institutional exceptions on global projects a process model this inductive study offers an examination of 23 cases in which informants from firms engaged in large scale global projects reported unforeseen costs after failing to comprehend cognitive cultural normative and or regulative institutions in an unfamiliar host societal context the study builds on the conceptual framework of institutional theory the findings which include propositions and a generic narrative model contribute to theoretical knowledge of how institutional exceptions arise how they are resolved and how they typically involve three general phases ignorance sensemaking and response the findings also articulate the kinds of institutional transaction costs that an entrant incurs in each of the three phases and the conditions that lead to the growth of these costs

holistic ethnography studying the impact of multiple national identities on post acquisition organizations ethnographic research in international business studies focuses mainly on small group case studies ignoring other genres of ethnography and limiting its role i argue based on a study of bmw mini that holistic ethnography allows multiple perspectives on the organization making it particularly useful for studying cross border acquisitions i analyze cross cultural relationships in the organization the interaction of manager and worker perspectives and the expression of national identities within the firm as its culture is negotiated allowing for greater understanding of the conflicts that in its managers view affected the integration of the acquired subsidiary

the role of the state in skill formation evidence from the republic of korea singapore and taiwan we propose a new interpretation of the role of the state in skill formation with reference to three east asian newly industrialized economies rather than see the state as simply redressing externalities we interpret the state as matching the supply and demand for skills in a rapidly growing economy this role can be superior to a strategy of allowing education and training institutions to be driven by autonomous processes the role is most likely to be observed in developmental states we examine the political mechanisms that have helped to ensure that educational and training policy formation are subordinated to the imperatives of economic growth while the east asian model cannot be imported wholesale to western countries such as britain in different historical circumstances the example lends credence to the value of the state taking a strategic approach to education and training policy

the great reversal in the demand for skill and cognitive tasks this paper argues that several of the poor labor market outcomes observed in the great recession can be traced back to a change in the demand pattern for skilled workers that started with the tech bust of 2000 in particular we show that around the year 2000 the demand for cognitive tasks underwent a reversal in response high skilled workers moved down the occupational ladder and increasingly displaced lower educated workers in less skill intensive jobs while these effects were present before the financial crisis of 2008 they became more obvious after jobs associated with the housing bubble disappeared

foreign locals a cautionary tale on the culture of mnc local employees multinational corporations mncs rely heavily on local employees when conducting their international operations yet the international business literature provides few instances of true focus on these employees the commonly used label host country nationals hcns confers them an identity strongly related to the culture of their country prompting both researchers and practitioners to know them through the knowledge about the local culture this paper provides evidence that a more sophisticated view of the culture of hcns is needed through an ethnographic exploration of hcns working in local subsidiaries of american mncs in romania i reveal that hcns are not always culturally interchangeable with the rest of the host country population hcns can display a variety of cultural profiles more or less reflective of the national culture depending on their enacted stance towards the native culture and the cultural landscape of the mncs themselves the findings call for further specification of theories relying on the assumed localness of hcns and should contribute to the ongoing conversation on the interplay between the cultures specific to the mnc and its host countries

has the large firm training advantage declined during the 2000s the study examines data from the survey of income and program participation sipp and finds a falling incidence of job training in the united states during the period between 2001 and 2009 it als

fdi and business internationalization of the unorganized sector evidence from indian manufacturing available evidence though limited to the organized sector only suggests that fdi flowing in with mne activities or direct fiis generate technological and market access spillovers for firms outside the core group in destination countries we investigate the organizational link between formal and informal sectors in india and argue that the spread of internationalization is more when production outsourcing prevails between such units higher wage in the organized sector is a factor that breaks standard institutional barriers leading to outsourcing of production to informal units the evidence is puzzling to the extent that foreign capital and better know how as drivers of international business to developing countries usually relax the credit constraint facing formal sector units at the destination and cause expansion of formal units using a measure of technology and a panel data for a large number of industrial units in india we show that fdi transmitted through technology spillover leads to significant increase in the gross value added for several industries located in the informal sector the paper points out that production re organization associated with international capital movements should provide additional insights for standard measures of internationalization of production and services

the translation of corporate governance changes across national cultures the case of germany contrasting systems of corporate governance persist internationally but are subject to regulatory and firm level institutional change such changes may be viewed as organisational innovations often imported from the usa in the face of different national cultures this paper analyses the implications of national culture for the translation of innovations and provides case study illustrations of regulatory and firm level governance changes experienced in germany these illustrations demonstrate that the diffusion of both kinds of change has been subject to substantial translation that is consistent with german national culture

stickiness and the adaptation of organizational practices in cross border knowledge transfers the reuse of organizational practices in multiple locations is a fundamental way in which mncs leverage knowledge to seek competitive advantage scholars approaching the issue of adaptation from both a market and an institutional perspective argue that in order to achieve fit with the local environment some degree of adaptation is advisable and the need for adaptation increases as the institutional distance between source and recipient locations increases however arguments to date have examined the effect of adaptation primarily on a subsidiary s long term performance a necessary precursor is to understand the effect of adaptation on the transfer process itself as transfer difficulty or stickiness may preclude the reuse of an organizational practice in the first place in this paper we explore how the adaptation of organizational practices affects the stickiness of cross border transfers we use structural equation modeling to analyze data from 122 internal transfers of best practice contrary to expectation we find that adaptation significantly increases rather than decreases the stickiness of cross border knowledge transfer

legitimacy and multi level institutional environments implications for foreign subsidiary ownership structure in this study we examine from an institutional perspective the legitimacy rationale behind the choice of subsidiary ownership structure among multinational corporations mncs we suggest that when under a strong pressure to conform at the host country and local industry levels of their institutional environment mncs are likely to take a lower ownership stake in exchange for external legitimacy in the host country or local industry that their foreign subsidiaries are entering we also suggest that mncs are likely to take a higher ownership stake in response to strong internal pressure to sustain their internal legitimacy at the corporate level of their institutional environment we also propose that mncs are more likely to exchange ownership for legitimacy in local industries than in host countries and in local markets with a high level of political instability than in those with a low level of political instability these propositions are generally supported by our analysis of 4451 subsidiaries established by 898 japanese mncs that operated in 39 countries across 52 industries two digit sic between 1988 and 1999

local employer competition and training of workers abstractthe new training literature suggests that in a monopsonistic market employers will not only pay for firm specific training but also pay for general training if the risk of poaching is limited this implies that training should decrease with more competition for employees among firms using worker level data for germany on training participation and on training duration the authors find empirical support for this hypothesis specifically the authors find that employees are significantly less likely to participate in training if the local density of firms in a sector is high and they have shorter training durations when the local sector concentration is low

trust interlinking transactions and credit in the industrial district an essential feature of the industrial district is trust among individuals and firms within it this paper focuses mainly on trust based on investments in building up a good reputation that is a personal capital that can even substitute for collateral in obtaining credit informal credit often linked to other transactions and especially subcontracting is therefore an important way of financing economic development in the industrial district moreover the importance of trust as personal capital gives rise to a double financial intermediation in the industrial district this double intermediation constitutes a device to reduce information problems that are usually responsible for credit rationing c 1994 academic press inc copyright 1994 by oxford university press

the cross cultural research imperative the need to balance cross national and intra national diversity this paper provides a brief overview of the evolution of comparative management theories paradigms and highlights the contribution of the cross vergence construct despite progress most studies of work values across countries continue to suffer from two primary limitations the first is the fallacious assumption of cultural homogeneity with nations given the growing diversity of the workforce within country intra national variations can often be as significant as cross national differences the second is the fallacious assumption of cultural stability over time since cultures evolve albeit slowly it is important to take these changes over time into consideration and be aware of the paradoxes inherent within any given society hence the paper calls for the need to balance cross national and intra national diversity in order to truly understand cross cultural phenomena and thus further improve the quality of cross cultural research

building professional discourse in emerging markets language context and the challenge of sensemaking using ethnographic evidence from the former soviet republics this paper examines a relatively new and mainly unobserved concept in international business literature the phenomenon of communication disengagement that manifests itself in many emerging markets we link it to the deficiencies of the local professional business discourse rooted in language limitations which reflects a lack of experience with the market economy this hampers cognitive coherence between foreign and local business entities adding to the liability of foreignness as certain instances of professional experience fail to find adequate linguistic expression and complicates cross cultural adjustments causing multinational companies mncs financial losses we contribute to the ib literature by examining cross border semantic sensemaking through a retrospectively constructed observational study we argue that a relative inadequacy of the national professional idiom is likely to remain a feature of the business environment in post communist economies for some time and therefore should be factored into business strategies of mncs consequently we recommend including discursive hazards in the risk evaluation of international projects

intra cultural variation evidence and implications for international business this paper discusses the methodological and theoretical significance of intra cultural variation icv the population distribution of a characteristic within a culture a monte carlo study shows that icv has substantial influence on the statistical power of cross cultural tests therefore studying icv is methodologically important if we are to understand inconsistent findings and design cross cultural studies with enough statistical power moreover an examination of the cultural means and icvs of 42 cultures shows that icv is as large as the variation of cultural means across cultures and its relationship to cultural means is not definite a model based on multiple disciplines is proposed to cast icv in a nomological net and to illuminate several avenues for future research practical implications are also discussed

institutional forces and organizational culture in china effects on change schemas firm commitment and job satisfaction this paper examines the effects of institutional forces on change schemas of senior managers mid level managers and front line workers of different types of firms in china we postulate that several socio economic forces including regional economic prosperity firm type state owned and foreign invested within firm ranks and organizational cultures are at work the cognitive differences among people in local and foreign firms operating in similar contexts are examined through a survey of 3 960 managers and workers we test hypotheses that relate various institutional forces on how individuals perceive evaluate and infer future changes that challenge them we also examine the effects of individual change schema on firm commitment and job satisfaction two indicators that may mediate future changes in these firms

the casual ethnography of the executive suite some of the most influential work in international business ib is grounded by what looks remarkably like ethnographic fieldwork in which researchers hang out with the executives of the companies they study and incorporate into their analysis the insights they gain valuable as this work is it often fails to reflect on how these sources have shaped the account and it projects the subculture of the executive suite onto the entire organization ib would benefit from complementary serious ethnography that is reflective about sources builds on the rich ethnographic research literature and focuses on how the managed struggle to make sense of the directives from the executive suite

linkages between industrialization strategies and industrial relations human resource policies singapore malaysia the philippines and india the case studies of singapore malaysia the philippines and india presented in this paper support the author s contention that a country s industrialization strategy for economic development profoundly influences its industrial relations ir and human resources hr policy goals the author finds that import substitution industrialization was associated with ir hr policy goals of pluralism and stability while a low cost export oriented industrialization strategy was associated with ir hr policy goals of cost containment and union suppression in countries that moved from a low cost export oriented strategy to a higher value added export oriented strategy the focus of ir hr policy goals shifted from cost containment to work force flexibility and skills development the four countries diverged however in the specific institutions and arrangements they adopted to meet national ir hr policy goals due to different political choices made by dominant actors and different institutional industrial relations histories

interest rates in backward agriculture the role of economic and extra economic control this paper examines the nature and roles of personalized control exercised by the rural moneylender over a class of poor borrowers to extract as much as possible in the form of high interest charges and income from undervalued and or forfeited collaterals based on primary survey data from rural india it analyzes the strategies adopted by the lender through economic and extra economic instruments to enforce the credit contracts to accomplish his goals it also provides a vivid picture of the variations in the level of interest rates and the reasons for it across a class of borrowers in the sample copyright 1990 by oxford university press

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

the rebirth of the liberal creed paths to neoliberalism in four countries1 since the 1970s market based economic policies have been institutionalized as a nearly global policy paradigm using four national case studies this article shows that economic and financial globalization played a critical role in fostering the transition to neoliberal policies but that local institutional conditions were decisive in shaping the nature and meaning of the shift while the analysis finds that developing countries appear more dependent upon direct external pressures than developed ones it also shows that institutionalized patterns of state society relations determined the way in which neoliberal transitions were carried out somewhat irrespectively of the level of economic development in chile and britain poorly mediated distributional conflict created the ideological conditions for a monetarist revolution in mexico and france on the other hand neoliberalism was understood mainly as a necessary step to adapt the country to the international economy

the failure of training in britain analysis and prescription in the last decade education and training et reform has become a major issue in many of the world s industrial powers one theme which runs throughout these reform initiatives is the need to adapt et systems to the changing economic environment these changes include the increasing integration of world markets the shift in mass manufacturing towards newly developed nations and the rapid development of new technologies most notably information technologies education and training are seen to play a crucial role in restoring or maintaining international competitiveness both on the macro level by easing the transition of the workforce into new industries and at the micro level where firms producing high quality specialized goods and services require a well qualified workforce capable of rapid adjustment in the work process and continual product innovation this paper will highlight the need for policy makers and academics to take account of the two way nature of the relationship between et and the economy

employees willingness to adopt a foreign functional language in multilingual organizations the role of linguistic identity language holds a central role in sustainable international expansion for multinationals the choice of the functional language can facilitate or hinder communication between headquarters and subsidiary locations in order to communicate effectively with the parent organization host country employees often have to adopt a language that is not native to the subsidiary region we take a subsidiary employee perspective in presenting an interdisciplinary theoretical model of host country employees willingness to adopt a foreign language in multinational organizations the construct of linguistic identity shaped by the linguistic landscape of the host location is introduced as an important determinant in this process specifically the foreign functional language may pose a threat to the employees existing linguistic identity willingness to adopt the foreign functional language may depend upon the extent of this perceived threat we incorporate the effects of foreign language proficiency and individuals motivation for enhancement in the theoretical model both high proficiency in a foreign language and need for social economic and career enhancements can increase individuals willingness to adopt the foreign functional language finally we develop and present implications of the linguistic identity processes for entry mode location and language strategies

institutional theory and the cross national transfer of employment policy the case of workforce diversity in us multinationals this paper uses a comparative institutionalist approach combined with a power interests perspective to examine the processes whereby diversity policy is internationalised by us multinational companies it argues that the process of policy transfer to uk subsidiaries is complicated by incomplete and contested institutionalisation of diversity within the us itself and by differing conceptions of diversity between the us and the uk the ability of actors within the uk subsidiaries to mobilise and deploy specific power resources allows them to resist the full implementation of corporate diversity policy leading to a range of compromise accommodations it is argued that the findings have more general implications for analysing the transfer of hr practices between national business systems

creating self sustaining high skill ecosystems geographic clusters of high technology companies are an increasingly important source of wealth and job creation in the advanced industrial countries this article provides a framework for understanding the conditions that give rise to these self sustaining high skill ecosystems hses that is based on the cases of the highly successful biomedical and computer hardware and software firms clustered in northern and southern california the framework identifies four requirements that hses share in common with natural ecosystems a catalyst to trigger the start of their development ongoing nourishment a supportive host environment and a high degree of interdependence among the actors in the system the framework is then applied to the uk identifying those policy options that are necessary for gaining greater returns from the uk s strong research base

economic development strategies and macro and micro level human resource policies the case of india s outsourcing industry this detailed case study of india s outsourcing industry illustrates the challenges in linking macro and micro human resource policies with an economic development strategy based on export oriented services the rapid expansion in the outsourcing of services to india has raised the possibility that this sector will be a key engine of india s economic growth based on extensive field research carried out over a four year period the authors of this study argue that four interrelated human resource policy challenges threaten the outsourcing industry s growth two macro problems current skill shortages and the inability of the country to produce higher levels of skills for the long term growth and sustainability of the industry and two micro problems very high levels of employee turnover and rapidly increasing employee costs the authors evaluate current policy responses and suggest options

top executive pay and firm performance in china the sensitivity of executive pay to share price performance has been the main focus of western executive pay studies reflecting shareholders efforts to reduce agency problems by better aligning the rewards of executives with their own however these studies have ignored motivational effects and possible two way pay performance causation this paper reports chinese executive pay performance sensitivity with international comparisons to examine whether china s unique institutional environment has produced outcomes consistent with those for western market economies this same unique environment makes possible the first estimates of two way causation based on panel data analysis the results show that executive pay and firm performance mutually affect each other through both reward and motivation

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

knowledge transfer in international acquisitions this paper reports on a multimethod study of knowledge transfer in international acquisitions using questionnaire data we show that the transfer of technological know how is facilitated by communication visits meetings and by time elapsed since acquisition while the transfer of patents is associated with the articulability of the knowledge the size of the acquired unit and the recency of the acquisition using case study data we show that the immediate post acquisition period is characterized by imposed one way transfers of knowledge from the acquirer to the acquired but over time this gives way to high quality reciprocal knowledge transfer

the globalization of service work comparative institutional perspectives on call centers introduction to a special issue of the industrial labor relations review this introduction to the special issue on the globalization of service work provides an overview of the call center sector and its development in coordinated liberal market and emerging market ec

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

competing globally allying locally alliances between global rivals and host country factors an emerging literature highlights the relationship between competitive intensity and the likelihood that two rival firms will form an alliance placing this argument in an international context we first suggest that the global competitive intensity between two rival multinationals positively affects the likelihood that they will ally in any host country additionally we highlight how a number of host country contextual factors moderate the relationship between global competitive intensity and alliance formation in a given host country we test our hypotheses with a sample of 13 global automobile companies operating in 27 countries and the results largely support our predictions

policy as myth and ceremony the global spread of stock exchanges 1980 2005 we examine the antecedents and consequences in developing countries of creating a national stock exchange a core technology of financial globalization we study local conditions and global institutional pressures in the rapid spread of exchanges since the 1980s and examine how conditions at the point of adoption affected exchanges subsequent vibrancy little prior research connects the process of diffusion with the operational performance of adopted policies we find that international coercion was associated with more ceremonial adoption but that contrary to expectations common in institutional research contagion processes via peer groups and normative emulation of prestigious actors enhanced vibrancy economic globalization provides a generative context in which to consider the policy implications of organizational theory and research globalization creates both opportunities and challenges for countries on the periphery of the world economy the central question for policy makers is what structures and institutions they should adopt to promote economic and social vibrancy notably waves of alternative theories and associated packages of reforms have swept over the globe in recent decades observing this process of global diffusion and often abandonment of policies and practices meyer boli thomas and raminrez 1997 extended analyses of myth and ceremony at the organization level to the nation state in their world society approach a core idea in this work is that coercion and mimicry of peers or competitors typically based in a substrate of network ties often

how institutions and business strategies affect wages a cross national study of call centers this paper drawing on a 2003 2006 establishment level survey of 1 819 call centers in 15 countries examines effects of industrial relations institutions and employer strate gies on wage variation across coordinated liberal and emerging market economies the authors find several contradictory patterns which confirm theoretical predictions for some countries and contradict them for others suggesting diverse institutional reactions to the emergence of a new economic activity consistent with prior research denmark france and sweden exhibit patterns of low wage dispersion and no union wage premium and the united states canada and emerging market economies ex hibit quite high levels of dispersion contrary to prior research austria and germany resemble the united states in their levels of wage dispersion while the united kingdom resembles the coordinated market group finally employer strategies of outsourcing and market segmentation explain within country wage variation in most countries suggesting considerable flexibility in wage setting at the establishment level

developing difference social organization and the rise of the auto industries of south korea taiwan spain and argentina theories of economic development as diverse as modernization dependency world system and market reform take a critical factor view proponents of each theory argue that countries fail to develop because of an obstacle to economic growth we argue instead that neither a critical factor nor a single path leads to economic development viable paths vary economic growth depends on linking a country s historically developed patterns of social organization to the opportunities of global markets we formulate a sociological theory of cross national comparative advantage including not only economic factor endowments but also institutionalized patterns of authority and organization such patterns legitimize certain actors and certain relationships among those actors which facilitate development success in some activities but not in others we illustrate this approach to understanding development outcomes with a comparative analysis of the difficult rise of the automobile assembly and components industries in south korea taiwan spain and argentina

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

temporary work in coordinated market economies evidence from front line service workplaces the growing use of temporary contracts in europe raises the question of whether long term employment relations are eroding in coordinated market economies where protective regulations are historically strong this paper using data from establishment level surveys conducted in 2003 2005 examines the institutional and organizational factors that have shaped the extent of use of temporary contracts in call centers in six european countries austria denmark france germany spain and sweden while differences in regulatory regimes appear to have influenced employer behavior in some cases the exceptions are striking as the countries with the most stringent restrictions on temporary workers were among the heaviest users of such workers by contrast firm level strategies that retained work in house and invested in work force skills and training were consistent predictors of the use of long term contracts as opposed to temporary ones

the role of the board of directors in disseminating relevant information on greenhouse gases in today s world the corporate image of the largest companies is closely linked to their performance in the field of corporate social responsibility and the disclosure of information on that topic specifically on climate change since the board of directors is the body responsible for this process the aim of this article is to show the role that companies boards of directors play in the accountability process vis a vis stakeholders in relation to one specific aspect which has enormous significance in environmental information practices used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions in order to achieve this we shall verify certain business characteristics in addition to the size and activity of the board of directors and we shall take different dependence models into consideration these models will include variables related to the level of independence and diversity of the board of directors which interact with dummy variables representing the company s litigation risks regarding environmental behavior and the institutional macro context of the organization s country of origin the results make it clear that boards of directors are basically focused on the traditional responsibility of creating economic value instead of dealing with today s broader business world concepts which include social responsibility this focus therefore does not favor the accountability process before other stakeholders if this makes it more difficult to protect the interests of shareholders

an assessment of the singapore skills development system does it constitute a viable model for other developing countries abstract in this paper we briefly describe the institutional background of singapore s successful national skills development model we devise a tentative framework to evaluate national level skills development efforts and we use it to assess the singapore model we argue that the model has the potential to move constantly toward higher skills equilibria we question however the long term sustainability of the model and whether it is transferable to other developing countries we conclude with some principles that other countries might use in organizing their own skills development systems

is corporate responsibility converging a comparison of corporate responsibility reporting in the usa uk australia and germany corporate social reporting while not mandatory in most countries has been adopted by many large companies around the world and there are now a variety of competing global standards for non financial reporting such as the global reporting initiative and the un global compact however while some companies e g henkel bhp johnson and johnson have a long standing tradition in reporting non financial information other companies provide only limited information or in some cases no information at all previous studies have suggested that there are country and industry specific differences in the extent of csr reports e g kolk et al 2001 business strategy and the environment10 15 28 kolk 2005 management international review45 145 166 maignan and ralston 2002 journal of international business studies33 3 497 514 however findings are inconclusive or contradictory and it is often difficult to compare previous studies owing to the idiosyncratic methods used in each study graafland et al 2004 journal of business ethics53 137 152 furthermore previous studies have relied mainly on simple measures such as word counts and page counts of reports to compare the extent of reporting that may not capture significant differences in the content of the reports in this article we seek to overcome some of these deficiencies by using textual analysis software and a more robust statistical method to more objectively and reliably compare the csr reports of firms in different industries and countries we examine a sample of leading companies in four countries us uk australia and germany and test whether or not membership of the global compact makes a difference to csr reporting and is overcoming industry and country specific factors that limit standardization we conclude that globalcompact membership is having an effect only in certain areas of csr reporting related to the environment and workers and that businesses from different countries vary significantly in the extent to which they promote csr and the csr issues that they choose to emphasize in their reports these country differences are argued to be related to the different institutional arrangements in each country

how institutional and organizational characteristics explain the growth of contingent work in china china s traditional model of long term employment has been undermined by an increased reliance on nonrenewable fixed term and temporary agency employment contracts in this study the author draws

the effects of training on own and co worker productivity evidence from a field experiment this article identifies the effects of work related training on worker productivity by exploiting a field experiment that randomly assigns workers to treatment and control groups combined with data on worker performance before and after training we find that participation in the training programme leads to a 10 increase in performance moreover we provide experimental evidence for externalities from training an increase of 10 percentage points in the share of treated peers improves a worker s performance by 0 51 furthermore we find that the performance increase is not due to lower quality provided by the worker

variation in approaches to european works councils in multinational companies drawing on a unique international data set of multinational companies employment practices the authors use logistic regression analysis to address variation in the existence of and management practice toward transnational social dialogue through european works councils ewcs adopting a contingency perspective they find that the degree of internationalization of companies operations and management organization international hr structure and the presence of workforce organization exercise strong influence on whether multinationals covered by the relevant european union legislation have established an ewc so too do multinationals country of origin sector and size by employment while concern has focused on the significant proportion of ewcs in which management s information and consultation practice seems to be minimalist the authors find that this is less likely to be the case where the hr function is internationalized

interdependent behavior in foreign direct investment the multi level effects of prior entry and prior exit on foreign market entry this paper examines the interdependent foreign market entry decisions of multinational corporations mncs based on the argument that legitimacy and competition are two important forces in foreign market entry decisions we hypothesize that an mnc s market entry decisions are influenced by its own prior entry and prior exit decisions and those of other mncs we examine this general proposition at four levels of analysis the host country global industry an industry that spans host countries local industry an industry that is separately defined within each host country and parent firm level our analysis of a panel data of over 4000 market entry decisions that were made by japanese mncs shows that an mnc s market entry decision has a stronger inverted u shaped relationship with the prior entry and exit decisions of other mncs at the local industry level than the prior entry and exit decisions of other mncs at the host country and global industry levels we also find that both the prior entry and prior exit decisions of an mnc have a marginal influence on its own subsequent market entry decisions at the parent firm level

is there convergence across countries a spatial approach we analyze convergence across countries over the last half century as a result of globalizing forces drawing on theories of modernization dependency the world system political trade blocs and the world society we consider economic demographic knowledge financial and political dimensions of convergence using a new methodology we calculate the minimum volume ellipsoid encompassing different groupings of countries finding that during the 1960 2009 period countries have not evolved significantly closer or similar to one another although groups of countries based on their core periphery status or membership in trade blocs exhibit increasing internal convergence and divergence between one another

embeddedness inflation and international regimes the imf in the early postwar period1 this article explores why the international monetary fund imf adopted a set of orthodox anti inflationary policy prescriptions during the early postwar period when keynesian thinking was predominant drawing on primary documents from the imf archive and secondary literature the author argues that these early trends were fostered by dynamics familiar to organizational sociologists because organizations are designed by architects possessing bounded rationality they must adapt to circumstances unforeseen at their founding they may also be pushed in unexpected directions by the influential actors in their environments the power of professionals and the propensity to routinization international regimes which are partly made up of organizations may therefore be prone to internal contradictions

lost that lovin feeling the erosion of trust between small high distance partners we investigate the role of high distance in trust erosion between small partners high distance is known to hinder the formation of trust between potential partners but its role in trust erosion in established partnerships is less understood by international business scholars through a qualitative longitudinal study we extend current theory of how high distance affects the trust dynamics between cross border partners specifically we unearth three interrelated mechanisms that together explain how and why trust can erode due to high distance we show that before a partnership is formed high distance can lead partners to erroneously attribute cues to a potential partner s high quality leading to over expectations of partner performance once the partnership is operational high distance hinders actors ability to understand situational factors associated with disappointing outcomes and so they are attributed to failings of the partner at the same time distance related challenges of bounded reliability render partners reluctant to discuss partnership outcomes this can result in a vicious cycle of inertia as partners strive to protect goodwill while abandoning efforts to produce partnership outcomes because of doubts of the other s quality thus our theoretical model illustrates the limitations of trust and explains how paradoxically high distance can facilitate both trust formation and trust erosion

from pyramids to diamonds legal process offshoring employment systems and labor markets for lawyers in the united states and india in this article the authors argue that offshoring of legal work from the united states has contributed to the fracturing of the long established internal labor market arrangements in large u s la

general and specific training evidence and implications using data from the employer opportunity pilot project eopp survey and the national longitudinal survey of youth nlsy we explicitly document the specificity and generality of employer provided training and we analyze how wage growth and mobility are influenced by our direct measures of specific and general training in spite of the emphasis that labor economists have placed on specific training we find that employers in the eopp and workers in the nlsy indicate that most of the skills learned in training are useful elsewhere our results are consistent with several recent models that predict that employers will often extract some of the returns to the general training they provide

the regulation of labor author s botero juan djankov simeon la porta rafael lopez de silanes florencio shleifer andrei abstract we investigate the regulation of labor markets through employment collective relations and social security laws in 85 countries we find that the political power of the left is associated with more stringent labor regulations and more generous social security systems and that socialist french and scandinavian legal origin countries have sharply higher levels of labor regulation than do common law countries however the effects of legal origins are larger and explain more of the variation in regulations than those of politics heavier regulation of labor is associated with lower labor force participation and higher unemployment especially of the young these results are most naturally consistent with legal theories according to which countries have pervasive regulaory styles inherited from the transplantation of legal systems

implicit interest rates usury and isolation in backward agriculture the unusually high interest rates in many backward agricultural regions have been a source of some puzzlement to economists adding to this puzzle is the fact that these rates can take on a wide range of values often within the same region one important question is why arbitrage between sectors does not lead to more homogeneous and lower interest rates the traditional answer to this is in terms of lender s risk it is argued that moneylenders in backward regions face a great risk of default and once this is taken into account the effective interest rate turns out to be no higher than its counterpart in the organised sector consequently there is no real room for arbitrage and the high interest rates are equilibrium prices while this explanation may be of use in some situations it is in general inadequate and can even be misleading the reason which novelists describing rural india have repeatedly written about is that in these financial transactions the lender s risk frequently ranges from minimal to non existent because the personalised relation between the borrower and the lender enables the latter to extract the defaulted loan in the form of asset transfers from the borrower in a somewhat stylised manner these deals could be thought of as follows a peasant takes a loan from his employer keeping some of his assets like land a standing crop or even the promise of labour services as security or collateral a collateral price is then fixed this is the conversion price used to calculate the amount of collateral that has to be relinquished to the lender given a certain amount of default clearly the lower the collateral price the larger the quantity of collateral that the peasant has to forfeit hence the underpricing of collateral amounts to the charging of an implicit interest a widespread feature of rural credit markets reported in many diverse studies bardhan and rudra 1978 myint 1964 raj 1981 roth 1979 and sivakumar 1978 to mention just a few is the underpricing of collateral an interesting attempt to bring collateral explicitly into a model of usury was made by bhaduri 1977 see also 1983 who argued that one of the reasons why landlords raise interest rates is in fact to encourage default and to claim ownership of the asset kept as collateral a sharp contrast to the lender s risk model this hypothesis has deservedly received much attention 1

perspective explaining influence rents the case for an institutions based view of strategy research in strategy has identified and tried to explain four types of rents monopolistic rents efficiency rents quasi rents and schumpeterian rents building on previous work on political and institutional strategies we add a fifth type of rent influence rents influence rents are the extra profits earned by a firm because the rules of the game laws regulations and informal rules are designed or changed to suit it to aid the analysis of the relationship between institutional context and firm performance and to provide a structure to guide research we develop a framework with five key components a an identification of the five fundamental problems of a market economy b a typology that describes the five different types of institutions that emerge to solve these problems c the market ordering mechanisms used by institutions to solve these problems d the common causes of weak institutional performance and e generic strategies used by firms to exploit these weaknesses of an institutional context to enhance firm performance we highlight potential applications of the framework as well as an illustrative research agenda that can advance the development of theory to explain the emergence and persistence of influence rents

economic returns to social power merchants finance and interlinkage in the grain markets of bangladesh abstract the paper describes contrasting forms of interlinked transaction and the exchange regimes in which they are situated in two rural areas of bangladesh a fast growing green revolution area and a slow growing backward area some interlinkages fix output and finance prices for producers others establish personalized monopsony in trade the implication for rates of return and vulnerability of the different forms of interlinked transaction are explored perverse risk transfer from less to more vulnerable parties is found particularly when interlinkages are combined the market structures described appear to emerge not from government intervention but from the uneven distribution of local power and are thus unlikely to be improved by structural adjustment reforms or by price focused policies

skill gaps skill shortages and skill mismatches evidence and arguments for the united states concerns over the supply of skills in the u s labor force especially education related skills have exploded in recent years with a series of reports not only from employer associated organizatio

union organizing in china still a monolithic labor movement in contrast to much of the research that treats the official all china federation of trade unions acftu as a monolithic organization the author argues that there is considerable variation within acftu in terms of local union organizing strategies using extensive field research and interviews with regional union officials grassroots union cadres shop floor workers and employers and managers in china during the period 2005 2007 the author contributes to an understanding of contemporary trade union strategies in china moreover his analysis of regional union strategies suggests three patterns of union organizing the traditional acftu pattern the union association pattern and the regional industry based bargaining pattern each with vastly different consequences for the future of trade unions and collective bargaining in china

influences on human resource management practices in multinational corporations a study of human resource management practices in 249 u s affiliates of foreign based multinational corporations mncs shows that in general affiliate hrm practices closely follow local practices with differences among specific practices the degree of similarity of local practices is significantly influenced by the method of founding dependence on local inputs the presence of expatriates and the extent of communication with the parent in addition sharp differences are revealed among affiliates of canadian japanese and european mncs suggesting strong country effects together these findings support the view of mncs as composed of differentiated practices which in turn are shaped by forces for local isomorphism and for internal consistency

union recognition by multinational companies in china a dual institutional pressure perspective over the last decade chinese authorities have pressed foreign multinational companies to recognize official trade unions employing cross classified multilevel modeling on a large data set 10 108 foreign owned firms cross embedded in 32 home countries and 755 chinese cities this study examines the antecedents of the varied positions of foreign owned firms toward union recognition around the midpoint of the first decade of the 2000s a time when the government led union recognition campaign in china was gaining strength drawing on a dual institutional pressure perspective the authors theorize that the likelihood that a foreign owned firm will recognize a union depends on both the industrial relations system in the home country and the location of its operations in the host country specifically a foreign owned firm is more likely to recognize unions if it originated from a nation where the legitimacy of collective representation is high and if it is located in a chinese city where union recognition is prevalent among chinese owned firms

the impact of language barriers on trust formation in multinational teams this study systematically investigates how language barriers influence trust formation in multinational teams mnts on the basis of 90 interviews with team members team leaders and senior managers in 15 mnts in 3 german automotive corporations the authors show how mnt members cognitive and emotional reactions to language barriers influence their perceived trustworthiness and intention to trust which in turn affect trust formation the authors contribute to diversity research by distinguishing the exclusively negative language effects from the more ambivalent effects of other diversity dimensions their findings also illustrate how surface level language diversity may create perceptions of deep level diversity furthermore their study advances mnt research by revealing the specific influences of language barriers on team trust an important mediator between team inputs and performance outcomes it thereby encourages the examination of other team processes through a language lens finally their study suggests that multilingual settings necessitate a reexamination and modification of the seminal trust theories by mayer davis and schoorman and by mcallister in terms of practical implications the authors outline how mnt leaders can manage their subordinates problematic reactions to language barriers and how mnt members can enhance their perceived trustworthiness in multilingual settings

logics of action globalization and changing employment relations in china india malaysia and the philippines the authors develop a logics of action framework to conceptualize the impact of globalization on employment relations er and to predict the trajectory of er they argue that the interplay among three different logics of action the logic of competition the logic of industrial peace and the logic of employment income protection determines the er patterns in any given nation the strengths of the logics themselves are influenced by five often related factors economic development strategy globalization intensity union strength labor market features and government responsiveness to workers the authors extensive field research on national policies and workplace practices in four asian countries supports this framework er patterns apparently reflect different combinations of logic strengths and globalization s impact on er is both complex and contingent militating against long term convergence in er are national variations in the combinations of logic strengths and changes in logic strengths over

testing some predictions of human capital theory new training evidence from britain we confront the predictions of various theories with new training data from the british household panel survey we find that employer financed training is associated with significantly higher wages at current and future firms with a larger impact in future firms this is consistent with human capital theory with credit constraints and with the new training literature assuming imperfectly competitive labor markets

the political economy of performance standards automotive industrial policy in comparative historical perspective abstracta substantial body of literature holds that industrial policies work best when their beneficiaries are subject to demanding performance standards by conditioning access to their low cost loans and lucrative markets on foreign sales and local content for example east asian officials forced their manufacturers to improve quality cut costs and develop linkages to allied industries that generated jobs and foreign exchange revenues of their own in the so called miracle years but the politics of performance standards are themselves unclear why are they more common in some countries than others are they more likely to be imposed by autocratic than democratic regimes and if so why i address these questions by examining cross national data on export and local content requirements in the auto industry in 1980 find that they all but presupposed autocracy in labour surplus but not labour scarce countries explore the interactions of political regimes productive assets and performance st

from a distance and generalizable to up close and grounded reclaiming a place for qualitative methods in international business research journal of international business studies 2011 42 573 581 doi 10 1057 jibs 2011 19 it is exhilarating to write the introduction to this special issue as it presents an important opportunity for qualitative research to reclaim its position as an integral part of international business ib research the field of ib was founded on a rich qualitative research legacy e g bartlett 1979 crozier 1965 fayerweather 1969 johanson vahlne 1977 kindleberger 1956 prahalad 1975 wilkins 1970 1974 over time however such methods have been progressively marginalized in our field as quantitative methods have become the norm this shift in emphasis has mirrored the broader trend toward more positivistic empirical methods in the social sciences the field of ib is multidisciplinary in scope and interdisciplinary in content and methodology statement of jibs editorial policy however as our respective home disciplines came under growing pressure to solidify their legitimacy as scientific endeavors that merit scholarly attention it is not surprising that we began to take on the norms propagated within our own academic communities that typically equated quantitative data with hard science while there are clear merits associated with quantitative methods the multi cultural multi dimensional and dynamic nature of the field of ib lends itself to a broad range of research methodologies qualitative methods being one of them in order to understand the complexities of emergent and evolving phenomena scattered over distance and the differentiated contexts typical to many topics under investigation in ib it is often inappropriate to engage in large scale cross sectional studies or reductionist methods in the absence of well developed theory rather thick description exploratory research and comparative case analysis that focus on inductive theory building and hypotheses generation may be more suitable

boundary work an interpretive ethnographic perspective on negotiating and leveraging cross cultural identity the complexity of global organizations highlights the importance of members ability to span diverse boundaries that may be defined by organization structures national borders and or a variety of cultures associated with organization nation based societal and work cultures industries and or professions based on ethnographic research in a japan us binational firm the paper describes and analyzes the boundary role performance of the firm s japanese members it contributes toward theory on boundary spanning by introducing a cultural identity negotiation conceptual framework we show boundary spanning as a process shaped through the interplay of the contextual issues that make a boundary problematic an individual s multiple repertoires of cultural knowledge and the individual boundary spanner s negotiation through interaction with others of his her cultural identities the sense of who i am as a cultural being that is fundamental to an individual s self concept at the same time we make transparent the epistemological and methodological foundations of an interpretive ethnographic approach demonstrating its value for understanding complex organizational processes research findings have practical implications for the selection and training of an organization s employees particularly of persons who may be considered bicultural

trade unions and training practices in british workplaces the authors use british establishment level data from the 1991 employers manpower and skills practices survey emsps and individual level data from the autumn 1993 quarterly labour force survey qlfs to investigate the links between training provision and workplace unionization both the probability of receiving training and the amount of training received are found to have been substantially higher in unionized than in nonunion workplaces the authors view these results as showing that trade unions can play an important role in developing and boosting skill formation in britain

toward a cooperative view of mnc host government relations building blocks and performance implications this study examines cooperation based relations between mncs and host governments we theorize that resource commitment personal relations political accommodation and organizational credibility are four building blocks for improving an mnc s cooperative relationships with governments analysis of 131 mncs in china validates the importance of these blocks in shaping mnc government relations and the importance of these relations in shaping the performance of mnc subsidiaries

spurred to upgrade a review of triggers and consequences of industrial upgrading in the global value chain literature summary the global value chains gvc literature intervenes in today s challenging development context by focusing on the means by which developing country industries can upgrade their market positions and outcomes for workers yet while this literature has produced hundreds of rich empirical case studies there has to date been no attempt to systematically analyze this case literature for lessons regarding the antecedents and consequences of the key outcome of upgrading this paper undertakes a systematic analysis of a representative sample of 45 case studies of primary product and light manufacturing industries in developing countries these studies were coded for factors involved in initiating and sustaining upgrading processes the results of upgrading and the role of local institutions in these processes we find that contrary to the major assumptions of the literature advanced country buyers are not the main force in the initiation of industrial upgrading rather in most cases developing country firms initiate upgrades when pushed by shocks of market vulnerability usually produced by state policies that force them to seek to change their status quo operations once initiated upgrading processes can produce a wide spectrum of results from little to no advancement in market position treadmilling to vaulting to the forefront of a global industry leaps forward on the basis of the sources of learning present in the local institutional environment such as state agencies and business associations we also identify conditions under which state participation in upgrading processes can lead to increased local institutional capacity together these findings suggest a framework for upgrading that we refer to as an induced search model this model has important implications for future research on the dynamics of industrial upgrading in developing countries techniques of state intervention and processes of mutually supportive learning between actors in the public and private sector

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

pay for performance in emerging markets insights from china with the rapid increase in the application of western hr practices in emerging markets it is crucial to investigate how non western employees react to western hr practices such as pay for performance pfp we investigate employee reactions to pfp in emerging markets using china as a case our multilevel analyses based on data from 574 engineers in 22 domestic firms and eight foreign firms in china demonstrated that pfp was positively associated with conscientiousness at the individual level in contrast pfp was negatively related to employees organizational commitment and interpersonal helping at the organization level this study suggests that the impact of culture distance associated with western hr practices may be more likely to manifest itself in the collective entity than at the individual level employees of domestic firms reported significantly higher levels of performance appraisal satisfaction and justice perceptions than employees of foreign firms which might explain why pfp was more widely implemented in domestic firms in china the present results demonstrated that in addition to the culture distance the context distance between domestic and foreign firms may play a critical role in accruing benefits from pfp indicating that pfp can be more beneficial to domestic firms than to foreign firms the present findings provide practical implications for foreign firms operating in emerging markets

the multinational corporation as a multilingual community language and organization in a global context this paper develops a framework for analyzing the multinational corporation mnc as a multilingual community in which parent functional language and subunit functional languages are concurrently used and recursively linked through an intra corporate communication network the unit breadth and intensity of an mnc s language system are designed to apply global strategies within the context of evolving environmental and organizational realities to the extent that language design is the product of deliberate choice we suggest that headquarters functional language is determined by the mnc s international strategy organizational structure and transnationality while subunit functional language is designed in accordance with organizational form strategic role and expatriate deployment aligning language systems with organizational strategy and dynamics improves mnc communication coordination and knowledge sharing

the changing nature of labor unrest in china a qualitative shift is underway in the nature of labor protest in china contrary to prior literature that characterized strikes as being largely defensive in nature the authors suggest that since 2008 chinese workers have been striking offensively for more money better working conditions and more respect from employers they explain these developments using a political process model that suggests economic and political opportunities are sending cognitive cues to workers that they have increased leverage leading them to be more assertive in their demands such cues include a growing labor shortage new labor laws and new media openness their argument is supported by a unique data set of strikes that the authors collected two case studies of strikes in aerospace factories and interviews with a variety of employment relations stakeholders

training opportunities in monopsonistic labour markets this paper studies the empirical relationship between the extent of monopsonistic power observed in occupational labour markets and the training opportunities available to workers in those markets