strikes as a result of imperfect information this paper proposes a model of the bargaining process that recognizes that negotiators have only imperfect information at their command the author argues that the probability of a strike occurring will increase if one party bases its perception of the opponent s position on the same variables employed to form its own position when the opponent s position is in fact based on different variables strike probability is therefore assumed to be related to movements in variables of interest to only one side the model is tested on a sample of fourteen bargaining relationships drawn from the series wage chronology published by the bureau of labor statistics which details settlements between particular firms and unions over a period of about thirty years estimates of strike probability are derived from the maximum likelihood logit procedure the findings suggest that although both relative and absolute wage increases in a firm have a negative effect on strike frequency relative changes are more important

expatriate assignment adjustment and effectiveness an empirical examination of the big picture this study extends the international literature by empirically testing a model of expatriate adjustment that examines the relationships between organizational antecedents i e reasons for assignment a more comprehensive set of adjustment behaviors self reported performance and subordinate rated managerial effectiveness using data from 194 expatriate managers and 505 subordinates working in the multinational hotel industry structural equations modeling results supported the hypothesized model the conceptual and empirical contributions of this study as well as the managerial implications are discussed

micro processes of translation in the transfer of practices from mne headquarters to foreign subsidiaries the role of subsidiary translators recent research has increasingly emphasized the micro foundations of knowledge transformation in multi national enterprises mnes although the literature has provided ample evidence of the enablers of and barriers to the translation of practices less is known about the activities and efforts of translators that lead to specific types of translation in the context of the transfer of practices initiated at a mne s headquarters hq to foreign subsidiaries we apply a scandinavian institutionalist approach to examine the translation of corporate social responsibility reporting an hq initiated practice that is transferred to five foreign subsidiaries of a uk based mne our paper builds from a preliminary framework based on extant research to develop an extended framework of the micro processes of translation by theorizing the sequence of the micro processes undertaken by translators identifying the conditions under which they occur and connecting them to the three types of translation we provide a deep understanding of the micro foundations of translation when transferring practices from hq to subsidiaries our paper shows that translation is an evolving phenomenon and illuminates the importance of attending to the social spatial and temporal situatedness of translators it also brings insights into the individual experience of institutional distance and its effects on translation

bargaining and strikes strikes are generally regarded as an important economic phenomenon and yet good theoretical explanations of them are hard to come by the difficulty is to understand why rational parties should resort to a wasteful mechanism as a way of distributing the gains from trade why could not both parties be made better off by moving to the final distribution of surplus immediately or if it is uncertain to its certainty equivalent and sharing the benefits from increased production

the long run implications of the production smoothing model of inventories an empirical test summary this paper provides an empirical test of the long run implications of the production smoothing model of inventories the dominant framework for inventory investment research in the past intertemporal models of a firm holding inventories of finished goods predict a long run relationship between inventories shipments factor input prices and the real interest rate which is tested here using cointegration test procedures these tests provide little support for the predictions of the production smoothing model in most of the data sets used test statistics indicate that inventories shipments factor input prices the nominal interest rate and the inflation rate maintain a long run equilibrium relationship but parameter estimates of cointegrating vectors are often implausible typically rejecting hypotheses implied by structural models of the production smoothing motive for holding inventories

potential competition in preemption games we consider a preemption game with two potential competitors who come into play at some random secret times the presence of a competitor is revealed to a player only when the former moves which terminates the game we show that all perfect bayesian equilibria give rise to the same distribution of players moving times moreover there exists a unique perfect bayesian equilibrium in which each player s behavior from any time on is independent of the date at which she came into play we flnd that competitive pressure is nonmonotonic over time and that private information tends to alleviate rent dissipation our results have a natural interpretation in terms of eroding reputations

taking stock a critical assessment of recent research on inventories empirical and theoretical aspects of inventory behavior became hot topics in the 1950s and early 1960s no one seemed to notice the tension that was developing between the emerging macroeconomic and microeconomic views of inventories macroeconomists routinely thought of inventories as a destabilizing factor yet the prevailing micro theory viewed inventories as a stabilizing factor it was a fascinating question that was barely explored instead somewhat inexplicably interest in inventories dried up as if inventories were of minor economic significance and little intrinsic interest by the early 1980s then economists once again knew something they had known in the 1950s that inventory investment is of first order importance in business cycles but they were also beginning to realize that the standard production smoothing buffer stock model of inventories was in deep trouble this paper focuses on developments since that realization

repatriating knowledge variables influencing the transfer process because of the strategic importance of organizational learning in a global economy the knowledge that repatriates acquire during international assignments is a valuable resource few multinational enterprises however actively harvest this knowledge and little quantitative empirical research on this topic exists to date we propose an original model and propositions that delineate the facilitative and inhibiting factors affecting repatriate knowledge transfer to work units we conclude with suggestions for future research and practical implications

from crossing cultures to straddling them an empirical examination of outcomes for multicultural employees international organizations ranging from large mncs to small born global firms are increasingly recognizing that multicultural employees can help them operate across countries and across cultures however multiculturals individuals who identify with and internalize more than one culture are a diverse group and organizations seeking to leverage their potential can benefit from a deeper understanding of the resources they possess and the challenges they face we conducted three studies with a total of 1196 participants to test relationships between multicultural identity patterns and personal social and task outcomes consistent results across studies indicated that individuals with more cultural identities higher identity plurality had more social capital and higher levels of intercultural skills than those with fewer cultural identities while individuals who integrated their cultural identities higher identity integration experienced higher levels of personal well being than those who separated them based on these results we advocate for two directions in future research on multicultural employees moving beyond cognitive mechanisms alone and examining monocultural and multicultural individuals simultaneously along the spectrum of identity plurality

tests of production smoothing in selected japanese industries abstract using monthly physical quantity data on production sales and inventories for 29 selected japanese industries it is found that the usual variance decompositions are generally consistent with the production smoothing model at both seasonal and nonseasonal frequencies however the estimated seasonal coefficients in production and sales are highly correlated which should not be the case if firms smooth production in the face of anticipated seasonal movements in sales a further test of the model which implies production should follow a random walk with drift provides mixed results but particularly negative results at the seasonal frequencies

job complexity and learning opportunities a silver lining in the design of global virtual work a vast majority of research on global virtual work focuses on the struggles for workers as they navigate geographic cultural language and time zone differences our research suggests that despite these struggles global virtual work may offer significant benefits to workers we interviewed 78 engineers about their experiences of working globally and then surveyed 515 knowledge workers who worked either with globally distributed or exclusively collocated colleagues global virtual work was associated with workers positive appraisal of the work s complexity and learning potential which in turn improved innovation satisfaction and engagement these effects however relied on workers off job recovery between workdays

why is production more volatile than sales theory and evidence on the stockout avoidance motive for inventory holding this paper argues that the macroeconomically interesting features of inventory behavior are well captured by a model in which firms face only demand uncertainty with a nonnegativity constraint on inventories empirical implications of the stockout avoidance model of inventory behavior are derived and then tested on disaggregated automobile industry data the results largely support the model though they suggest a small role for production smoothing as well subsidiary evidence on the relative variance of demand and cost shocks suggests that demand shocks are indeed more important

cultural and language skills as resources for boundary spanning within the mnc we examine the role of cultural and language skills as resources for individuals boundary spanning ability in multinational corporations our combined qualitative and quantitative analysis shows that cultural and language skills influence the extent to which individual boundary spanners perform four functions exchanging linking facilitating and intervening boundary spanners with both cultural and language skills perform more functions than those with only cultural skills and language skills are critical for performing the most demanding functions key boundary spanners have properties that potentially make them not only valuable organizational human capital but also rare and difficult to imitate theoretical and practical implications are discussed

strike incidence in british manufacturing in the 1980s in british manufacturing during the 1980s about one in forty wage settlements involved a strike using data provided by the confederation of british industry the authors analyze the incidence of

regulation and preemptive technology adoption two rival firms must decide if and when to adopt a new technology knowing how adoption costs decline over time and how profit flows vary with adoption patterns in many cases price and entry regulations beneficially slow technology adoption by making preemption strategies less attractive in some cases these regulations can so discourage a firm from preemption as to change the order in which firms adopt new technologies speeding one firm s adoption date and slowing the other s in the context of a particular scenario for cable and telephone companies adoption of new fiber optic technologies the case for lifting the cross ownership ban depends on the extent to which telephone companies are able to implement a superior technology reregulation of cable companies strengthens this case

culture and international business recent advances and their implications for future research the paper provides a state of the art review of several innovative advances in culture and international business ib to stimulate new avenues for future research we first review the issues surrounding cultural convergence and divergence and the processes underlying cultural changes we then examine novel constructs for characterizing cultures and how to enhance the precision of cultural models by pinpointing when cultural effects are important finally we examine the usefulness of experimental methods which are rarely used by ib researchers implications of these path breaking approaches for future research on culture and ib are discussed

wage bargaining inventories and union legislation this paper analyses a strategic bargaining game where the firm may or may not be able to sell out of its inventory of finished goods during a strike firms and the union are both risk neutral and have the same discount rate it is shown that the wage equilibrium corresponds to the axiomatic nash bargaining solution where the threatpoints are the agents payoffs should bargaining continue indefinitely we use the 1980 and 1982 employment acts to test this theory interpreting that legislation change as changing the firm s threatpoint but not its bargaining power this allows us to identify the value of the firm s threatpoint post 1982 formal tests support the theory also consistent with the theory it is found that union wages decrease with inventories after 1982 but not before and that the union wage gap is smaller after 1982 wage bargaining as described in the strategic bargaining literature is a peaceful affair if there is no agreement workers simply withdraw their labour for one period and there is a consequent one period loss of production for the firm but strikes tend to generate a lot of conflict in the u k in the 1970s striking unions would form picket lines across the factory gates their aim was not only to prevent strikebreakers going to work but also to stop lorries delivering goods conversely firms often with the help of the police would try to get the lorries across those lines the employment acts of 1980 and 1982 stopped this struggle stopping lorries crossing picket lines had always been illegal but this new legislation gave firms power to have picket lines immediately lifted should striking workers act illegally the courts would immediately sequester the union s assets if its members refused to comply with the law using the strategic bargaining approach this paper considers the equilibrium effect of this change in legislation on union wage formation using wage and inventory data from a panel of firms across this time period this paper also formally tests that theory there have been two main approaches to bargaining theory the strategic bargaining

cultural gap bridging in multinational teams multinational teams are an organizational reality but they present several challenges the literature suggests that individuals with multicultural identities are more likely to show behaviors that aim at improving intercultural interactions in multinational teams though scholars have yet to determine the precise nature of these behaviors we address this research gap in a multimethod two study design by identifying five team cultural gap bridging behaviors cgb behaviors facilitating translating integrating mediating and empathetic comforting in study 1 we draw on one qualitative and two quantitative datasets to identify within team cgb behaviors and develop a measure of cgb behaviors in study 2 drawing from two wave survey data we investigate and find support for the direct relationships between cultural identity plurality and cgb behaviors and the indirect relationships via cultural intelligence

some empirical evidence on the production level and production cost smoothing models of inventory investment the production smoothing model of inventories has long been the basic paradigm within which empirical research on inventories has been conducted the basic hypothesis embedded in this model is that inventories of finished goods serve primarily to smooth production levels in the face of fluctuating demand and convex cost functions however once we allow for shocks to technology and the costs of producing output firms will also use inventories to shift production from periods in which production costs are relatively high to periods in which production costs are relatively low in this sense inventories can serve to smooth production costs rather production levels in this paper we examine the empirical plausibility of the production level and production cost smoothing models of inventories our basic strategy is to derive and contrast a set of unconditional moment restrictions implied by these models in a way that minimizes the role of auxiliary assumptions regarding market structure and industry demand we find overwhelming evidence against the production level smoothing model and very little evidence against the production cost smoothing mode1 we conclude that the variance of production exceeds the variance of sales in most manufacturing industries because the production cost smoothing role of inventories is quantitatively more important than the production level smoothing role of inventories this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

inventories and wage bargaining abstract a union is assumed to make a sequence of take it or leave it wage demands to a firm which produces a storable good equilibrium has the following properties 1 the firm chooses to accumulate inventories even though there is no uncertainty 2 the accumulation of inventories lowers wages by reducing the rents from further production and therefore harms the union without benefitting the firm 3 there can be intermittent work stoppages i e strikes even though there is no uncertainty these work stoppages limit the firm s inventories and hence raise wages journal of economic literature classification numbers c78 c73 j31

estimating strike effects in a general model of prices and quantities estimates of the effect of strikes on the production price and purchases of north american automobiles are provided over the period 1966 79 the estimates are based on a model that reflects the decisions of both consumers and producers and that captures important intertemporal adjustments before during and after the strike to allow for inventory buildup in anticipation of the strike as well as inventory depletion during the strike and replacement afterward the results generally indicated that both consumers and producers rationally responded to the expected and the actual event of the strike through a variety of related intertemporal adjustments and while the initial effects are in some instances quite pronounced the long run effects are usually minimal

learning by striking estimates of the teetotaler effect we hypothesize that past strike experience will have a negative or teetotaler effect on a collective bargaining unit s propensity to strike in future negotiations other things being equal we test this using a unique micro level sample comprising four consecutive negotiations by 147 bargaining units in u s manufacturing industries controlling for observable and unobservable differences among bargaining pairs in the propensity to strike our results are consistent with the view that the experience of striking is indeed sobering lagged strike experience variables have a significantly negative effect on the propensity to strike in the current negotiation

dimensions determinants and differences in the expatriate adjustment process we comprehensively test the black mendenhall and oddou 1991 model of the dimensions and determinants of adjustment to international assignments we also expand the model to examine two individual factors i e previous assignments and language fluency and three positional factors i e hierarchical level functional area and assignment vector as moderators of adjustment determinants surveys were completed by 452 expatriates from 29 different countries assigned to 45 host countries by large multinational firms the multi dimensionality of adjustment was investigated and confirmed support for the expanded black et al 1991 model was found several significant moderating effects emerged showing different patterns of adjustment for those with different amounts of previous expatriate experience and levels of host country language fluency hierarchical level and assignment vector were also important moderators but the effects for functional area were generally weak

joint production quasi fixed factors of production and investment in finished goods inventories inventory investment has long been an important area of inquiry for empirical work in macroeconomics this is due in large measure to the fact that inventory investment is a major source of fluctuations in aggregate output empirical work on inventories however has been dominated by the use of simple univariate flexible accelerators 1 the major objective of this paper is to propose and test a multivariate flexible accelerator model for inventory investment the model is tested with data on finished goods inventories from the manufacturing sector of the u s economy there are two reasons for undertaking such a task first at a theoretical level a univariate flexible accelerator model asserts that investment in say finished goods inventories is proportional to the gap between the desired and actual stocks of finished goods such a model presumes that decisions by firms on finished goods inventories are made independently of decisions on other stocks but theory suggests that when firms make simultaneous decisions on a variety of stocks which includes not only finished goods but also goods in process inventories the size of the work force etc decisions on finished goods will interact with decisions on

innovation timing games a general framework with applications abstract we offer a new algorithm for analyzing innovation timing games its main advantage over the traditional approach is that it applies to problems that had previously been intractable we use the algorithm to examine two classical innovation problems we find that the competition takes the form of a waiting game with a second mover advantage either for any level of r d costs process innovation or for high r d costs product innovation moreover both models predict that the second mover advantage is monotonically increasing in the costs of r d

cultural intelligence a theory based short form measure this article reports the development and validation of a theory based short form measure of cultural intelligence sfcq the sfcq captures the original theoretical intent of a multifaceted culture general form of intelligence that is related to effective intercultural interactions the validity of the scale is established with 3526 participants in five language groups from around the world results provide evidence for construct and criterion related validity of the measure and indicate that cultural intelligence is a single latent factor reflected in three intermediate facets in support of construct validity the measure is modestly related to but distinct from emotional intelligence and personality and correlates positively with several indicators of multicultural experience with regard to criterion related validity it relates as predicted to several dimensions of intercultural effectiveness implications for the measurement and understanding of culture and the influence of culture on management practice are discussed

the positive role of global leaders in enhancing multicultural team innovation this study contributes to the empirical research on leadership of multicultural teams from the positive organizational scholarship perspective pos following the information decision making processes perspective on team cultural diversity we examined the positive effect of leaders global identity on multicultural team innovation we proposed that r d multicultural team leaders with high global identity foster team shared innovation goals and motivate team members to adopt communication inclusion behavior making sure that they all understand each other furthermore we propose that the effect of fostering team shared innovation goals on communication inclusion will be stronger for teams with perceived high rather than low cultural diversity and that team communication inclusion will positively affect team innovation participants were 574 r d multicultural team members their leaders and their leaders managers in 82 co located teams in a chinese branch of a large german global organization using sem analysis our findings supported our research model demonstrating that multicultural team leaders with high global identity leveraged cultural diversity to promote innovative goals which further enhanced team communication inclusion and its positive impact on team innovation we discuss the theoretical and practical implications to the pos perspective on cultural diversity

nonconvex costs and the behavior of inventories this paper explores one possible explanation for the apparent excess volatility of production relative to sales nonconvexities in the technology facing firms it is shown that if firms operate in a region of declining marginal costs then small shifts in demand can cause production to jump substantially estimates for six production to stock industries as well as the automobile industry suggest that all these industries behave as if they were operating in the region of nonconvex costs the results have important implications not only for inventory investment but also for the cyclical behavior of productivity and prices

the role of rescheduled school days in teacher strikes this study investigates the bargaining effects of the decisions made by school boards in pennsylvania whether to reschedule teacher strike days so that a district may qualify for state aid because a decision to reschedule strike days can substantially reduce teacher strike costs the author hypothesizes that strikes are more likely to occur in districts where teachers expect strike days to be rescheduled the author confirms this hypothesis by an analysis of data for 264 school districts for the 1975 78 period using a two equation bivariate probit model of strikes and the decision to reschedule strike days

firm specific determinants of the real wage bargaining models suggest that firm specific variables play an important role in wage determination yet previous empirical studies of wage determination have largely ignored these variables the authors analysis of a large panel data set of u s wage contracts suggests that firm specific variables suggested by bargaining models such as the value of sales the capital labor ratio and the financial liquidity of the firm are important determinants of negotiated real wages copyright 1992 by mit press

work stoppages and the theory of the offset factor evidence from the british columbian lumber industry one method of estimating losses resulting from work stoppages is to multiply the total number of man days lost during disputes by the average product of workers this statistic can be easily calculated using information typically available from government agencies but has obvious flaws for example the behavior of other firms not involved in disputes is ignored moreover when output is durable the impact on consumption is unknown since inventories can be used as buffers to assess the importance of these and other considerations i develop an alternative empirical framework and implement it using data from the british columbian lumber industry

mentoring across global boundaries an empirical examination of home and host country mentors on expatriate career outcomes there has long been an interest in the effects of mentors on protege career outcomes and with scholars now beginning to examine mentoring across national boundaries using survey information as well as company records for 299 expatriates 163 men 136 women in 10 countries we examined the impact of home and host country mentors upon expatriate effectiveness we found that having a host country mentor had a significant positive effect on the expatriate s organizational knowledge organizational knowledge sharing job performance promotability and perceptions of teamwork having a home country mentor had a significant positive effect only on organizational knowledge job performance and promotability surprisingly our results revealed that having a home country mentor had a significant but negative effect on the expatriate s organization identification and job satisfaction contrary to the literature neither type of mentoring had a significant effect on job tension implications for practice as well as future research are detailed

organizing knowledge processes in the multinational corporation an introduction this introduction discusses the contrast between on the one hand the current popularity of addressing mnc organization in knowledge terms and on the other the lack of adequate understanding of many of the causal mechanisms and contextual factors in relations between knowledge processes and organizational factors a number of the relevant research challenges are identified and it is clarified how the five articles in this focused issue addresses some of these

expatriation repatriation and domestic geographical relocation an empirical investigation of adjustment to new job assignments this research examines the relative impact of six sets of factors on multiple indices of adjustment to new job assignments these six sets of factors include demographic variables indices of the internationalness of the job change e g whether the job changer is an expatriate repatriate or domestic geographical relocator job characteristics variables types and amount of career development assistance degree of change between successive job assignments and types of individual coping strategies employed by job changers data were collected from 459 job changers from twenty six countries the results highlight both the commonalities among expatriates repatriates and domestic geographical relocators in adjusting to new job assignments as well as the differences among them

preemptive patenting and the persistence of monopoly this article takes a different tack and inquires whether institutions such as the patent system create opportunities for firms with monopoly power to maintain their monopoly power the results apply to other situations such as brand identification spatial location and capacity expansion which share the characteristic that early or preemptive actions may lower the returns to potential competitors

150 years of patent protection this paper examines three sets of explanations for variations in the strength of patent protection across sixty countries and a 150 year period wealthier nations are more likely to have patent systems to allow patentees a longer time to put their patents into practice and to ratify treaties assuring equal treatment of other nations but they are also likely to charge higher fees and limit patent protection in some important ways countries with democratic political institutions are consistently more likely to have patent protection appear to be determined by historical factors the origin of a country s commercial law appears particularly important in explaining the presence of restrictions on patentees privileges and discriminatory provisions against foreign patentees this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams a meta analysis of research on multicultural work groups previous research on the role of cultural diversity in teams is equivocal suggesting that cultural diversity s effect on teams is mediated by specific team processes and moderated by contextual variables to reconcile conflicting perspectives and past results we propose that cultural diversity affects teams through process losses and gains associated with increased divergence and decreased convergence we examine whether the level surface level vs deep level and type cross national vs intra national of cultural diversity affect these processes differently we hypothesize that task complexity and structural aspects of the team such as team size team tenure and team dispersion moderate the effects of cultural diversity on teams we test the hypotheses with a meta analysis of 108 empirical studies on processes and performance in 10 632 teams results suggest that cultural diversity leads to process losses through task conflict and decreased social integration but to process gains through increased creativity and satisfaction the effects are almost identical for both levels and types of cultural diversity moderator analyses reveal that the effects of cultural diversity vary depending on contextual influences as well as on research design and sample characteristics we propose an agenda for future research and identify implications for managers

the patent paradox revisited an empirical study of patenting in the u s semiconductor industry 1979 1995 we examine the patenting behavior of firms in an industry characterized by rapid technological change and cumulative innovation recent survey evidence suggests that semiconductor firms do not rely heavily on patents to appropriate returns to r d yet the propensity of semiconductor firms to patent has risen dramatically since the mid1980s we explore this apparent paradox by conducting interviews with industry representatives and analyzing the patenting behavior of 95 u s semiconductor firms during 1979 1995 the results suggest that the 1980s strengthening of u s patent rights spawned patent portfolio races among capital intensive firms but it also facilitated entry by specialized design firms

strikes as collective voice a behavioral analysis of strike activity this paper outlines a collective voice approach for examining the behavioral determinants of variation in strike activity at the organizational level the author argues that strikes should be vie

inventories and strikes this paper analyses a dynamic model of bargaining and strikes in which the reservation wage of union members in each period is private information the model endogenizes the firm s decision to accumulate inventories of finished goods in order to enhance its bargaining position with higher inventories the firm makes a lower wage offer thereby accepting an increased probability of a strike the model can help explain empirical results that have found a positive correlation between wages and inventory accumulation it also shows that unless inventories are controlled for strike incidence will exhibit a spurious negative state dependence

preemption games with private information preemption games are widely used to model economic problems such as patent races we introduce private information into these games and allow for this information to stochastically change over time this reflects e g how r d competitors improve their innovations over time and keep these innovations secret before patenting them the analysis initially appears intractable because of the complexity of the equilibrium updating of beliefs on opponents information however we demonstrate the existence of a class of equilibria and calculate these equilibria in closed form we find that the expected durations in these equilibria are longer than when players information is public but in some cases shorter than in the collusive outcome hence r d secrecy slows down innovation disclosure

translation in cross language international business research beyond equivalence in this paper we problematise the way translation has been treated in international business ib research we start by conducting an interpretive content analysis of both qualitative and quantitative cross language studies published in four core ib journals over the course of a decade our analysis shows the dominance of a technicist view of translation associated with the equivalence paradigm in contrast we advocate a shift to a more contextualised approach informed by theoretical developments in translation studies more specifically we focus on two theoretical perspectives skopos theory and cultural politics which offer related but distinct approaches to rethinking equivalence we conclude by advocating that the translation process be reframed as a process of intercultural interaction rather than a lexical transfer of meaning this reconceptualisation would we argue open up what is currently a black box in most ib studies the contextualised approach that we offer has the potential not just to enrich the findings of studies but also provide insights that are of multidisciplinary relevance

the agricultural roots of chinese innovation performance abstract a debate is brewing in the literature on whether legacies of rice and wheat cultivation in china matters for cultural attributes in particular individualism vs collectivism in turn this important cultural dimension has recently been shown to affect the pattern of innovation across countries however the previous literature has not firmly connected agricultural legacies and innovation rates and has consistently used low resolution data we study the role of agricultural legacy for innovation performance using unique patent data from close to two thousand chinese counties we provide robust evidence that counties with a legacy of rice cultivation generate fewer patent applications than other counties and a legacy of wheat production tends to be associated with more patent applications the results for rice are robust to e g controlling for temperature precipitation irrigation disease burden religiosity and corruption as well as accounting for migration patterns our results firmly establish the importance of agricultural legacy for shaping the culture of innovation

novelty and disclosure in patent law the stringency of the novelty requirement in patent law affects the pace of innovation because it affects the amount of technical information that is disclosed among firms it also affects ex ante profitability of research we compare weak and strong novelty requirements from the standpoint of social efficiency we ask how our answer depends on the rule that determines which firm gets a patent when two firms have patents pending on the same technology the possible rules are first to invent which applies in the u s and first to file which applies everywhere else

international knowledge brokerage and returnees entrepreneurial decisions based on the knowledge brokerage literature and the international entrepreneurship literature we investigate whether returnees international knowledge transfer affects their entrepreneurial decisions and the extent to which this relationship is contingent on perceived supportive policies for returnee entrepreneurship and returnees difficulties with cross cultural readjustment in their home countries analyzing first hand survey data we find a positive relationship between international knowledge transfer and returnees decisions to become entrepreneurs this positive relationship is strengthened by the perception of the home country s supportive policies for returnee entrepreneurship but is weakened by returnees perceived difficulties in readjusting to the local norms and culture in their home countries

patent rights and innovation disclosure this article studies optimal patents with respect to the timing of innovation disclosure in a simple model we identify forces that lead firms to either suboptimally patent too early or too late in equilibrium and we determine conditions so that stronger patents induce earlier or later equilibrium disclosure then by solving an infinite multistage patent game with a more explicit structure we describe innovation growth and derive detailed predictions that can be used for policy experiments as an application we calibrate our multistage game using summary statistics from the seeds breeding industry we find that weaker patent rights may result in welfare gains of 46 relative to the status quo the gains are achieved because weaker patents reduce competition thus leading firms to postpone patenting

strikes and wages a test of an asymmetric information model this paper describes a simple model of labor disputes based on the hypothesis that unions use strikes to infer the profitability of the firm the model posits the existence of a negatively sloped resistance curve between wages and strike duration in addition it offer a series of predictions relating wage and strike outcomes to changes in the expected profitability of the firm and changes in the alternative opportunities of striking workers these implications are tested using data on wage outcomes strike probabilities and strike durations for a large sample of collective bargaining agreements

longitudinal analysis of strike activity this article presents an empirical study of strike activity in a panel of contract negotiations for some 250 firm and union pairs evidence is presented on two sources of variation in dispute rates changes in the characteristics of the collective bargaining agreement that affect subsequent strike outcomes and the effects of lagged strikes on the incidence and duration of subsequent disputes strike probabilities are significantly affected by the duration and expiration month of the previous agreement dispute rates are also increased by the occurrence of a short strike during the previous negotiations and reduced by the occurrence of a long strike

toward a theoretical framework of repatriation adjustment although the increased internationalization of business has brought greater scholarly attention to the issue of adjustment to overseas assignments comparatively little research activity has been paid to the topic of adjustment back to the home country and home office repatriation adjustment in this article we argue that repatriation adjustment is sufficiently different from other forms of work adjustment e g domestic relocation and expatriate assignments to warrant separate theoretical and empirical investigation to facilitate this we propose an initial theoretical framework and set of derived propositions to guide and spark future research on this topic

nationality cultural distance and expatriate status effects on the managerial network in a multinational enterprise we study the role of three characteristics of international managers nationality cultural distance and expatriate status for their network ties a network analysis of cross subsidiary interactions among 457 managers in an mne demonstrates that managers form strong expressive ties with peers with smaller cultural distance and from the same status group however managers form strong instrumental ties with peers who are different on these background characteristics the implications for international management theory and practice are discussed

language policies and practices in wholly owned foreign subsidiaries a recontextualization perspective this study adopts a recontextualization perspective on language policies and practices in wholly owned foreign subsidiaries drawing on a field study of 101 subsidiaries in japan we develop a contingency model that distinguishes between four different types of recontextualization with characteristic language policies and practices developing locally adaptive developing globally integrated established locally adaptive and established globally integrated our analysis shows how each of these four types is accompanied by specific problems and challenges in particular it elucidates five important aspects of language implementation 1 the emergence of language praxis from the interplay of headquarters strategies and local responses 2 the hybridization of language practices 3 the central role of key actors such as subsidiary presidents in recontextualization 4 the pervasive power implications of language policies and practices and 5 the multifaceted implications for strategic human resource management by so doing our analysis opens up new avenues for context specific and practice oriented studies of language in multinational companies

preemption contests between groups we consider a preemption game between competing groups firms lobbying individually for their groups interests provide an empirical example among symmetric groups the first firm to take action bears an unobserved cost and wins the prize on behalf of its group in equilibrium the firm with the lowest cost takes action but with delay more competition and a smaller ratio of costs to benefits reduce delay firms in larger groups wait longer but group action can occur earlier as the probability of a low cost firm is higher asymmetries in group size or strength of externalities also matter

a dynamic game of r and d patent protection and competitive behavior a theory of dynamic optimal resource allocation to r and d in an n firm industry is developed using differential games this technique represents a synthesis of the analytic methods previously applied to the problem static game theory and optimal control the use of particular functional forms allows the computation and detailed discussion of the nash equilibrium in investment rules this paper addresses the problem of resource allocation to research and development among the important issues that a firm engaging in r and d must evaluate are uncertainty regarding the feasibility and profitability of a particular innovation the possibility of a protracted development period the possibility that a rival firm may innovate first capturing either a patent or a significant share of the new market the possibility that a rival firm may imitate the innovation and appropriate some of the profits in the new market in what follows we will develop a theory of optimal resource allocation to research and development which incorporates the aspects of r and d enumerated above we will use a dynamic game theoretic analysis determining the nash equilibrium strategies for n identical firms the availability of perfect patent protection is shown to accelerate development of the innovation and the effect of increasing rivalry is addressed the impact of increasing rivalry on nash equilibrium investment in r and d depends upon the degree of appropriability of rewards if patent protection is perfect then increasing the number of nash rivals results in increased r and d effort however when imitation is rewarded the opposite may be true finally some notions of competitive and perfectly competitive equilibrium are examined in the context of the model developed below

data equivalence in cross cultural international business research assessment and guidelines data equivalence refers to the extent to which the elements of a research design have the same meaning and can be applied in the same way in different cultural contexts failure to establish data equivalence in cross cultural studies may bias empirical results and theoretical inferences although several authors have encouraged researchers to ensure high levels of data equivalence no study has assessed the status of the field in relation to compliance with data equivalence standards accordingly this study examines three aspects of data equivalence construct equivalence measurement equivalence and data collection equivalence within 167 studies that involve cross cultural data published in the journal of international business studies management international review journal of world business strategic management journal and the academy of management journal from 1995 to 2005 the findings indicate that international business researchers report insufficient information in relation to data equivalence issues thus limiting confidence in the findings of many cross cultural studies to enhance future research a guideline for procedures for researchers to follow and report in establishing data equivalence is offered