican software companies findings show that there are few born global firms among costa rican software providers we find that most companies followed a gradual approach to internationalization and they did not export immediately upon birth a careful analysis of firms that exported soon after they were born reveals that most firms are actually born regional

environmental technological change and governance in sustainable development policy abstract an evolutionary economics perspective between technological innovation and public policy is applied to analyse the relationships between technological change sustainable development and industrial competitiveness this leads us to emphasise the fundamental role that firm s strategies vis a vis the endogenisation of technological change can play for giving effect to win win strategies however allowing industrial competition to become the only factor determining win win strategies could lead to locked technological and social options being chosen which do not contribute to overall goals of ecological social and economic sustainability for this reason we introduce as complements to competitiveness the requirement of new forms of governance in pursuit of ecological economic sustainability

more than intent a bundling model of mne sme interactions abstract as a counterpoint to prashantham and birkinshaw i present an alternative model of mne sme cooperation where either type of firms can take the role of content provider or distributor i argue that mnes will interact with smes when there are differences in optimal scale between the content creation and distribution stages of the value chain and it is not feasible or efficient for either party to vertically integrate between these two stages i then build two 2 2 bundling models one in which the sme provides content and the mne distributes it and another with the reverse configuration in these 2 2s the axes are the transactional properties of the two complementary inputs content and distribution that mnes and smes bundle to create value i show that these models can explain the forms taken by mne sme cooperation and their dynamics

a proposition on short run departures from the law of one price unanticipated inflation relative price dispersion and commodity arbitrage abstract this paper proposes an explanation of short run departures from the law of one price based on the characteristics of the inflationary process and changes in the distribution of relative prices unexpected inflation gives rise to volatility of relative prices the more unexpected and hence uneven the rate of inflation the greater the difficulty in discerning from a given structure of relative prices commodity arbitrage opportunities which may be expected to persist and those transient opportunities which do not warrant a firm s incurring fixed costs of arbitrage an illustration portrays a risk averse firm confronting an international arbitrage opportunity

when green isn t mean economic theory and the heuristics of the impact of environmental regulations on competitiveness and opportunity cost abstract the conventional neoclassical economic wisdom argues that the opportunity costs of environmental regulations are high with negative implications for costs and profits and by implication for growth and per capita gross domestic product gdp the minority view that environmental controls induce cost offsets that minimise such opportunity costs is marginalised by the conventional wisdom which assumes that economic agents are x efficient in production a behavioral model of the firm is presented in this paper whereby x inefficiency in production prevails even in a world of perfect product market competition that is dominated by rational economic agents in this model environmental regulations affect both the level of x efficiency and the extent of technological change and greener firms can be cost competitive and profitable however private economic agents cannot be expected to adopt green economic policy independent of regulations since in this model there need not be any economic advantage accruing to the affected firms in becoming greener

redefining innovation eco innovation research and the contribution from ecological economics while innovation processes toward sustainable development eco innovations have received increasing attention during the past years theoretical and methodological approaches to analyze these processes are poorly developed against this background the term eco innovation is introduced in this paper addressing explicitly three kinds of changes towards sustainable development technological social and institutional innovation secondly the potential contribution of neoclassical and co evolutionary approaches from environmental and innovation economics to eco innovation research is discussed three peculiarities of eco innovation are identified the double externality problem the regulatory push pull effect and the increasing importance of social and institutional innovation while the first two are widely ignored in innovation economics the third is at the least not elaborated appropriately the consideration of these peculiarities may help to overcome market failure by establishing a specific eco innovation policy and to avoid a technology bias through a broader understanding of innovation finally perspectives for a specific contribution of ecological economics to eco innovation research are drawn it is argued that methodological pluralism as established in ecological economics would be very beneficial for eco innovation research a theoretical framework integrating elements from both neoclassical and evolutionary approaches should be pursued in order to consider the complexity of factors influencing innovation decisions as well as the specific role of regulatory instruments and the experience gathered in ecological economics integrating ecological social and economic aspects of sustainable development is highly useful for opening up innovation research to social and institutional changes 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

the evolutionary view of the mne and the future of internalization theory kogut and zander s 1993 jibs article which developed an evolutionary perspective on the multinational enterprise mne has had three critical impacts on mne research first it has stimulated scholars to conduct more eclectic empirical analyses which should include both transaction cost related parameters and broader learning competence related variables second it has usefully argued that the rigorous study of mne behavior does not need to reply upon the williamsonian behavioral assumption of opportunism third it has implicitly suggested a new path to be followed by internalization theory scholars in order to remain relevant to the field of international business the transaction cost economics lens adopted in internalization theory clearly remains critical to any analysis of mne strategy with impacts on the boundaries of the firm in addition the co evolution of the mne s governance structure and its technological competences determines present and future strategy choices here both transaction cost considerations and learning effects influence strategy selection

exchange rate pass through abstract the resilience of trade balances of the major industrialized economies to changes in their exchange rates has evoked interest in the exchange rate pass through relationship so far there has not been a comprehensive survey of this literature the paper aims to fill this gap in two ways first it pieces together the theoretical literature on exchange rate pass through second it provides a critical survey of the empirical literature on exchange rate pass through emphasis is placed on the data and methodology employed in previous work this is done in order to guide future work in this growing area of research

the power of environmental indifference a critical discourse analysis of a collaboration of tourism firms international attempts have not succeeded in addressing climate change leaving an even heavier responsibility on countries firms and people as tourism is an expanding branch in the world economy it is crucial to focus on how climate change issues are addressed in this industry as well this paper analyses a group of tourism firms in norway that join together to promote growth and profitability in winter tourism the span in how these firms deal with environmental issues ranges from ecotourism till not addressing the subject at all although the majority of the firms have environmental issues on the agenda environmental issues are not included in the cooperation we use critical discourse theory to explore how this stance on environmental issues within a cooperation has come about and categorize the firms into three discourses neoclassical economics environmental economics and ecological economics our data indicate that the hegemonic power of neoclassical economics hampers an environmental focus in the network this power is exerted through the position of being environmentally indifferent the paper adds knowledge to economic discourses on firm level

international entrepreneurship the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities across national borders in this editorial for the special issue on international entrepreneurship we inter relate key concepts about the pursuit of opportunities from the entrepreneurship and international business literatures in doing so we consider the assessment of opportunities as an individual level cognitive activity the construction of opportunity as a firm level innovative activity and the shaping of opportunity as an institutional level structuring activity we then extend the discussion to explore the notion of a distributed global ecosystem of opportunities and opportunity seekers which we believe may provide a platform for valuable future research

cultural and leadership predictors of corporate social responsibility values of top management a globe study of 15 countries this paper examines cultural and leadership variables associated with corporate social responsibility values that managers apply to their decision making in this longitudinal study we analyze data from 561 firms located in 15 countries on five continents to illustrate how the cultural dimensions of institutional collectivism and power distance predict social responsibility values on the part of top management team members ceo visionary leadership and integrity were also uniquely predictive of such values

research methods in international business the challenge of complexity international business ib research is designed to explore and explain the inherent complexity of international business which arises from the multiplicity of entities multiplexity of interactions and dynamism of the global economic system to analyze this complexity ib scholars have developed four research lenses difference distance diversity and disparity these four lenses on complexity have created not only unique research opportunities for ib scholarship but also unique research methodological challenges we therefore view complexity as the underlying cause of the unique methodological challenges facing international business research we offer several recommendations to help ib scholars embrace this complexity and conduct reliable interesting and practically relevant research

the internationalization of new and small firms a resource based view abstract this paper seeks to enhance understanding of the internationalization of small and medium sized enterprises smes the study focuses upon the following issues can the characteristics of principal founders businesses and the external environment at one point in time be used to explain at a later date whether a firm is still an exporter or a nonexporter whether exporting firms are larger in size than nonexporting firms whether exporting firms report superior performance than nonexporting firms and whether exporting firms are more likely to survive than nonexporting firms to address these questions this study draws upon a sample of 621 manufacturing construction and services businesses located in twelve contrasting environments in great britain surveyed first in 1990 91 and then re interviewed in 1997 a resource based view is reviewed to identify the range of factors encouraging some owner managed smes to enter export markets four categories of human and financial capital are examined general human capital resources the principal founder s management know how the principal founder s specific industry know how and a principal founder s ability to obtain financial resources that can act as a buffer against random shocks variables relating to resource availability in the external environment were also collected and considered control variables previous studies have highlighted substantial industry differences in the propensity for businesses to enter export markets as well as to survive the principal industrial activity of each business in 1990 91 was therefore considered a control variable variables collected during the 1990 91 survey were selected to explain variations in the propensity to export reported by surviving independent firms in 1997 after elimination of missing values the working sample was reduced to 116 independent firms for this study 86 nonexporters and 30 exporters in 1997 in addition the 21 variables were selected to explain variations in business size in 1997 profit performance relative to competitors reported in 1997 changes in employment over the 1990 91 to 1997 period and business survival over the 1990 91 to 1997 period 213 survivors and 395 nonsurvivors multivariate statistical analysis confirmed that previous experience of selling goods or services abroad is a key influence encouraging firms to export businesses with older principal founders with more resources denser information and contact networks and considerable management know how are significantly more likely to be exporters further businesses with principal founders that had considerable industry specific knowledge are markedly more likely to be exporters businesses principally engaged in the service sectors and those located in urban areas are significantly less likely to be exporters a key finding of this study is that the explanatory variables significantly associated with the propensity to export sales abroad are not the same as those significantly associated with selected size and performance measures the resource based explanatory variables selected fail to significantly detect employment growing firms over the 1990 91 to 1997 period they also fail to significantly distinguish surviving independent firms from nonsurviving firms results from this study will provide policy makers and practitioners with additional insights into the key resource based factors associated with the decision by new and small independent firms to export sales abroad practitioners and policy makers can focus upon the characteristics of principal founders businesses and the external environment to predict the subsequent propensity of an independent firm to be an exporter policy makers and practitioners who want more new and small firms to export outside their local areas may prefer to target their resources and assistance to the relatively smaller proportion of firms that have the business and principal founder profiles that are significantly associated with a firm being an exporter

explaining the formation of international new ventures the limits of theories from international business research abstract international new ventures invs represent a growing and important type of start up an inv is defined as a business organization that from inception seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries oviatt and mcdougall 1994 their increasing prevalence and important role in international competition indicates a need for greater understanding of these new ventures oviatt and mcdougall 1994 logitech as described in a case study by alahuhta 1990 is a vivid example of an inv its founders were from two different countries and had a global vision for the company from its inception the venture which produces peripheral devices for personal computers established headquarters in both switzerland and the u s manufacturing and r d were split between the u s and switzerland and then quickly spread to taiwan and ireland the venture s first commercial contract was with a japanese company using 24 case studies of invs we found that their formation process is not explained by existing theories from the field of international business specifically neither monopolistic advantage theory product cycle theory stage theory of internationalization oligopolistic reaction theory nor internalization theory can explain the formation process of invs these theories fail because they assume that firms become international long after they have been formed and they therefore highlight large mature firms they also focus too much on the firm level and largely ignore the individual and small group level of analysis i e the entrepreneur and his or her network of business alliances we propose that an explanation for the formation process of invs must answer three questions 1 who are the founders of invs 2 why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries and 3 what form do their international business activities take who are the founders of invs we argue that founders of invs are individuals who see opportunities from establishing ventures that operate across national borders they are alert to the possibilities of combining resources from different national markets because of the competencies networks knowledge and background that they have developed from their earlier activities following the logic of the resource based view of the firm we argue that the possession of these competencies is not matched by other entrepreneurs only the entrepreneur possessing these competencies is able to combine a particular set of resources across national borders and form a given inv why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries the founders of invs recognize they must create international business competencies from the time of venture formation otherwise the venture may become path dependent on the development of domestic competencies and the entrepreneur will find it difficult to change strategic direction when international expansion eventually becomes necessary as the founder of one inv explained the advantage of starting internationally is that you establish an international spirit from the very beginning mamis 1989 38 what form do their international business activities take founders of invs prefer to use hybrid structures i e strategic alliances and networks for their international activities as a way to overcome the usual poverty of resources at the time of start up this study has important implications for the practice of management in financing decisions relating to invs venture capitalists and other venture financiers should look for entrepreneurs who have a global vision international business competence and an established international network when entrepreneurs start invs they should create hybrid structures to preserve scarce resources finally given the path dependence of competence development founders of new ventures should consider whether establishing a domestic new venture with plans to later internationalize will be as successful a strategy as establishing a new venture that is international from inception

export pricing flexible exchange rates and divergence in the prices of traded goods abstract a model of firm pricing where customers adjust slowly to price differences is extended to an exporting firm under flexible exchange rates the foreign currency price the firm sets determines both current net revenue and the rate of investment in market share real exchange rate changes lead to price revisions but the protracted adjustment of customers prompts a smaller price response to transitory changes in the real exchange rate the model accounts for observed variations in traded goods prices across countries and the failure of exporting firms to pass through exchange rate changes but in contrast to static models does not predict frequent reallocation of traded goods production

bringing economic opportunity into line with environmental influence a discussion on the coase theorem and the porter and van der linde hypothesis environmental concerns and tightened environmental policy parameters have been associated with the notion of additional costs of compliance rather than with innovation and sustainability the contrary has also been suggested claiming that strict environmental legislation merely serves as a catalyst for firms to retain obvious economic and environmental mutual gains so called win wins laying around waiting to be collected such implications can be seen from the porter and van der linde writings heavily criticised by palmer et al as being built on faulty examples this paper supports that conclusion and uses property rights and transactions costs theories to find private incentives to explore the win wins for those actors who have the largest potentials to diminish the pressure on our environment by applying the coase theorem emphasising transaction costs and property rights this paper argues that strong public support is needed to create private incentives for exploring economic and environmental win win innovations the public support suggested is to a extend producer responsibilities where the same costs which may be neglected by the end consumers will if transferred to the design owner be viewed as a production cost and to b enforce environmental public procurement both may be combined with a support to c actors such as non governmental organisations and consumer agencies positioning themselves as information bridges by informing the consumers the negative effects of asymmetric information among actors can thereby be diminished as well as the low interest to primarily care for the environment among common consumers

the network dynamics of international new ventures this study uses multi site case research to advance a set of propositions regarding the network dynamics of early stage international new ventures the investigative approach builds on arguments that network theory and analysis are fundamental to international entrepreneurship in the spirit of cross disciplinary research perspectives from the entrepreneurship literature are embraced to help inform our understanding of international new venture networks

no place like home the effect of exporting to the country of origin on the financial performance of immigrant owned smes immigrants and sustained international migration are transforming developed western countries at an unprecedented pace and scale sustained international migration is also further accentuating the already dominant presence of immigrant entrepreneurs in the international business landscape these immigrant entrepreneurs often operate small and medium sized enterprises smes that primarily export to their country of origin however conflicting findings suggest theoretical ambiguity in how the level of country of origin export intensity influences the smes financial performance adopting a contingent perspective we theorize how and when socially embedded immigrant owners derive superior performance from high country of origin export intensity based on a sample of 2584 immigrant owned smes and 6391 firm year observations we find that smes led by immigrant owners with longer stays in their country of residence and whose country of origin is geographically proximate to their country of residence generate superior financial performance from high country of origin export intensity these findings are consistent with the view that immigrant entrepreneurs international financial success is a function of network and cognition based advantages linked to their level of concurrent embeddedness in their countries of residence and origin we also provide actionable insights for immigrant entrepreneurs and for policy makers tasked to design suitable export promotion programs

the born global firm an entrepreneurial and capabilities perspective on early and rapid internationalization our 2004 journal of international business studies article innovation organizational capabilities and the born global firm provided a framework for the phenomenon of early and rapid internationalization among young entrepreneurial firms this work can be characterized as an integration of marketing entrepreneurial and capability based thinking around exporting positioned as the born global exporter the article also reported findings from a national study of start up firms that expanded abroad early in their evolution in the present commentary we reflect on the contributions of the 2004 article review the scholarship on the topic over the past decade and offer suggestions for future inquiry while the incidence of early internationalization by firms was a novel concept two decades ago today such firms are found in abundance in many countries yet many unresolved research questions remain including the crucial topic of what happens to born global firms as they grow and mature over time similarly the issue of why some firms internationalize early others late in their evolution and still others choose to remain local is a fundamental question for international business scholarship

the end of the opportunism vs trust debate bounded reliability as a new envelope concept in research on mne governance modern transaction cost economics tce thinking has developed into a key intellectual foundation of international business ib research but the williamsonian version has faced substantial criticism for adopting the behavioral assumption of opportunism in this paper we assess both the opportunism concept and existing alternatives such as trust within the context of ib research especially work on multinational enterprise mne governance case analyses of nine global mnes illustrate an alternative to the opportunism assumption that captures more fully the mechanisms underlying failed commitments inside the mne as a substitute for the often criticized assumption of opportunism we propose the envelope concept of bounded reliability brel an assumption that represents more accurately and more completely the reasons for failed commitments without invalidating the other critical assumption in conventional tce and internalization theory thinking namely the widely accepted envelope concept of bounded rationality brat bounded reliability as an envelope concept includes two main components within the context of global mne management opportunism as intentional deceit and benevolent preference reversal the implications for ib research of adopting the bounded reliability concept are far reaching as this concept may increase the legitimacy of comparative institutional analysis in the social sciences

the influence of the management team s international experience on the internationalization behaviors of smes why are some small and medium sized enterprises smes more successful in selling outside their domestic markets than are other smes in the same industry although the traditional explanation is that firms can gain valuable knowledge and resources as they become older and larger small and young firms are not necessarily disadvantaged if they develop other mechanisms to acquire the requisite knowledge and resources we examine the role of the management team s international experience as such a mechanism for the internationalization of canadian software product firms we show that internationally experienced management teams have a greater propensity to develop foreign strategic partners and to delay less in obtaining foreign sales after start up and that these behaviors are associated with a higher degree of internationalization

mne sme cooperation an integrative framework although international business scholars have begun to recognize the division of entrepreneurial labor between mnes and smes there is a fragmented understanding of the different forms mne sme cooperation can take we develop a typology that takes into account not only complementarity of capabilities but also crucially the compatibility of intent between mnes exploration vs exploitation and smes international vs domestic orientation the framework offers a novel way to understand the forms and dynamics of mne sme cooperation we also show how it can be applied more broadly by considering its application to societal challenges such as achieving the united nations sustainable development goals

innovation organizational capabilities and the born global firm we investigate born global firms as early adopters of internationalization that is companies that expand into foreign markets and exhibit international business prowess and superior performance from or near their founding our explication highlights the critical role of innovative culture as well as knowledge and capabilities in this unique breed of international entrepreneurial firm case studies are analyzed to better understand the early internationalization phenomenon and reveal key orientations and strategies that engender international success among these innovative firms case findings are then validated in a survey based study despite the scarce resources typical of young firms our findings reveal that born global firms leverage a distinctive mix of orientations and strategies that allow them to succeed in diverse international markets findings have important implications for the internationalization of contemporary firms

limits to substitution and irreversibility in production and consumption a neoclassical interpretation of ecological economics abstract there are many methodological approaches within ecological economics one of the principal modes of analysis is a modified version of the standard neoclassical model this paper examines the parallels which emerge between the ideas of some ecological economists concerning production and the ideas of others concerning consumption when these ideas are interpreted in the neoclassical paradigm it is well known that ecological economics is characterized by arguments concerning limits to substitution between inputs energy natural capital etc vs manufactured capital labor etc in production and the implications these have for sustainability however various authors have also expressed concerns regarding limits to substitution in consumption either between environmental assets and other goods or between basic needs commodities and other goods though the specific reasons for non substitution are different in the production and consumption cases the underlying theme is that individual commodities and other inputs have unique physical or other properties which make them poor substitutes ideas about irreversibility in production and economic development are also prominent in ecological economics likewise many authors have argued for similar irreversibilities in consumption behavior in analogy to the term technological change i coin the term preferential change to describe these phenomena the linking themes in this case are that the economy environment system is evolutionary in character and that external effects intended and unintended consequences of actions or processes imposed on other parties or resources are all pervasive

exchange rates and prices the adjustment of relative prices to exchange rate movements is explained in an industrial organization approach given labor costs in the respective currencies exchange rate movements change costs for firms selling in the home market and thus disturb the industry equilibrium the extent of absolute and relative price adjustment is shown to depend on market integration product substitutability the relative number of domestic and foreign firms and the market structure the impact of exchange rates on prices is illustrated in a variety of approaches including the cournot a dixit and j stiglitz 1977 and s salop 1979 models some empirical evidence is offered in support of the theory copyright 1987 by american economic association