what drives corporate social performance the role of nation level institutions based on whitley s national business systems nbs institutional framework we theorize about and empirically investigate the impact of nation level institutions on firms corporate social performance csp using a sample of firms from 42 countries spanning seven years we construct an annual composite csp index for each firm based on social and environmental metrics we find that the political system followed by the labor and education system and the cultural system are the most important nbs categories of institutions that impact csp interestingly the financial system appears to have a relatively less significant impact we discuss implications for research practice and policymaking

the road to growth measuring the tradeoffs between economic growth and ecological destruction summary roads bring significant economic benefits that are vital for development but they are often also the precursors to deforestation and other adverse environmental impacts this paper examines the road induced tradeoffs between economic growth deforestation and biodiversity loss in the democratic republic of congo drc decades of conflict have left the drc s transport infrastructure among the sparsest and most dilapidated in the world most of the provincial capitals are unconnected to the capital city and improving road connectivity could lead to a significant boost in trade and economic growth at the same time the drc is also home to the second largest rainforest in the world the iconic congo forests are a trove of ecological value some monetizable and most that is not so the destruction of the drc s forests will have significant environmental ramifications we provide empirical estimates of the economic benefits of improving market access and reducing transportation costs we then estimate a forest destruction function to assess the impact that new or improved roads have on forest clearing in addition a novel biodiversity index is developed to identify forests of high biodiversity significance two simulations are performed to quantitatively demonstrate the impacts of road improvement projects in terms of increased gdp forest loss and biodiversity that are put at risk to our knowledge this is the first study to jointly examine the economic benefits and ecological risks to infrastructure investments it is envisioned that the methods employed here can be used to guide future infrastructure investments toward designs which have a large economic impact while minimizing ecological risks

the nature of economic development abstract economic development has been associated with a sustained increase in real per capita gdp over fairly long periods of time such growth rates have been associated with the phenomenon of structural transformation both among the european leaders and the late comers among the developing countries equally compelling though less pervasive has been an essentially harmonious relationship between the growth of per capita gdp macroeconomic stability and a better distribution of income moreover the incidence of poverty has sharply decreased while the leading indicators of human development have recorded a significant improvement wherever per capita income has increased rapidly this property of economic development christened as orderly transformation in this paper is one of the most outstanding stylized facts of economic development and it has been most evident among countries where growth of per capita income has been in excess of 3 per annum

breaking the wave the contested legitimation of an alien organizational form organizational forms imbued with values of modernity that is rationality efficiency and equity diffuse rapidly around the world nonetheless when sustained by beliefs norms and regulations contrasting with those prevalent in the receiving country their adoption may be delayed and within country legitimation may not proceed smoothly we study the diffusion of multiplex cinemas a form conceived in the us and attuned to the cinema as commerce logic across europe where the cinema as art logic prevails our findings reveal that the cultural meanings embodied by multiplexes shaped the founding rates of this organizational form in three ways first countries with larger normative and regulative distance from the us retarded the adoption of the first multiplex second camouflaged entries and at increasing density opposition from local interest groups were observed third the embodiment of global cultural scripts of progress and modernity allowed multiplexes to overcome local opposition the normative distance of the country from the us amplified the fluctuating dynamics of within country legitimacy a new specification of density dependent legitimation is presented to model the cultural cognitive legitimacy of rationalized but alien organizational forms

sales location among semi subsistence cassava farmers in benin a heteroskedastic double selection model in much of rural africa high transaction costs limit farmers market participation and thus their potential for income growth transaction costs can affect not only whether a farmer sells product but also whether sales occur at the farm gate or at a market if production behavior is related to a chosen sales location then analysis of interventions can be improved by explicit consideration of the decision of where to sell this article develops a double selection model that explains consumption and production decisions by semi subsistence farmers who first decide whether to be a seller and then whether to sell at the farm gate or at an off farm location before deciding on production and consumption the study tests the validity of this dual criteria model against a single criterion model in which a grower first decides to be a seller and then decides production consumption and sales location simultaneously the results suggest that the dual criteria model provides more information than the single criterion model using a sample of cassava producer in benin

the paradoxes of the successful state abstract three issues are discussed in this paper first i argue that it is impossible to understand the east asian growth miracle without appreciating the importtant role that government policy played in stimulating private investment second i will summarize some of my work on the determinants of policy effectiveness based on a cross country comparison of export subsidy regimes and show that the usual rules of thumb on what makes for good policy uniformity transparency non selectivity etc are quite useless in predicting which policy regimes perform better in practice third i will provide some evidence that the government s social insurance role creates a complementarity between states and markets these three sets of ideas yield a more balanced and nuanced view of the role of the state in economic development than has recently become commonplace

adam smith s theory of knowledge and international business theory and practice this paper demonstrates that adam smith s insights and reasoning can improve the theory of international business and shed light on its academic practices smith was a system builder his theory of knowledge underpinned his entire oeuvre and understanding his systematic approach can help current international business to achieve a similarly coherent body of theory smith s approach sheds direct light on decision making in multinational enterprises and on cultural distance the liability of foreignness combining these two areas yields new smithian insights into multinational enterprises from emerging countries

many roads lead to rome implications of geographic scope as a source of isolating mechanisms studies examining the competitive implications of geographic scope have largely focused on creating competitive advantage in an attempt to investigate a less illuminated role of geographic scope that of sustaining competitive advantage this paper investigates the sources of and relationships among the causal factors leading to creation of isolating mechanisms or barriers to imitation this paper first distinguishes two sources of causal factors linked to the creation of isolating mechanisms intrinsic characteristics of knowledge and geographic scope of knowledge acquisition and then investigates the relationships among the causal factors from the two sources employing the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method this paper examines equifinality and functional equivalence of causal factors from the two sources empirical analyses with united states patent and trademark office patent data of the semiconductor industry corroborate the main thesis of the paper that multiple paths can lead to the creation of isolating mechanisms and in these paths causal factors from the two sources of isolating mechanisms can be functionally equivalent the results also provide managerial implications that firms with different sets of resources and capabilities can implement different types of isolating strategies to sustain their competitive advantage

learning by doing and learning from others human capital and technical change in agriculture household level panel data from a nationally representative sample of rural indian households describing the adoption and profitability of high yielding seed varieties hyvs associated with the green revolution are used to test the implications of a model incorporating learning by doing and learning spillovers the estimates indicate that i imperfect knowledge about the management of the new seeds was a significant barrier to adoption ii this barrier diminished as farmer experience with the new technologies increased iii own experience and neighbors experience with hyvs significantly increased hyv profitability and iv farmers do not fully incorporate the village returns to learning in making adoption decisions

fertilizer use risk and off farm labor markets in the semi arid tropics of india a two period model is developed in which a risk averse farmer uses off farm labor to smooth consumption leading to greater use of fertilizer fertilizer demand is shown to increase with the depth of the off farm labor market controlling for exogenous weather risk farmers use more fertilizer the lower the unemployment rate and the higher the share of nonagricultural work in total off farm labor the results suggest that off farm labor markets and own farm production may be complementary in risky production environments so that policies which promote the depth of the off farm labor market in low income areas may also bolster farm productivity copyright 2003 oxford university press

stock rationing in an m ek 1 make to stock queue this paper considers the stock rationing problem of a single item make to stock production system with several demand classes and lost sales when demand is poisson and processing time has an erlang distribution we show that a single state variable called work storage level can be employed to completely capture the information regarding inventory level and the status of current production the optimal rationing policy can be characterized by a sequence of monotone critical work storage levels for each demand class there exists a work storage level at or below which it is optimal to start rejecting the demand of this class in anticipation of future arrival of higher priority demands the optimal production policy can also be characterized by a critical work storage level our numerical examples indicate that a critical stock level policy which ignores information on the status of current production performs very well

economic lot sizing with learning and continuous time discounting is it significant abstract learning curves are a means of representing continuous improvement in firms such improvements bring savings in production costs this may also allow smaller batches to be produced more frequently and hence bring further savings in holding costs earlier research advocated that for more realistic modelling of inventory problems the holding cost should be evaluated means of the internal discount rate of the firm c van deft j p vail international journal of production economics 44 1996 255 265 this paper examines whether when learning is considered it is reasonable to ignore the effect of continuous time discounting of costs by investigating the effect of learning and time discounting both on the economic manufacturing quantity and minimum total inventory cost numerical examples are provided to illustrate the solution procedure for the mathematical model developed although the analysis yields different economic order quantities the difference in cost from the quantities derived using wilson lot size formula is not significant

how well do supranational regional grouping schemes fit international business research models international business ib research has long acknowledged the importance of supranational regional factors in building models to explain phenomena such as where multinational corporations mncs choose to locate yet criteria for defining regions based on similar factors vary substantially thus undermining consensus regarding which regional grouping schemes fit ib research models better in response we develop and empirically validate a theory of comparative regional scheme assessment for model building purposes assuming that 1 schemes can be classified based on their source of similarity and 2 schemes within the same similarity class can be assessed for their structural coherence based on group contiguity and compactness schemes with better structural coherence will also exhibit better fit with ib research models we document support for our theory in comparative analyses of regional schemes used to explain where us based mncs locate operations around the world geography culture and trade and investment based schemes with better structural coherence exhibit better initial fit with mnc location models and less change in fit after modest scheme refinement using a simulated annealing optimization algorithm our approach provides criteria for comparing similar regional grouping schemes and identifying best in class schemes tailored to models of mnc location choice and other ib research models

optimal lot sizing in an imperfect production system with homogeneous reworkable jobs abstract we consider a lot sizing problem in a single stage imperfect production system where the job processing is failure prone the processing may generate two types of defects 1 reworkable defects which must be sent back for rework 2 nonreworkable defects which are discarded immediately the production process will switch between new jobs and rework jobs both new job processing time and rework time are random we discuss the optimal lot sizing control under a class of operating policies to maximize the average profit over an infinite time horizon we establish the existence of an optimal lot size furthermore we characterize the profit function through the discussion we obtain a very efficient algorithm for determining an optimal lot size

production and replacement policies for a deteriorating manufacturing system under random demand and quality abstract this work investigates the production planning of an unreliable deteriorating manufacturing system under uncertainties the effect of the deterioration phenomenon on the machine is mainly observed in its availability and the quality of the parts produced with the rates of failure and defectives increasing with the age of the machine the option to replace the machine should be considered to mitigate the effect of deterioration in order to ensure long term satisfaction of demand the objective of this paper is to find the production rate and the replacement policy that minimize the total discounted cost which includes inventory backlog production repair and replacement costs over an infinite planning horizon we formulate the stochastic control problem in the framework of a semi markov decision process to consider the machine s history the integration of random demand and quality behaviour led us to propose a new modeling approach by developing optimality conditions in terms of a second order approximation of hamilton jacobi bellman hjb equations numerical methods are used to obtain the optimal control policies finally a numerical example and a sensitivity analysis are presented in order to illustrate and confirm the structure of the optimal solution obtained

the purchasing power parity debate originally propounded by the 16th century scholars of the university of salamanca the concept of purchasing power parity ppp was revived in the interwar period in the context of the debate concerning the appropriate level at which to re establish international exchange rate parities broadly accepted as a long run equilibrium condition in the post war period it first was advocated as a short run equilibrium by many international economists in the first few years following the breakdown of the bretton woods system in the early 1970s and then increasingly came under attack on both theoretical and empirical grounds from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s accordingly over the last three decades a large literature has built up that examines how much the data deviated from theory and the fruits of this research have provided a deeper understanding of how well ppp applies in both the short run and the long run since the mid 1990s larger datasets and nonlinear econometric methods in particular have improved estimation as deviations narrowed between real exchange rates and ppp so did the gap narrow between theory and data and some degree of confidence in long run ppp began to emerge again in this respect the idea of long run ppp now enjoys perhaps its strongest support in more than 30 years a distinct reversion in economic thought

a selectivity model of household food marketing behavior in sub saharan africa the agricultural household s discrete decision of whether to participate in coarse grain markets is separated here from the continuous decision of how much to sell or buy conditional on participation failure to participate in markets results from high fixed transactions costs a selectivity model endogenously switches households into alternative market participation states correcting for bias caused by the exclusion of unobservable variables affecting both discrete and continuous decisions improved market information increases the probability of participation by sellers while access to cereals processing technology increases quantities transacted by both sellers and buyers conditional on participation

economic ordering quantity models for items with imperfect quality abstract in this paper we first look at the issue of non shortages in models with proportional imperfect quality when the proportion of the imperfects is a random variable more specifically we revisit the papers of salameh and jaber int j prod econom 64 2000 59 and chan et al prod plann control 14 2003 588 and we point out that the sufficient conditions given in these papers to ensure that shortages will not occur may not really prevent their occurrence next considering the timing of withdrawing the imperfect quality items from stock we clarify a point not clearly stated in salameh and jaber int j prod econom 64 2000 59 and we extented this model to the case in which withdrawing takes place at the end of the planning horizon finally we establish that the objective of maximizing the mean average profit which was set in salameh and jaber int j prod econom 64 2000 59 is superfluous and the results given there can be obtained by ignoring the revenue issues assumed in the model and minimizing directly the mean average cost

the construct of institutional distance through the lens of different institutional perspectives review analysis and recommendations this paper presents a review and critique of the 20 year old literature on institutional distance which has greatly proliferated we start with a discussion of the three institutional perspectives that have served as a theoretical foundation for this construct organizational institutionalism institutional economics and comparative institutionalism we use this as an organizing framework to describe the different ways in which institutional distance has been conceptualized and measured and to analyze the most common organizational outcomes that have been linked to institutional distance as well as the proposed explanatory mechanisms of those effects we substantiate our qualitative review with a meta analysis which synthesizes the main findings in this area of research building on our review and previous critical work we note key ambiguities in the institutional distance literature related to underlying theoretical perspectives and associated mechanisms distance versus profile effects and measurement we conclude with actionable recommendations for improving institutional distance research

analysis of a production inventory system subject to random disruptions in this paper we study an unreliable bottleneck production inventory system with a constant production and demand rate that is subject to random disruptions we assume that the restoration times are constant the time between breakdowns is exponential the production setup cost and or setup time is positive and excess demand is backordered we propose an s s production policy for such systems and develop expressions for the operating characteristics of the system the properties of the policy parameters that minimize the expected total cost rate are investigated and a procedure for finding their optimal values is developed in addition we devise and test a simple heuristic procedure for finding near optimal production policies the results of a numerical experiment suggest that i setup cost reduction is more effective in reducing total operating cost when the production system is more reliable ii setup cost reduction in unreliable production systems results in higher optimal safety stock level and iii proper determination of the safety stock levels is extremely important in just in time systems which are susceptible to disruptions

perishable inventory theory a review this paper reviews the relevant literature on the problem of determining suitable ordering policies for both fixed life perishable inventory and inventory subject to continuous exponential decay we consider both deterministic and stochastic demand for single and multiple products both optimal and sub optimal order policies are discussed in addition a brief review of the application of these models to blood bank management is included the review concludes with a discussion of some of the interesting open research questions in the area

learning about a new technology pineapple in ghana this paper investigates the role of social learning in the diffusion of a new agri cultural technology in ghana we use unique data on farmers communication patterns to define each individual s information neighborhood conditional on many potentially confounding variables we find evidence that farmers adjust their inputs to align with those of their information neighbors who were surpris ingly successful in previous periods the relationship of these input adjustments to experience further indicates the presence of social learning in addition applying the same method to input choices for another crop of known technol ogy correctly indicates an absence of social learning effects jel d83 013 033 q16

how endowments accumulations and choice determine the geography of agricultural productivity in ecuador spatial disparity in incomes and productivity is apparent across and within countries most studies of the determinants of such differences focus on cross country comparisons or location choice among firms less studied are the large differences in agricultural productivity within countries related to concentrations of rural poverty for policy understanding the determinants of this geography of agricultural productivity is important because strategies to reduce poverty often feature components designed to boost regional agricultural incomes census and endowment data for ecuador are used to estimate a model of endogenous technology choice to explain large regional differences in agricultural output and factor productivity a composite error estimation technique is used to separate systemic determinants from idiosyncratic differences simulations are employed to explore policy avenues the findings suggest a differentiation between the types of policies that promote growth in agriculture generally and those that are more likely to assist the rural poor

production planning and pricing policy in a make to stock system with uncertain demand subject to machine breakdowns abstract we consider a make to stock system served by an unreliable machine that produces one type of product which is sold to customers at one of two possible prices depending on the inventory level at the time when a customer arrives i e the decision point the system manager must determine the production level and selling price at each decision point we first show that the optimal production and pricing policy is a threshold control which is characterized by three threshold parameters under both the long run discounted profit and long run average profit criteria we then establish the structural relationships among the three threshold parameters that production is off when inventory is above the threshold and that the optimal selling price should be low when inventory is above the threshold under the scenario where the machine is down or up finally we provide some numerical examples to illustrate the analytical results and gain additional insights

comparing capitalisms and taking institutional context seriously a major limitation of existing international business ib research remains the rather thin view of institutional context in this retrospective we reflect upon and highlight different strategies for overcoming de contextualized perspectives and developing thicker conceptions of institutions drawing on comparative research institutions shape firm behavior not only through their direct or additive effects but have more complex influences by moderating relationships between firm level variables or having interactive or configurational effects related to wider sets of institutions these views can each be extended by adopting a dynamic perspective examining how multinational enterprise mne agency contributes to processes of institutional change ultimately a large gap remains in taking institutions seriously that ib scholars could fill by developing middle range theories that link and compare how particular kinds of institutions or institutional configurations influence particular kinds of mne activities

animal health inputs endogenous risk general infrastructure technology adoption and industrialized animal agriculture abstract this paper develops a microeconomic model of concentrated animal feeding operations that admits roles for all of animal health inputs genetic profile choices and the pertaining economic infrastructure the basic model emphasizes how time on feed feed density and biosecurity choices interact as well as how these choices respond to i input prices and ii attributes regarding animal productivity parameters that might be influenced by policy choices such as animal welfare strictures and restraints on use of medication we show that ostensibly substituting inputs in protecting against animal health risks may in fact be complements and that the model s production choices come as a complementary package we then extend the model to endogenize the choice of animal genetics a finding is that innovations in general infrastructure encourage herd owners to choose more feed efficient but less hardy animals higher feed conversion efficiency then induces the use of denser feed rations accelerated finishing and greater levels of biosecurity actions at farm perimeters our theory provides a coherent framework for explaining associations among inputs and outcomes that are linked with confined animal agriculture it also explains how animal protein supply chain technology adoption and performance can differ according to a region s state of infrastructure why responses to a change in infrastructure may be large and why public sector efforts to reduce production risk may beget private sector effort to do so

applying the maximum npv rule with discounted growth factors to a flexible production scale model this study examines the maximum net present value of the market entry and exit thresholds derived by the traditional net present value method and combines the real options approach for the project investment or disinvestment the discounted and growth factors are incorporated into the proposed entry and exit models facilitating the complicated calculations required to identify the discounted and growth rates so as to assess and determine the expected present value of uncertain cash flow streams consequently this investigation successfully combines applying the maximum net present value method and the real options approach to decision making with the simple consideration of the discounted and growth factors in the flexible production scale model

mapping the institutional capital of high tech firms a fuzzy set analysis of capitalist variety and export performance we examine how institutional configurations not single institutions provide companies with institutional capital building on the varieties of capitalism approach it is argued that competitive advantage in high tech industries with radical innovation may be supported by combinations of certain institutional conditions lax employment protection weak collective bargaining coverage extensive university training little occupational training and a large stock market furthermore multinational enterprises engage in institutional arbitrage they allocate their activities so as to benefit from available institutional capital these hypotheses are tested on country level data for 19 oecd economies in the period 1990 to 2003 a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis yields several interesting findings a high share of university graduates and a large stock market are complementary institutions leading to strong export performance in high tech employment protection is neither conducive nor harmful to export performance in high tech a high volume of cross border mergers and acquisitions as a form of institutional arbitrage leading to knowledge flows acts as a functional equivalent to institutions that support knowledge production in the home economy implications of these findings for theory policy and the analysis of firm level behavior are developed

culture meaning and institutions executive rationale in germany and japan this paper contributes rare primary empirical evidence to one of the major research questions in the social sciences today namely the linkage between national cultures and institutional structures of national business systems drawing on the work of redding we explore the thinking or rationale of senior executives of leading german and japanese firms about the ideal structure of the economy we find considerable variation in rationale across the two countries and in comparison with the shape of the business system of the united states our study has implications for our understanding of the meaning of economic activity in different countries and of the evolutionary trajectories of national business systems

an evolutionary approach to understanding international business activity the co evolution of mnes and the institutional environment this paper examines the co evolution of mne activities and institutions external and internal to the firm we develop a theoretical framework for this analysis that draws on the more recent writings of douglass north on institutions as a response to complex forms of uncertainty associated with the rise in global economic interconnectedness and of richard nelson on the co evolution of technology and institutions we link historical changes in the character of mne activities to changes in the institutional environment and highlight the scope for firm level creativity and institutional entrepreneurship that may lead to co evolution with the environment we argue that the main drivers for institutional entrepreneurship are now found in the increasing autonomy of mne subsidiaries thus mne agency derives from more decentralized forms of experimentation in international corporate networks which competence creating nodes of new initiatives can co evolve with local institutions unlike most other streams of related literature our approach connects patterns of institutional change in wider business systems with more micro processes of variety generation and experimentation within and across individual firms this form of co evolutionary analysis is increasingly important to understanding the interrelationships between mne activities and public policy

the thick description and comparison of societal systems of capitalism critiques of international business theory have recently pointed to weaknesses in the handling of context of culture and of policy implications it is contended that the origins of such failings lie in the discipline s commonly accepted methodologies and in turn that they have epistemological roots as a route out of the dilemmas faced a proposal is made to adopt more complete ways of handling determinacy including the influences of history culture and the societal emergence of institutions business systems theory is drawn upon and a model proposed developed from the work of whitley in this culture is seen as underpinning formal institutions which in turn underpin societal business systems the use of the model relies on the ideas of geertz on thick description and of ragin on holistic analysis it is illustrated with a comparison of the american and french socio economic systems seen historically findings in strategy research about the geographically defined nature of firm supremacy in many industries are brought into the account using the business systems literature consistent patterns of determinacy as well as distinct and contrasting trajectories of business system evolution are noted a more complete and multidisciplinary form of explanation grounded in socio economics is advocated as a means of meeting the challenges both of understanding and of policymaking at several levels

transactions costs and agricultural household supply response we develop and estimate a model of supply response when transactions costs create a situation where some producers buy others sell and others do not participate in markets we present two rationales for why producing households may have different relationships to the market proportional and fixed transactions costs using data on mexican corn producers we estimate an empirical model that allows for separate tests of the significance of both types of transactions costs revealing that both fixed and proportional transactions costs matter for the estimation the results provide consistent estimates of supply elasticity and measures of the relative importance of factors determining both proportional and fixed transactions costs

an ordered tobit model of market participation evidence from kenya and ethiopia do rural households in developing countries make market participation and volume decisions simultaneously or sequentially this article develops a two stage econometric method to test between these two competing hypotheses regarding household level marketing behavior the first stage models the household s choice of whether to be a net buyer autarkic or a net seller in the market the second stage models the quantity bought sold for net buyers sellers based on observable household characteristics using household data from kenyan and ethiopian livestock markets we find evidence in favor of sequential decision making the welfare implications of which we discuss

the structural reshaping of globalization implications for strategic sectors profiting from innovation and the multinational enterprise the rapid reshaping of the global economic order requires fundamental shifts in international business scholarship and management practice new forms of protectionist policies new types of internationalization motives and new tools of techno nationalism may lead to what we call bifurcated governance at the macro level and value chain decoupling at the micro level as a result innovation networks will require novel reconfigurations we examine the emerging constraints on multinational enterprises imposed by a bifurcated world order we also discuss how the dynamic capabilities framework can guide scholars and managers alike to achieve new forms of evolutionary fitness

institutions and inflows of foreign direct investment a fuzzy set analysis this study addresses the essential question of causal complexity and diversity related to the influence of institutions on the direct investments fdi of multinational enterprises using a relatively new methodological approach of fuzzy set analysis and 47 host countries from the period 1999 to 2003 the paper analyses how and why countries with different degrees of membership in different institutional constraints either attract or do not attract fdi the findings show that institutional factors have diverse influences similar institutions may even be associated with different outcomes if different regional categories of countries are examined countries may neither be attractive nor unattractive owing to the presence or absence of a single institutional factor instead the outcome usually results from a combination of institutional conditions moreover there typically are several possible paths to a specific outcome the study confirms some of the propositions of previous theory but most importantly it explains why earlier research has provided conflicting conclusions related to institutional factors the study also offers an approach for future international business research to apply fuzzy set methods and develop mid range theories

identifying the big question in international business research buckley 2002 argues that the international business ib research agenda may be running out of steam because no big research question has currently been identified buckley also asks whether the field needs a big question and if so challenges ib scholars to discover it buckley and ghauri 2004 elaborate on the third question of globalization discussed in buckley 2002 as a possible candidate for the big question in response this article is written to take up buckley s challenge and also to comment on buckley and ghauri s more recent work i agree that ib needs a big question the pursuit of which can serve to unite and energize scholars make scientific progress and enhance the status and prestige of the field toward that end i argue that what determines the international success and failure of firms has always served as a fundamental research question which has permeated ib research in the past and present and is likely to propel its progress in the future therefore i am of the opinion that the ib research agenda is not likely to run out of steam because focusing on this question will leverage ib s comparative advantage and keep the field engaged in generating exciting and disciplined theories and findings in the 21st century

national context and individual employees trust of the out group the role of societal trust out group trust is a crucial driver of international business performance however employees from different countries vary in their levels of out group trust the aim of this study is therefore to capture national forces driving out group trust based on kramer s theorizing on the multiple bases of trust we argue that at the societal level dispositional categorization based and rule based trust influence employees out group trust in particular we argue for dispositional and rule based societal trust to increase and for categorization based societal trust to decrease employees out group trust through different types of socialization using data on 25 622 employees from 42 countries we find partial support for the coexistence of these bases of societal trust disentangling trust forming and trust impeding models we find support for dispositional and rule based societal trust as drivers of employees out group trust and for categorization based societal trust as impeding employees out group trust in a combined model however rule based trust is not significantly related to employees out group trust considering the coexistence of trust and distrust employees out group trust develops through socialization effects conveying general trust in others i e high dispositional trust and the equality of social groups i e low categorization based trust

optimal control and equilibrium behavior of production inventory systems the relationship between commodity inventory and short term price variations has received considerable attention but the understanding has been limited to single stage cross sectional relation in this paper we aim to deepen our understanding of the inventory price relationship in two dimensions across time and across production stages we first examine an individual firm controlling production and two stages of inventory under uncertain input and output prices and operating costs we next establish and characterize the rational expectations equilibrium for an economy in which competitive production firms link a raw material market and a finished goods market with uncertain and price sensitive supply and demand we characterize the dynamics of inventory market price and gross margin based on theoretical analysis simulation and empirical evidence from the petroleum industry we find that inventory fluctuations lag behind price variations and the length of the lags depend on how far the inventory is from the source of the supply or demand shocks we also find that shocks are both dampened and delayed when propagating through the production stages and that shocks have a prolonged effect on inventories and prices at both stages

which model of capitalism best delivers both wealth and equality capitalism is the dominant economic system adopted throughout the global economy but there are many different models of capitalism practiced depending on what the society decides economic effectiveness is in this study we assert that an effective economy simultaneously achieves two seemingly divergent outcomes it 1 creates economic wealth efficiently and 2 shares that wealth equitably employing insights from whitley s national business systems framework and fuzzy set analysis we examine how national institutions collectively configure with respect to the overall level of equitable wealth creation within 48 developed and developing economies we find that three configurations are associated with relatively high levels of equitable wealth creation and another three are associated with relatively low levels as such our analysis supports the notion of equifinality that there is no one optimal model of capitalism furthermore we begin to demonstrate that these models of capitalism are constantly evolving but their evolution is generally slow even when considering the practice of capitalism before and after the 2008 global economic crisis we discuss the implications of these findings for the study of international business with a special emphasis on considering a more holistic context for exploring how multinational enterprises interact with their institutional environment s

varieties of capitalism and institutional comparative advantage a test and reinterpretation how do national level institutions relate to national comparative advantages we seek to shed light on this question by exploring two different sets of hypotheses based on the varieties of capitalism and other branches of comparative capitalisms literature applying fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to data from 14 industries in 22 countries across 9 years we find that comparative advantages in industries with radical innovation emerge in specific configurations mixing coordinated and liberal institutional features institutional comparative advantage in industries with radical innovation may thus be based on the beneficial constraints of opposing institutional logics rather than on the self reinforcing institutional coherence envisioned in much of the varieties of capitalism literature by contrast we find that coordinated market economies may have comparative advantages in industries with incremental innovation as envisioned in the varieties of capitalism literature our article contributes to our understanding of the so what related to capitalist diversity and its implications for location decisions of multinational enterprises we further present a coordination index going beyond hall and gingerich br j polit sci 39 449 482 2009 with annual values for 22 oecd countries from 1995 through 2003

adjusting to and learning from institutional diversity toward a capability building perspective this paper identifies two main dimensions institutional diversity and dynamism in the research stream that has substantively engaged with the important contribution of jackson and deeg j int bus stud 39 4 540 561 2008 taking into account their core criticism that institutional analysis in international business research is often de contextualized and building on these two dimensions we present two possible paths for institutional analysis that are sensitive to context the first is a methodological shift towards configurational analyses and specifically the analysis of counterfactual scenarios that could reveal new information about decision alternatives the second is a shift away from a focus on costs and towards the possibility of mnes building capabilities in an exploratory manner when confronted with institutional diversity both approaches build on an understanding of mnes as strategic actors that co evolve with their environments

inequality among world citizens 1820 1992 this paper investigates the distribution of well being among world citizens during the last two centuries the estimates show that inequality of world distribution of income worsened from the beginning of the 19th century to world war ii and after that seems to have stabilized or to have grown more slowly in the early 19th century most inequality was due to differences within countries later it was due to differences between countries inequality in longevity also increased during the 19th century but then was reversed in the second half of the 20th century perhaps mitigating the failure of income inequality to improve in the last decades jel d31 f0 n0 o0

why are different services outsourced to different countries the tradability revolution in services has led to a dramatic expansion of offshore outsourcing of services allowing firms to take advantage of lower production costs in foreign countries however production costs alone cannot explain the location determinants of offshore outsourcing of services in this paper we argue that minimizing transaction costs is also an important determinant of the location of offshore outsourcing of services we empirically analyze characteristics of services and characteristics of foreign countries that may impact on transaction costs in an outsourcing relationship and hence determine where services will be outsourced offshore we derive measures of service characteristics routineness complexity and interactiveness based on the tasks required to provide them further we posit that there are interaction effects between service and country characteristics using bureau of economic analysis data on us service outsourcing across 11 types of services to 31 countries between 1992 and 2005 we find that 1 services that are more routine less complex or less interactive are outsourced more to foreign countries 2 services are outsourced more to countries with higher institutional quality and greater cultural proximity 3 non routine complex and interactive services are outsourced relatively more to countries with a better institutional quality

optimal production lot with imperfect production process under permissible delay in payments and complete backlogging abstract the traditional economic production quantity epq model assumes that the production products are all perfect it is not always true in the real production system due to imperfect production process or other factors imperfect quality items may be produced furthermore it is well known that the total production inventory costs can be reduced by reworking the imperfect quality items produced with a relatively smaller additional reworking and holding costs in addition the permissible delay in payments offered by the supplier is widely adopted in the practical business market in this study we explore the effects of the reworking imperfect quality items and trade credit on the epq model with imperfect production processes and complete backlogging a mathematical model which includes the reworking and shortage costs interest earned and interest charged is presented besides an arithmetic geometric mean inequality approach is employed and an algorithm is developed to find the optimal production policy furthermore some numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are provided to demonstrate the proposed model

optimal control of a single stage production system subject to random process shifts we consider a single stage production system with poisson demand and exponential processing times after producing a good item the production process can shift to an out of control state with a given probability and start producing bad items the state of the process is known only when the next stage or customer receives the item once an out of control process is detected process correction is instantaneous customers arriving to an empty system get backlogged in this framework we examine fifo first in first out and lifo last in first out issuing policies the objective is to minimize the total expected discounted or average costs over an infinite time horizon we characterize the structure of the optimal production policy for fifo and lifo show that lifo is better than fifo and in general better than a large class of issuing policies a numerical example illustrates that savings up to 20 percent can be obtained from using lifo over fifo we also derive conditions under which maintaining z

aggregate agricultural supply response in developing countries a survey of selected issues the authors review several studies of the aggregate agricultural supply response using both economic and econometric reasons they argue that time series estimation typically generates a downward biased estimate of the response to a credible reform even though time series estimates can provide an accurate picture of past behavoiral relations they do not provide an adequate basis for forecasting the impact of policy reform this is especially true in developing countries where policy reforms involve large changes and have included agricultural price reform industrial trade liberalization financial sector reform and macroeconomic stabilization under those circumstances parameters values obtained under the former policy regime have little relevance in the new regime the authors also argue that investment in public goods should be viewed as complementary to not competitive with price policy they claim that to select the policy with the biggest impact on output makes no sense they provide what they consider to be better criteria for choosing the best from alternative policies

disclosure venture capital and entrepreneurial spawning venture capital vc funds have been facing increasing regulatory scrutiny since the 2007 financial crisis particularly with respect to calls for increased disclosure requirements in this paper we examine the effect of more stringent securities regulation on the supply and performance of vc as well as on new business creation i e entrepreneurial spawning using country level and investment level data from 34 countries over the years 2000 2008 we find that more stringent securities regulation is positively associated with the supply and performance of vc around the world more stringent securities regulation is also positively associated with entrepreneurial spawning induced by vc among different forms of securities regulation disclosure stands out as having the most economically meaningful impact which casts doubt on the oft repeated objections to disclosure in vc that it would stifle the vc industry because secrets would have to be revealed to competitors and the public these findings are robust to numerous robustness checks for endogeneity the policy implications are clear however regardless of endogeneity concerns vc and entrepreneurship markets are enabled not curtailed in countries with better disclosure standards when one compares the existing differences in disclosure around the world and changes thereto over the 2000 2008 period

modeling technology adoption in developing countries an analysis of technology adoption decisions by poor farmers is provided some possible empirical models for studying technology adoption are reviewed the issue of theoretical consistency is dealt with in terms of the costs of such consistency measured in data needs and model complexity and the benefits measured in terms of understanding the micro economic foundations of adoption

contextualising organisational learning lyles and salk in the context of their research hungary has been the focus of lyles and salk 1996 because their research interest organisational learning was of particular concern in joint ventures in that country at that time this allowed them to investigate in greater depth what drives knowledge acquisition and how it influences the performance of joint ventures this commentary reviews the contribution by lyles and salk as reflected in the subsequent literature the setting of the study in hungary 1993 raises the challenging question of how this particular context may have influenced the research outcomes i argue that the national context of radical environmental change and the organisational context of joint ventures incorporating privatised state firms crucially influence processes of organisational learning the importance of context suggests modifying future research agendas in international business and in organisational learning in particular i thus suggest that future research should incorporate context more explicitly to establish boundary conditions for theory and to develop managerially relevant insights

the relation between wealth and health evidence from a world panel of countries abstract based on a world sample of countries this paper presents panel data evidence that documents a u shaped relation between gdp per capita wealth and life expectancy health the evidence also shows that excluding the possibility of a nonmonotonic relationship induces erroneous conclusions about the time varying wealth health correlation

globalisation and sustainability environmental kuznets curve and the wto abstract economic globalisation is seen by many as a driving force for global economic growth yet opinion is divided about the benefits of this process as highlighted by the wto meeting in seattle in late 1999 proponents of economic globalisation view it as a positive force for environmental improvement and as a major factor increasing the likelihood of sustainable development through its likely boost to global investment these proponents mostly appeal to analysis based on the environmental kuznets curve ekc to support their views about environmental improvement but ekc analysis has significant deficiencies furthermore it is impossible to be confident that the process of economic globalisation will result in sustainable development if weak conditions only are satisfied strong conditions probably need to be satisfied to achieve sustainable development and given current global institutional arrangements these are likely to be violated by the economic globalisation process global political action seems to be needed to avert a deterioration in the global environment and to prevent unsustainability of development this exposition demonstrates the limitations of ekc analysis identifies positive and negative effects of economic globalisation on pollution levels and highlights connections between globalisation and the debate about whether strong or weak conditions are required for sustainable development the article concludes with a short discussion of the position of wto in relation to trade and the environment and the seemingly de facto endorsement of wto of weak conditions for sustainable development it suggests that wto s relative neglect of environmental concerns is no longer politically tenable and needs to be reassessed in the light of recent developments in economic analysis the skew of economic growth e g in favour of developing countries is shown to be extremely important from a global environmental perspective

inequality and development across and within countries summary this paper provides a cross country comparison of how income inequality has evolved within countries at different levels of development it uses overlapping nonparametric regression which allows visual comparisons of inequality both within and across countries as a result the methodology allows more specific conclusions than cross country regressions and yet is more general than within country case studies the approach highlights the problematic conclusions that can arise with parametric regressions in particular with tests of the kuznets curve while some previous results are confirmed some new results on inequality across countries are also discovered

optimal control of a two station tandem production inventory system a manufacturing facility consisting of two stations in tandem operates in a make to stock mode after production items are placed in a finished goods inventory that services an exogenous poisson demand demand that cannot be met from inventory is backordered each station is modeled as a queue with controllable production rate and exponential service times the problem is to control these rates to minimize inventory holding and backordering costs optimal controls are computed using dynamic programming and compared with the kanban basestock and buffer control mechanisms that have been proposed for manufacturing facilities conditions are found under which certain simple controls are optimal using stochastic coupling arguments insights are gained into when to hold work in process and finished goods inventory comparable to previous studies of production lines in make to order and unlimited demand environments

the state as strategist in international business research no matter what strategy managers choose cross national differences in states strategic capabilities and objectives affect multinational corporations capabilities to manage interdependent operations in this paper we develop four attribute dimensions along which states strategic economic capabilities vary we then apply these dimensions to show how they contribute to familiar international business models of managerial process mnc strategy and organizational structure and country competitiveness

predicting stakeholder orientation in the multinational enterprise a mid range theory as the reach of corporations increasingly extends across borders a key research question is whether overseas subsidiaries adopt a shareholder centric orientation centered on maximizing shareholder wealth or a stakeholder centric orientation centered on creating value for a broader range of stakeholders existing theories addressing the corporate level of analysis focus on forces exogenous to the firm local resource pressures and institutional norms using a combination of induction and fuzzy set analysis i draw on documentary evidence and 298 interviews with managers and stakeholders to build theory about the conditions that shape subsidiaries stakeholder orientations two major findings emerge first although theory emphasizes external stakeholders control over resources internal control through the corporate parent can crowd out the voices of local stakeholders second although institutional theory proposes isomorphism with local norms and standards some corporations are subject to scrutiny by global stakeholders and their subsidiaries face higher requirements for social engagement than their peers these findings are the foundation of a mid range theory that combines conventional explanations focused on environmental factors and an internal stakeholder perspective based around the roles of the parent corporation as owner and resource provider to predict stakeholder orientation

the complex dynamics of smallholder technology adoption the case of sri in madagascar this article explores the dynamics of smallholder technology adoption with particular reference to a high yielding low external input rice production method in madagascar we present a simple model of technology adoption by farm households in an environment of incomplete financial and land markets we then use a probit model and symmetrically censored least squares estimation of a dynamic tobit model to analyze the decisions to adopt expand and disadopt the method we find that seasonal liquidity constraints discourage adoption by poorer farmers learning effects both from extension agents and from other farmers exert significant influence over adoption decisions

understanding global flows of venture capital human networks as the carrier wave of globalization industry participants and observers view venture capital as fundamentally a local business however recent data show an increasing share of us venture capital investments flowing overseas we suggest that cross border venture capital flows are associated with the formation of transnational technical communities ttcs groups of immigrants active in both home and host country technical networks our results highlight the role of human networks as a mechanism of industry globalization and support the view that ttcs are emerging economic actors in their own right

theoretical foundations of emerging economy business research in probing theoretically into central and eastern europe transactions resources and institutions we outlined the contributions of research in central and eastern europe cee to theoretical debates in business research in this retrospective we reflect upon the evolution of the field over the past decade with the fading impact of cee s distinct shared history we suggest that cee best be analyzed as emerging economies rather than as a distinct geographic entity emerging economy business research is converging on common themes and shared theoretical ideas while identifying critical variations that constrain generalizations among and beyond emerging economies this research thus highlights the need to develop a better understanding of the boundary conditions of scholarly theories of business knowledge over the past decade the institution based view has emerged from distinct intellectual traditions in institutional economics organizational theory and the analysis of business government bargaining research in these converging lines of theorizing places contextual variations at the center of explanations of business phenomena around the world we suggest that the institution based view is evolving toward a paradigm and offer suggestions on how to advance this research agenda further in particular by exploring how firms engage with different sets of potentially conflicting institutions at multiple levels and locations

optimal lot sizing for an unreliable production system based on net present value approach abstract the paper considers the net present value npv approach to determine the economic manufacturing quantities for an unreliable production system over an infinite planning horizon the npv of the expected total cost is obtained under general failure time and general repair time distributions and its asymptotic characteristics are examined by perturbation of the instantaneous discount rate the criteria for the existence and uniqueness of the optimal production time lot size are derived under exponential failure and constant zero repair time the performance of the npv model is compared with the traditional long run average cost model in terms of the npv of the expected total cost based on the optimal decisions of the two models from numerical experiments it is observed that the decision based on the average cost can be 10 worse than the decision based on the npv depending upon the machine failure rate

rural infrastructure transactions costs and market participation in kenya abstract we develop a conceptual framework for quantifying fixed transactions costs facing semisubsistence households using household survey data from a sample of 324 kenyan maize farmers we jointly estimate household supply and demand schedules and transactions costs econometric results indicate that on average the ad valorem tax equivalent of fixed transactions costs for households in our sample is 15 additional analysis indicates that economic isolation is positively associated with the size of transactions costs to the best of our knowledge ours are the first empirical estimates of the magnitude of fixed transactions costs for agricultural households in developing countries

mne institutional advantage how subunits shape transpose and evade host country institutions scholars increasingly emphasize the impact of institutions on multinational enterprises mnes but the opposite relationship has attracted less research that is mne agency in relation to institutions based on a comparative case study of six mnes from the united states and sweden this paper remedies this it explores and explicates mne subunits strategic responses to host country institutional constraints and opportunities in five different regions a new institutional approach is adopted which allows for an investigation of mne subunit agency in relation to normative and cognitive institutions as well as regulative ones this fine grained analysis reveals not only what kinds of responses mne subunits invoke but why and how they are able to respond we identify four strategic responses by which subunits shape transpose and evade institutions in the pursuit of competitive advantage innovation arbitrage circumvention and adaptation these responses are driven by three key enablers multinationality foreignness and institutional ambiguity that serve to enhance and heighten three mechanisms reflexivity role expectations and resources by linking the enablers and the mechanisms to specific types of strategic responses in a framework and typology the paper not only contributes to emerging research on the interplay between mnes institutions and strategy but to strategy practice

the contributions of qualitative comparative analysis qca to international business research international business ib researchers have been slow to embrace a configurational approach in hypothesis formulation and empirical analysis yet much of what ib scholars study is inherently configurational various explanatory factors and their interplay simultaneously determine the outcome s studied such as governance choice or firm level performance the mismatch between the nature of the empirical phenomena studied on the one hand and hypothesis formulation and empirical methods deployed on the other explains why many quantitative empirical studies in ib are overly reductionist relying on hypotheses that assume linear or simple curvilinear unifinal and symmetrical effects in this editorial we introduce ib scholars to contemporary configurational thinking and its analytical tool fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis fsqca we discuss this tool s main tenets advantages and disadvantages we review the limited prior ib research using this approach and present a wide range of ib phenomena where it could be usefully applied we propose that contemporary configurational thinking and fsqca can help scholars produce insights more closely aligned with the complex realities of international business than conventional research approaches

adoption of agricultural innovations in developing countries a survey this paper reviews various studies which have provided a description and possible explanation to patterns of innovation adoption in the agricultural sector the survey points out that the tendency of many studies to consider innovation adoption in dichotomous terms adoption nonadoption may not be appropriate in many cases where the actual decisions are defined over a more continuous range more attention needs to be given to the socio cultural and institutional environment in area studies so that their interrelation with economic factors affecting adoption can be inferred the presence of several interrelated innovations is another aspect that needs to be considered more carefully in future research since a number of simultaneous decisions may be involved furthermore the possibility of regular sequential patterns in adopting components of a new technological package should be specifically addressed in future studies finally the impact of differential adoption rates on land holding distribution merits attention in future research

agricultural technology choice and transport this paper addresses an old and recurring theme in development economics the slow adoption of new technologies by farmers in many developing countries the paper explores a somewhat novel link to explain this puzzle the link between market access and the incentives to adopt a new technology when there are non convexities the paper develops a theoretical model to guide the empirical analysis which uses spatially disaggregated agricultural production data from spatial production allocation model and living standards measurement study survey data for nigeria the model is used to estimate the impact of transport costs on crop production the adoption of modern technologies and the differential impact on returns of modern versus traditional farmers to overcome the limitation of data availability on travel costs for much of africa road survey data are combined with geographic information road network data to generate the most thorough and accurate road network available with these data and the highway development management model minimum travel costs from each location to the market are computed consistent with the theory analysis finds that transportation costs are critical in determining technology choices with a greater responsiveness among farmers who adopt modern technologies and at times a perverse negative response to lower transport costs among those who employ more traditional techniques in sum the paper presents compelling evidence that the constraints to the adoption of modern technologies and access to markets are interconnected and so should be targeted jointly

an economic order quantity model with defective items and shortages abstract the fundamental assumption of an economic order quantity eoq model is that 100 of items in an ordered lot are perfect this assumption is not always pertinent for production processes because of process deterioration or other factors this paper develops an eoq model for that each ordered lot contains some defective items and shortages backordered it is assumed that 100 of each lot are screened to separate good and defective items which are collection of imperfect quality and scrap items the effect of percentage defective on optimal solution is studied while numerical examples are provided for the developed model

optimal lot sizing integration policy under learning and rework effects in a manufacturer retailer chain abstract most research in economic manufacturing order quantity management assumes that all products are of perfect quality and are produced at a constant production rate one result of this assumption is that the number of units produced in a given period is constant which is not the case in real life most production systems produce items which are of perfect quality along with some that are of imperfect quality defective items as well as the learning effect affect production and inventory costs thereby shaping the performance of the manufacturer retailer chain the present study uses the nash stackelberg and cooperation games to model an imperfect production system to investigate the combined effects of lot sizing size integration the learning effect imperfect production and the rework process on a manufacturer retailer channel this study also demonstrates the optimal properties of the proposed models develops a search algorithm for obtaining optimal solutions and conducts a numerical study to seek structural and quantitative insights into the structure of the proposed models in addition it analyzes the sensitivity of the solutions in relation to the major parameters

aggregate return on investment for investments under uncertainty abstract this paper deals with capital budgeting decisions under uncertainty we present an aggregate return on investment aroi obtained as the ratio of total undiscounted cash flow to total invested capital and show that it is a genuine rate of return which compared with the risk adjusted cost of capital correctly signals wealth creation for choosing between two mutually exclusive projects we derive an incremental aroi and an incremental risk adjusted cost of capital by means of which two unequal risk projects can be correctly compared iterating the incremental procedure we show that the aroi approach correctly ranks any bundle of different risk competing projects relations with other criteria such as modified internal rate of return average irr cash multiple and profitability index are provided theoretically the aroi approach constitutes a link between arbitrage choice theory and corporate investment theory and shows that explicit discounting is not necessary for measuring economic profitability practically the aroi is a user friendly easy to compute rate of return derived from the same set of data required by the net present value npv also it does not incur the difficulties met by the internal rate of return irr in particular it is unique and it is based on economically significant capital values i e market driven values as such the aroi significantly expresses the efficiency of the project s invested capital

an entry and exit model on the energy saving investment strategy with real options this paper presents an improved decision model based on the real options approach presented by ansar and sparks 2009 for the firms that have not yet established energy saving equipment under the entry and exit strategies furthermore the proposed model takes account of the inevitable equipment renewal and the occurrence of unexpected events under the poisson jump process the timing for terminating an investment when continuous operations of that business are unprofitable is also explored to realize the optimal timing of implementing the energy saving strategy the future discounted benefit b follows the geometric brownian motion with the poisson jump process and the replacement of investment equipment a numerical analysis is followed by a sensitivity study of various parameters to better realize their impacts on the entry and exit thresholds the results show that for the jump case the higher probability of occurrence of unfavorable events will result in a higher entry threshold and lower exit threshold investors are forced to request higher benefit thresholds to cover the higher probability of losses brought by unfavorable events

de globalization theories predictions and opportunities for international business research de globalization now a distinct possibility would induce a significant qualitative shift in strategies structures and behaviors observable in international business ib coming to terms with this qualitative shift would require ib research to develop a much deeper integration of politics the key driver of de globalization to support such integration this paper introduces two relevant theories of de globalization from political science liberalism and realism both predict de globalization under current conditions but lead to different expectations about the future world economy liberalism suggests a patchwork of economic linkages while realism predicts the emergence of economic blocs around major countries this paper discusses the resulting opportunities in three areas of ib research political strategies and roles of multinational enterprises mnes global value chains and the role of the national context for political strategies and roles there is a need to explore how regular business activities and deliberate political agency of mnes affect the political sustainability of globalization for value chains questions include their future reach and specialization changes in organizational forms and the impact of political considerations on location decisions research opportunities on national contexts relate to their ability to sustain globalization and their connection with economic and military power

comparing capitalisms understanding institutional diversity and its implications for international business this paper examines the role of institutional analysis within the field of international business ib studies within ib institutions matter but the view of institutions tends to be thin utilizing summary indicators rather than detailed description and thus approaches institutions as unidimensional variables that impact on particular facets of business activity this paper argues that ib research would be usefully advanced by greater attention to comparing the topography of institutional landscapes and understanding their diversity a number of alternative case based approaches are outlined that draw on a growing comparative capitalisms literature in sociology and political science the paper develops a number of empirical examples to show the utility and limits of these approaches for ib scholars

optimality of zero inventory policies for unreliable manufacturing systems we show that there are ranges of parameter values describing an unreliable manufacturing system for which zero inventory policies are exactly optimal even when there is uncertainty in manufacturing capacity this result may be initially surprising since it runs counter to the argument that inventories are buffers against uncertainty and therefore one must strive to maintain a strictly positive inventory as long as there is any uncertainty however there is a deeper reason why this argument does not hold and why a zero inventory policy can be optimal even in the presence of uncertainty this provable optimality reinforces the case for zero inventory policies which is currently made on the separate grounds that it enforces a healthy discipline on the entire manufacturing process

production and inventory model using net present value using the net present value is the standard methodology in theoretical analysis and the most frequently used method for making financial decisions however net present value is rarely used in production and inventory decisions the main reasons appear to be the complexity of the formulae and the robustness of the eoq model we investigate the general multiproduct multistage production and inventory model using the net present value of its total cost as the objective function a power of two heuristic gives us a near optimal solution to this problem if the base period is fixed or varied the solution based on the best power of two heuristic will be within 6 2 or 2 1 of the optimal this result is surprisingly similar to models using the long term average cost the average cost does not reflect the time value of money does this mean that decisions based on average cost are significantly inferior to those based on net present value the answer is quite surprising if we include discounted production cost in the holding cost it turns out that the decision based on average cost is only 9 6 in terms of the net present value of the total cost worse than the decision based on the net present value however the reorder interval based on the average cost could be much longer than that derived using net present value this result shows that average cost is a good approximation to the net present value when the demands are deterministic

effects of discounting and demand rate variability on the eoq the economic order quantity eoq formula is probably the most well known formula in inventory theory it determines the optimal value of the ordering quantity by minimizing the average cost in an ordering cycle it is based on the assumptions that there is a fixed lead time and a constant demand rate these assumptions are usually not fulfilled in practice especially when dealing with slow moving items demand seems to fluctuate furthermore since the time between two successive orderings is often large for slow moving items discounted costs instead of average costs should be minimized in this paper we determine the optimal ordering quantity if demand is modelled by a poisson process and the expected discounted costs are minimized we also analyze the case where demand is uniform and or the average cost criterion is used we give graphical presentations of the optimal ordering quantities besides easily determining the optimal values these allow us to show what the effects of changing the objective function and of changing the demand distribution are we derive a simple discounted cost ordering quantity formula denoted by eoq d for slow moving items we show that for items with a small demand rate and high fixed ordering costs the eoq d is much closer to the optimal discounted cost ordering quantity than the traditional eoq formula c 1998 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

the dubious role of institutions in international business a road forward our commentary returns to the conundrum of how institutions matter in international business ib by revisiting the 2018 jibs decade award article by jackson and deeg 2008 on comparing capitalisms we first synthesize their main insights around institutional diversity and track its significant impact within ib and other management fields we then suggest three main takeaways that could move jackson and deeg s agenda further in terms of developing a more nuanced approach to institutions in ib we close with suggestions for future research and urge ib scholars to be more cautious when drawing on different strands of institutions theory

collectivism and corruption in bank lending this paper examines how national culture and collectivism in particular influences corruption in bank lending we hypothesize that interdependent self construal and particularist norms in collectivist countries lead to a higher level of lending corruption through their influence both on the interactions between bank officers and bank customers and on the dynamics among bank colleagues using a sample covering 3835 firms across 38 countries we find strong evidence that firms domiciled in collectivist countries perceive a higher level of lending corruption than firms domiciled in individualist countries in terms of economic magnitude the effect of collectivism is substantially larger than the effects of other cultural dimensions uncertainty avoidance masculinity and power distance and institutional factors identified in prior studies bank supervision bank competition information sharing and media monitoring we further find that the positive relationship between collectivism and lending corruption is not driven by endogeneity and that it is robust to different measures of bank corruption different measures of collectivism and different estimation methods finally we find that the link between collectivism and lending corruption cannot be explained by the role of the government in the economy political connections biased responses from disgruntled borrowers or relationship lending

the eqq model with stochastic demand and discounting abstract we generalize bather s eqq model with stochastic demand to the case with discounting we consider two cases one with and one without demand backlogging important implications of discounting are investigated useful insights and formulas are provided

consumption risk technology adoption and poverty traps evidence from ethiopia much has been written on the determinants of input and technology adoption in agriculture with issues such as input availability knowledge and education risk preferences profitability and credit constraints receiving much attention this paper focuses on a factor that has been less well documented the differential ability of households to take on risky production technologies for fear of the welfare consequences if shocks result in poor harvests building on an explicit model this is explored in panel data for ethiopia historical rainfall distributions are used to identify the counterfactual consumption risk controlling for unobserved household and time varying village characteristics it emerges that not just ex ante credit constraints but also the possibly low consumption outcomes when harvests fail discourage the application of fertilizer the lack of insurance causes inefficiency in production choices