the role of decentralized generation and storage technologies in future energy systems planning for a rural agglomeration in switzerland abstract this study presents a framework to quantitatively evaluate decentralized generation and storage technology dgst performance and policy impacts in a rural setting the role of dgsts in the future energy systems planning of a rural agglomeration in switzerland is examined using a cost optimization modeling approach heat and electricity demand for major sectors are considered scenarios introduce dgsts in a stepwise manner to measure incremental impacts on future capacity planning compared to a baseline scenario sub scenarios also examine the impacts of carbon mitigation policies and a sensitivity analysis is carried out for key energy carriers and conversion technologies dgsts enable a significant reduction in electricity grid usage for the community considered small hydro with a storage reservoir and photovoltaics enable the community to become largely self sufficient with over 80 reductions in grid imports by 2050 compared to the baseline scenario storage enables maximum usage of the available hydro potential which also leads to network upgrade deferrals and a significant increase in photovoltaic installations investment decisions in small hydro are robust against cost variations while heating technology investment decisions are sensitive to oil and grid electricity prices carbon pricing policies are found to be effective in mitigating local fossil fuel emissions

reconciling the advantages and liabilities of foreignness towards an identity based framework this article leverages identity theory to address the question of when and how foreignness acts as an advantage and liability for the mne subsidiary applying an organizational identity lens i delineate how subsidiaries manage their foreignness by accentuating and attenuating internal and external organizational attributes drawing on this conceptualization i theorize how an accentuated foreign identity moderates context specific advantages and liabilities in offering a more nuanced understanding of how subsidiaries actively manage their foreignness and its contextual implications an identity based framework helps to both explain and reconcile the advantages and liabilities of foreignness

on the dynamics of demand for leisure and the production of health our article develops and estimates a structural model of household health production that jointly determines the demand for leisure and the demand for consumption for elderly males we use a stochastic dynamic programming framework based on the assumption that an individual maximizes lifetime utility subject to budget and time constraints and a health production function by choosing hours of leisure and levels of consumption of health related and health neutral goods and services moreover we use a very comprehensive health index that combines four scales measuring a variety of dimensions in the quality of life the euler equations derived from our model are estimated using data from six biennial panels of the retirement history survey

standardization preferences a function of national culture work interdependence and local embeddedness both theoretical and empirical studies of professional service employee standardization preferences are relatively scarce using responses from 398 employees of an international public relations firm this study finds that employees from high power distance high uncertainty avoidance and high context cultures prefer greater standardization whereas employees from high individualism cultures prefer less standardization additionally work interdependence is positively associated with standardization preferences whereas local embeddedness is negatively associated with standardization preferences

a probit latent variable model of nutrition information and dietary fiber intake nutrition information and intake data for a sample of u s household meal planners are used to estimate the effects of fiber specific information on dietary fiber intake the information variables are measured using survey questions on fiber content of foods attitude toward consuming fiber rich foods and awareness of fiber health links the evidence confirms the influence of nutrition information on fiber intake household income meal planner age smoking status vegetarian status race and ethnicity are major determinants of both information and intake education exerts a sizable intake effect by enhancing the information level direct and indirect effects of exogenous variables are reported

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

converging or diverging a comparative analysis of trends in contingent employment practice in europe over a decade this paper makes a unique contribution to the hrm convergence divergence debate by examining whether organisations operating in europe over the 10 year time period preceding 2000 are converging in their adoption of contingent employment practice the susceptibility of contingent employment practice to both convergent and divergent pressures acts as a useful analytical lens data are drawn from organisations operating in germany spain sweden the netherlands and the uk in 1991 2918 organisations 1995 2048 organisations and 2000 1555 organisations the results suggest that convergence is limited by the institutional embeddedness of organisations

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

information health risk beliefs and the demand for fats and oils mean and variance measures of health information about cholesterol and saturated fat are included in a demand system for fats and oils a bayesian model of health risk belief and consumer awareness surveys are the basis for computing these measures the empirical demand model shows that health information has resulted in significant increases in consumption for corn cottonseed and soybean oils and decreased consumption for butter and lard the predicted demand effects based on the bayesian information model are more reasonable than predictions from using either a time trend or a simple cumulative cholesterol information index copyright 1995 by mit press

explaining stakeholder evaluations of hrm capabilities in mnc subsidiaries this paper examines how functional and line management stakeholders evaluate operational human resource management capabilities in multinational corporation mnc subsidiaries we suggest that such evaluations are a function of two key structural factors 1 that focal subsidiary human resource hr departments respond differentially to the expectations of differently located stakeholders and 2 that the structural position of the stakeholder determines what cues he or she relies upon to construct the evaluation our findings show that the focal hr subsidiary department is likely to exert more effort towards meeting the expectations of line management stakeholders and we suggest that this is a function of line management s co location with the focal hr department second we find that co located line management stakeholders are more likely to rely on experience based cues when constructing evaluations whereas headquarters located functional stakeholders tend to rely on cognition based evaluation driven by their ability to compare across different subsidiary hr departments we contribute to the literature by going beyond existing research that has tended to focus on evaluation from the perspective of organizational behavior by providing a structural perspective on capability evaluation in mncs that combines the insights of role theory and cognitive choice heuristics

health behavior health knowledge and schooling the positive correlation between schooling and good health is well documented one explanation is that schooling helps people choose healthier life styles by improving their knowledge of the relationship between health behaviors and health outcomes that is schooling improves the household s allocative efficiency in producing health this empirical study uses direct measures of health knowledge to test this explanation part of the relationship between schooling and the consumption of cigarettes alcohol and exercise is explained by differences in health knowledge however most of schooling s effects on health behavior remain after differences in knowledge are controlled for

models for quantifying the economic benefits of distributed generation we examine some of the most important economic benefits brought about by distributed generation technologies to the distribution utility and the power system models are developed that allow the quantification of those benefits in economic terms in some cases industry regulators or utilities charge connection fees to the owners of distributed generators even if they are saving the local utility considerable amounts of money every year in deferred network upgrades reduced losses avoided wholesale market purchases and others efficient economic systems dictate that a proper share of the indirect benefits created by a given economic activity leads to overall optimal independent decision making by its participants quantifying and allocating the benefits of distributed generation to the owners improves the economic performance of their investments and encourages the implementation of those distributed generation applications most valuable to the system

r d co practice and reverse knowledge integration in multinational firms this paper contributes to the developing literature on the management of distributed innovation in multinational firms we focus on a specific organizational mechanism r d co practice which we believe is an important facilitator of knowledge integration in multinationals with global innovation strategies in our formulation r d co practice joint technical activities between units increases levels of absorptive capacity and social capital among participating units thus increasing the likelihood that they will share knowledge at future time periods we find strong support for this hypothesis through an empirical analysis of reverse subsidiary to headquarters knowledge integration in two sectors automotive and pharmaceuticals over a 21 year period

abstraction and product categories as explanatory variables for food consumption this study sets out to explore variation in the consumer choice structure in relation to three types of products with different levels of search experience and credence attributes the decision structures of rice wine and functional food experience search and credence products consumers were explored by means of laddering the results suggest the presence of an emotional component in foods that increases in complexity becomes more abstract with the number of credence attributes the findings recommend adjusting the complexity of advertising campaigns and product positioning to the type of product being promoted

consumer demand for nutrition versus taste in four major food categories this study addresses the trade off between nutrition and taste in expenditure on breakfast cereal milk bread and soft drinks within each category products have similar cost and convenience but have markedly different flavor and nutritional content using annual expenditure data for a large sample of households participating in the acnielsen homescan system we regress a measure of healthiness on household demographics and market prices and find that households with college educated heads and higher incomes made significantly healthier choices in all four categories these effects are puzzling in that the nutritional differences between products were well known to consumers and there are no cost or convenience differences between them the presence of children was associated with less healthy choices especially for cereal and bread while older households made healthier choices in all categories except milk

towards a european model of human resource management the concept of human resources management hrm has been much debated in the literature the concept developed initially from work in the u s a in the 1960s and 1970s and since then has been adopted increasingly around the world this paper argues that in europe there is only limited acceptance of the organizational autonomy upon which the concept in based and that therefore different approaches to the notion of human resource management are required external constraints are analysed and a new model of the concept that would encompass eurohrm is proposed

on the quantification of the network capacity deferral value of distributed generation this paper presents an approach to the quantification of the distribution network capacity deferral value of distributed generation dg besides different technical benefits such as reliability and power quality improvement there are a number of economic benefits related to dg the most important of which being the end user electricity bill reduction capability however since the onset of the implementation of these technologies the potential of dg to defer investments on distribution wires and transformers was soon realized to the point that non wire solutions are now considered as an alternative to network upgrades in this work a first approximation to the capacity deferral benefits brought about by dg is obtained such approach can be the starting point towards the development of a framework of credits to the owners of dg that fully and fairly recognize the deferral benefits provided to the utility the financial performance of investments on these important technologies can be then improved thus broadening dg as a viable market alternative for customers and utilities

health information and diet choices results from a cheese experiment abstract this study reports results from a choice experiment on semi hard cheese from norway about half of the 408 participants were exposed to diet related health information before performing either a choice or a ranking task while a control group did not receive such information the effects of health information on marginal willingness to pay for low saturated fat low fat and organic cheese are analyzed using rank ordered mixed logit models cheese preferences are clearly affected by exposure to health information on average the health information group is willing to pay a price premium of 27 2 nok 24 5 per kg for low saturated fat cheese and 14 4 nok 13 0 per kg for low fat cheese this is respectively 1 73 and 2 89 times more than corresponding price premiums in the control group non college medium high income age 50 70 and female participants are more clearly affected by health information than college low income age 30 49 and male participants subjective statements on diet health knowledge and awareness are used to discuss these findings our results suggest that provision of health information is likely to reduce educational differences in diet health knowledge and thus dietary behavior low income participants seem to be constrained by high food prices but not by lack of knowledge or awareness finally due to lack of diet health awareness reaching out to young people and particularly males through health information policies seems difficult

effects of fdi flows on institutional development does it matter where the investors are from global fdi flows to and from developing countries have increased significantly since the 1990s while developing countries saw this as a positive development many economists and policy makers in developed countries have raised concerns regarding the institutional effects of developing country investments in other developing countries in this paper we explore the effects of bilateral fdi flows on institutional development gaps between countries and whether such effects are conditional on the direction of flows including south south south north north south and north north directions the empirical results using bilateral flows between 134 countries and a variety of institutional development measures during 1990 2009 suggest that the institutional development effects of fdi flows in any direction including the north south or south south directions are not significant in any case we do not find any significant convergence or divergence effect of fdi flows on the institutional distance between host and home countries we also fail to find any significant effect of aggregate north south fdi flows on host country institutions in contrast we find that aggregate south south fdi flows have a significantly negative effect on host country institutions furthermore we find some evidence that south south fdi flows may be harmful to institutional development in natural resource rich countries while the opposite is true for north south flows overall the results suggest that there is no strong evidence of any benevolent or malevolent effects of bilateral fdi flows from developed or developing countries to developing countries

institutional theory and mnc subsidiary hrm practices evidence from a three country study this study sets out to explore human resource management hrm practices in multinational corporation mnc subsidiaries within an institutional theory framework based on a sample of 158 subsidiaries of mncs operating in the united states russia and finland the paper examines factors hypothesised to influence the hrm practices adapted in us japanese and european mnc subsidiaries located in russia finland and the us the results indicate significant differences in hrm practices used across host countries both the status of the subsidiary human resource department and the degree to which the subsidiary was involved in knowledge transfer with other parts of the mnc had a significant impact on the selection of hrm practices

an architectural framework for global talent management a unique characteristic of the multinational corporation is that it comprises a geographically dispersed and culturally differentiated workforce that embodies both firm specific and location specific human capital this article takes an architectural approach to describe how different types of human capital develop from the individual level to the unit level and then to the firm level in order to build a talent portfolio for the multinational corporation depending on the company s strategy multidomestic meganational transnational different configurations of the talent portfolio tend to be emphasized and integrated to achieve competitive advantage implications for theory and practice are discussed and a research agenda is introduced

ceo international experience effects on strategic change and firm performance despite the growing importance of ceos international experience ie we have yet to gain sufficient insights into its conceptualization and effect on firm outcomes based on prior research and work experience models we suggest a new framework for measuring ie including three components length of time number of countries and cultural distance along with their interactions drawing upon social and cognitive learning theories we explore the impact of ceos ie on two outcomes strategic change and firm performance we argue that ie components affect the two outcomes by enhancing executives international knowledge and general competencies while international knowledge may affect firm performance directly general competencies may affect firm performance both directly and indirectly through strategic change using a sample of 387 new ceos we found that time abroad had a positive effect on strategic change and firm performance while number of countries and cultural distance positively moderated these relationships additionally we also found that these components affected firm performance both directly and mediated through strategic change our findings have important theoretical implications for the conceptualization and impact of ceos ie and practical implications for executive development and promotion

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

the tortuous evolution of the role of culture in ib research what we know what we don t know and where we are headed this paper takes stock of the literature on culture in international business by looking back in terms of evaluating what we know and what we do not know and looking forward by identifying emerging trends and outlining avenues for future research unresolved issues gaps and limitations include 1 narrow conceptualization of culture and fragmented approach to the study of culture 2 failure to adopt a multilevel approach and insufficient attention to level of analysis 3 insufficient attention to context and process 4 failure to adopt a more dynamic view of culture 5 tendency to equate country with culture and failure to explore other national differentiators and 6 western centric approach to the study of culture suggestions on redressing the unresolved issues include 1 broadening the definition of culture and transcending the values based approach to include schemas norms and memes 2 paying more attention to process context by exploring the situation dependent and dynamic nature of culture and 3 entertaining alternative research designs methods such as emic approaches qualitative methods experimental designs neuroscience based methods and replication studies while these may represent a major departure from methodologies popular in our field their use can hopefully help us overcome the fragmented discipline based approach which has contributed to the persistent problems that have plagued the study of culture in ib in the past

the impact of strategy on conflict a cross national comparative study of u s and japanese firms an empirical test of 290 u s and 653 japanese managers using the miles and snow typology provides a cross national examination of strategy s impact on conflict results substantially support the study s predictions and indicate that firms should 1 monitor their conflict handling mechanisms 2 emphasize integrative approaches and 3 appropriately use formalization for conflict handling despite a convergence of management practices globally findings indicate that considerable differences still exist between u s and japanese firms

motives of non american firms investing in the united states non american firms have recently begun investing larger sums of money in the u s such increased activity has created a great deal of interest and concern the growth in foreign direct investment and findings of a mailed questionnaire will be reviewed in this article factor analysis was utilized to help isolate the salient motives for these investment activities although the size of the u s market and the attractiveness of a new market or the desire to preserve the existing u s market were the most frequently cited reasons for new investment in the u s factor analysis reveals that these reasons merely reinforce the primary motive namely the desire to benefit from a higher level of u s technology and innovation

low income and poor health choices the example of smoking people with low incomes tend to make less healthy consumption choices than do high income people in the case of food agricultural economists have investigated whether this is due to the cost of a healthy diet studies of various aspects of the nutrition income nexus have generally been inconclusive we investigate a different possibility motivated by the fact that low income individuals are most likely to be smokers which cannot be due to limited budgets drawing on a body of related literature we develop a model in which income serves not only as a budget constraint but also as a source of future utility we test the model by estimating logistic models of beginning and quitting smoking we find support for the idea that low income consumers make less healthy choices because they face lower costs in terms of foregone future utility

organization development and firm performance a comparison of multinational and local firms this study examines the usage and outcomes of organization development od interventions in multinational firms we test competing hypotheses derived from the cultural and institutional isomorphic perspectives data from firms operating in hong kong show that western firms u s and european are more receptive to od interventions than asian firms local and japanese which supports the cultural explanation however the local isomorphism explanation is valid in predicting organizational outcomes that od interventions have similar effects regardless of a firm s country origins hence neither perspective alone is sufficient to explain both usage and outcomes this implies that local adaptation of od interventions is a complex issue for managing multinational firms

transnational firms and the changing organisation of innovative activities it is suggested that a transition is taking place towards new modes of organising transnational corporations innovative activities first different units of multinational firms including foreign based subsidiaries are increasingly involved in the generation use and transmission of knowledge secondly multinationals are developing external networks of relationships with local counterparts through which foreign affiliates gain access to external knowledge sources and application abilities as a result of this evolutionary process multinationals organisation is subject to both centripetal and centrifugal forces considerable efforts are then necessary to innovate coordination procedures and mechanisms in order to enhance the generation circulation and use of knowledge a number of empirical works are reviewed providing some evidence of the evolutionary process discussed in the paper 1 transnational companies as networks of innovators economists have long viewed innovation as being primarily generated by firms in their home countries classic contributions in the economics of multinational corporations have consolidated this view referring mainly to the us based multinationals vernon 1966 kindleberger 1969 and stopford and wells 1972 theorised a quasi colonial relationship between the parent company and foreign subsidiaries wherein the latter are in charge of replicating the former s activities abroad with strategic decisions including r d and innovation strategies being rigidly centralised particularly vernon emphasised that coordinating international innovative activities would be too costly owing to the difficulties of collecting and controlling relevant information across national borders host countries and foreign subsidiaries would then play a role almost exclusively in the adoption and diffusion of centrally created technology this view was supported mainly by us economists and based on us evidence from the early post world war ii period but it was very influential for the development of studies on the economics of transnational companies tncs and the internationalisation of

multinational experience and the creation of linkages with local firms evidence from the electronics industry the paper focuses on the nature and determinants of multinational firms creation of linkages with local firms with specific reference to the electronics industry the study of the recent evolution of international operations in this sector seems to highlight a relevant and somewhat generalisable pattern of industrial organisation and dynamics it is argued that the nature and intensity of multinational companies involvement into linkages with local counterparts are strongly influenced by a combination of factors that are partially inter dependent but still rely on different decision making centres on the one hand host countries long term investment policies in the field of human capital training and accumulation and on the other hand firms decisions to take roots in local contexts through the creation of foreign subsidiaries it is further suggested that human capital and subsidiaries will particularly favour the development of collaborative linkages with local firms compared to previous work of the authors on this subject this paper utilises an expanded and updated data set covering international operations of the top european and us electronics companies over the 1984 1995 period and attempts a more detailed and in depth analysis concerning the nature determinants and evolution in time of international growth strategies

the effect of national culture on the choice of entry mode characteristics of national cultures have frequently been claimed to influence the selection of entry modes this article investigates this claim by developing a theoretical argument for why culture should influence the choice of entry two hypotheses are derived which relate culture to entry mode choice one focusing on the cultural distance between countries the other on attitudes towards uncertainty avoidance using a multinomial logit model and controlling for other effects the hypotheses are tested by analysing data on 228 entries into the united states market by acquisition wholly owned greenfield and joint venture empirical support for the effect of national culture on entry choice is found

building a process model of local adaptation of practices a study of six sigma implementation in korean and us firms the strategic transformation of asian firms into global players has involved the adoption and adaptation of many organizational practices developed in the west we build a process model of adaptation by observing how an organizational practice is adapted to a local setting different from its locus of origin through inductive methods and case studies of six sigma implementation in korean and us firms based on these cases we propose a cascading sequential pattern to the local adaptation of the conceptual social and technical dimensions of organizational practices reconciling conflicting views in the literature on whether or not to adapt our theoretical model highlights the importance of considering the different degrees of contextual influence on different underlying dimensions of a practice and of configuring each dimension accordingly further we suggest that the sequence and configuration of adaptation across different practice dimensions matter to the successful implementation of a practice across borders

the determinants of expatriate staffing by japanese multinationals in asia control learning and vertical business groups we empirically examine the determinants of the decision whether or not to appoint an expatriate as the managing director of overseas affiliates for a sample of 844 japanese manufacturing affiliates operating in asia in 1995 confirmation is found for hypotheses derived both from a control and coordination perspective on expatriation and from a knowledge creation and learning perspective strategic dependence of the parent on the affiliate increases the propensity to appoint expatriates whereas localisation of the affiliate reduces it organisational experience in the country both by the affiliate and by the firm increases the probability that host country nationals will be appointed inter firm relationships within vertical keiretsu groups impact on expatriation policies through inter organisational knowledge exchange in host countries and the mitigation of localisation requirements owing to intra group transactions

task success based on contingency fit of managerial culture and embeddedness the article extends research on the contingency of fit in international management at the level of managerial tasks foreign firms managerial tasks are embedded in two environments with different profiles and different managerial cultures fit them to ensure task success study 1 analyzes 18 critical incidents summarizes chinese and japanese managerial cultures and identifies three types of managerial tasks we hypothesize that task success depends on the fit between task type and the chosen managerial culture such that foreign firms can have their operational local and people tasks successfully completed using home host or integrated managerial cultures respectively study 2 tests our hypotheses using 112 critical incidents the fit pattern at the level of managerial tasks advances the contingency perspective in international management and equips managers with cultural agility to confront international challenges

nutrient elasticities in a complete food demand system this study explores the linkage of the determinants of food choice with consumer nutrient availability by developing a procedure to measure changes in nutrient availability as the demand for food items change it uses demand elasticities from traditional demand analysis to estimate elasticities of changes in the nutritional content of consumer diets the procedure is applied to estimate nutrient elasticities for fifteen nutrients in response to changes in thirty five food prices and per capita income

qualified immigrants success exploring the motivation to migrate and to integrate high quality employees with international experience bring valuable advantages to internationally operating organizations the growing number and importance of immigrants and particularly qualified university educated immigrants deserves more attention from international business practitioners and scholars the market for highly qualified people within mncs is increasingly becoming international and ever more of them have migrated to a new country to advance their career such employees can be a source of competitive advantage for international firms we use qualitative research with qualified immigrants qis in france to argue that the success of qis depends in large part on their motivation to integrate into their host country which is largely explained by their motivation to migrate from the qualitative data we derive four different types of qualified migrant and suggest that the type will determine the success of the immigrant within and outside the organization the relationship between the motivation to migrate and the motivation to integrate is moderated by met expectations and organizational integration policies such that the effects of these in turn vary with type recognition of the types of qi and the moderating factors will be valuable for practitioners as well as opening up research avenues for scholars

global standardization or national differentiation of hrm practices in multinational companies a comparison of multinationals in five countries drawing on a dataset constructed from a parallel series of nationally representative surveys of multinational companies mncs we compare the performance management pm practices of mncs in the uk ireland canada spain denmark and norway in each country we analyze data relating to mncs from that country and of the foreign affiliates of us mncs we argue that there is evidence of standardization in the nature of practices across countries particularly evident in the analysis of us mncs standardization of practices among mncs is also evident in the rather limited variation in practices between us and indigenous mncs within each country moreover even where there is evidence of variation across and within countries this cannot be fully explained by adaptation to local institutional constraints but rather can be seen as the product of how distinct national contexts can promote the take up of practices

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

human resource management in us subsidiaries in europe and australia centralisation or autonomy we explore determinants of subsidiary autonomy in setting human resource management hrm practices within us parented multinational enterprises mnes in europe and australia we examine both the effect of strategic context and the effect of the institutional location of the subsidiary we find that us mnes show greater centralisation of control over hrm where the subsidiary faces global markets in coordinated market economies vs liberal market economies and where union density is low

overt employment discrimination in mnc affiliates home country cultural and institutional effects using job announcements posted by mnc subsidiaries in taiwan and thailand we investigated the effects of mnc home country cultural and institutional forces on the use of employment gender and age discriminatory criteria in host countries where anti discrimination legislation was absent we examined the cultural effects with composite measures taken from the work of hofstede and schwartz the effects of the existence of anti age and anti gender discrimination employment legislation in an mnc home country were also assessed to control for institutional factors logit analysis shows that mnc home country culture and institutional environment can have a strong impact on the use of discriminatory criteria by mncs in host countries at least those lacking protective legislation specifically mncs based in countries that have existing and effective age and gender discrimination laws and have more individualist and less masculine cultures are less likely to engage in at least overt gender based and age based discrimination

high performance work systems in foreign subsidiaries of american multinationals an institutional model this study examines the implementation of high performance work systems hpwss in 217 subsidiaries of american based multinational enterprises operating in 14 countries in asia africa and europe specifically this paper explores the effect of host country institutional factors on the extent of hpws implementation in subsidiaries and focuses on strong agency influences and dominance effects the proposed model was more successful in explaining the effect of hpwss on rank and file employees than on managers of particular interest is the strong positive association between host country economic growth and hpws implementation which suggests a possible cyclical sensitivity of subsidiaries regarding human resource management strategy

intellectual capital configurations and organizational capability an empirical examination of human resource subunits in the multinational enterprise building on the organizational capabilities literature and theories of the multinational enterprise this paper develops and tests a framework that examines the relationship between intellectual capital configurations and organizational capabilities in human resource hr subunits looking at 187 subunits from 20 mnes findings show that intellectual capital dimensions vary in their usefulness for generating sharing and implementing hr management practices in particular while certain resources may help in the development of one capability they may harm the development of another implications are that an organization s intellectual capital investments will differ depending on the desired capability

management development and firm performance in germany norway spain and the uk while comparative studies of human resource management hrm are relatively plentiful few have examined the way organisations in different countries train and develop their managers or the impact of this upon firm performance given the centrality of management capability for corporate and national competitive performance this represents an important area of enquiry utilising telephone interview data from the human resource development manager and a line manager in 482 domestic and multinational organisations in four european countries patterns of management development md are found to differ according to country and to a lesser extent by international strategy however a significantly greater amount of organisational performance is explained by internal md strategies adopted by the organisations concerned and the credence accorded these by line managers

integrating climate change and health into food policy an analysis of how climate change can affect food prices and population health abstract the inter related nature of food health and climate change requires a better understanding of the linkages and a greater alignment of policy across these issues to be able to adequately meet the pressing social and health challenges arising from climate change food price is one way through which climate change may affect health the aim of this study of the global and australian food systems is to provide a whole of system analysis of food price vulnerabilities highlighting the key pressure points across the food system through which climate change could potentially have the greatest impact on consumer food prices and the implications for population health we outline areas where there are particular vulnerabilities for food systems and food prices arising from climate change particularly global commodity prices agricultural productivity short term supply shocks and less direct factors such as input costs and government policies we use australia as a high income country case study to consider these issues in more detail the complex and dynamic nature of pricing mechanisms makes it difficult to predict precisely how prices will be impacted should prices rise disproportionately among healthy foodstuffs compared to less healthy foods there may be adverse health outcomes if less expensive and less healthy foods are substituted higher prices will also have equity implications with lower socio economic groups most impacted given these households currently spend proportionately more of their weekly income on food the ultimate objective of this research is to identify the pathways through the food system via which climate change may affect food prices and ultimately population health thereby providing evidence for food policy which takes into account environmental and health considerations

attitudes towards women s career advancement in latin america the moderating impact of perceived company international proactiveness while companies operating in latin america have witnessed increased female leadership participation the region remains characterized by traditional gender role attitudes this juxtaposition of traditional machismo attitudes towards women along with progress in women s leadership participation make this setting ideal for examining a topic of continued worldwide debate women s career advancement this study examines attitudes towards the career advancement of women a historically marginalized group in latin america building on the extant literature we test the negative association between traditional gender role orientations and attitudes towards women s career advancement both directly and via a mediated relationship through acceptance of women in the workplace we then theoretically and empirically extend this literature by examining an important context related moderator a company s international proactiveness which we contend serves as a mechanism for keeping traditional machismo attitudes from manifesting we examine these relationships within a sample of 973 respondents within the latin american countries of argentina bolivia brazil chile colombia dominican republic ecuador mexico panama peru and venezuela our findings support our hypotheses and provide practical insight into the important yet generally not considered effects of a company s internationalization efforts on attitudes towards the career advancement of women

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

the nature of international integration and human resource policies in multinational companies in this article we demonstrate that the literature concerning multinational companies mncs and employment relations has failed to develop a convincing explanation of variation in the extent to which mncs develop a global element to the management of their international workforces we argue that whether mncs have an incentive to develop international human resource policies is shaped by the extent and nature of international integration which we define as the commonalities and inter dependencies in the production process across borders in particular we identify three aspects of the integration of mncs that are crucial in this respect whether the firm pursues financial economies or synergistic linkages from its international operations whether it segments or replicates its operations across countries and whether it standardises or differentiates its product internationally copyright the author 2010 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

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

opening the black box of the relationship between hrm practices and firm performance a comparison of mne subsidiaries in the usa finland and russia this paper investigates the extent to which different human resource management hrm practices work better in different countries we also try to open the black box between hrm and multinational enterprise mne subsidiary performance by considering mechanisms through which hrm practices affect mne subsidiary performance the study utilizes a unique data set consisting of subsidiaries of 241 mnes operating in russia usa and finland in the partial least square analysis used to examine our hypotheses we demonstrate that different hrm practices are preferable in different countries and that motivation and ability are important mediating variables in the hrm mne subsidiary performance relationship

an institutional approach to cross national distance cross national distance is a key concept in the field of management previous research has conceptualized and measured cross national differences mostly in terms of dyadic cultural distance and has used the euclidean approach to measuring it in contrast our goal is to disaggregate the construct of distance by proposing a set of multidimensional measures including economic financial political administrative cultural demographic knowledge and global connectedness as well as geographic distance we ground our analysis and choice of empirical dimensions on institutional theories of national business governance and innovation systems in order to overcome the methodological limitations of the euclidean approach we calculate dyadic distances using the mahalanobis method which is scale invariant and takes into consideration the variance covariance matrix we empirically analyze four different foreign expansion choices of us companies to illustrate the importance of disaggregating the distance construct and the usefulness of our distance calculations which we make freely available to managers and scholars

circadian rhythms the effects of global market integration in the currency trading industry this essay assesses the impact of global market integration in the currency trading industry as the market interfaces with states with firms and with individuals and raises questions for research from a variety of disciplines issues discussed include the question of state control in global markets the impact of globalization on firm structures and processes how firms can derive competitive advantage from global circadian rhythms and the influences of the circadian rhythms of the global market on the individuals who work in this industry

formalizing internationalization in the eclectic paradigm the paper presents a simple general equilibrium model that formalizes internationalization in the eclectic paradigm based on a reconfiguration of concepts taken from the new classical economics literature the model enables us to address simultaneously the role of ownership location and internalization advantages and their interaction in the emergence of the multinational enterprise mne through a set of mathematical inequalities our model offers a bridge between the detached perceptions of the mne often held by international trade economists and international business scholars and makes specific aspects of the eclectic paradigm empirically testable

time preferences and food choices evidence from a choice experiment time preferences have been recognized by numerous studies as an important driver of a number of healthy and environmentally friendly behaviors in this study we first examined if healthy and environmentally friendly food labels e g usda organic carbon trust health claim and calories are relevant in driving food choices second using the consideration of future consequences cfc scale we analyzed if individuals with different time preferences have different choice behavior and valuations in relation to these labels results indicate that consumers value both healthy and environmentally friendly attributes displayed on labels results also suggest that time preferences can significantly influence consumers valuation for the usda organic label the presence of health claims and the calorie amount attribute

does nutrition information on food products lead to healthier food choices abstract this paper examines the link between nutrition label use and consumers healthier food choices label use is considered for the two main types of labels currently found on food products nutrition facts panels and nutrition health claims this link is tested using a three equation multivariate probit model data were obtained from an ad hoc survey conducted in two medium sized spanish cities the results indicate that the use of nutrition information by consumers whether this involves the fact panel or the claim labels does influence consumer choice of healthier food products to the same extent although different types of consumers use the various types of labels considered

information and advertising the case of fat consumption in the united states the role of information in markets has become a mainstay of the economics literature theoretical work has focused on the market effects of asymmetric information and costly search incentives for voluntary disclosure contracting and other market and policy solutions to information issues see michael katz 1989 and joseph stiglitz 1989 for recent reviews and on how consumers ability to use information could affect market outcomes as in the recent work on information cascades e g sushil bikhchandani et al 1992 the empirical literature testing informational theories is more limited in large part because the key variable of interest information is so difficult to measure most of the literature relies on indirect tests usually based on regulatory differences as in the study of state restrictions on advertising for eyeglasses lee benham 1972 or on new information or public education campaigns typified by the studies of smoking see w kip viscusi 1992 for a recent summary other studies examine cross sectional differences in behavior in an effort to assess whether human capital or other individual or household differences are important in explaining responses to evolving information this paper follows these traditions specifically this study examines changes in fat and saturated fat consumption in the united states as information spread connecting these lipids to heart disease and cancer risks 1 the study examines changes in consumption during two regulatory regimes the years 1977 1985 when government and general information sources continued their efforts to educate the public about the links between fats and disease risks and when producers were free to label these characteristics on food packages and in advertising and the years 1985 1990 when the regulatory ban was lifted that prohibited producers from explaining the reasons why consumers should be interested in the content of foods this controversial regulatory change allowed the use of so called health claims in labeling and advertising subject to the normal deception rules for all advertising and labeling claims 2 comparison of these two periods allows us to provide evidence on whether and how consumers reacted to the general flow of information prior to 1985 and whether advertising appears to have added information to the market or as many critics believe provided deceptive or sufficiently incomplete information to undermine public education efforts

long term effects of feed in tariffs and carbon taxes on distribution systems in deregulated electricity sector climates such as in ontario the production of clean or renewable energy by small power producers through distributed generation dg is encouraged this paper examines the policies that can be used to encourage dg investment and incorporates them into a mathematical model this model is then used to create scenarios for examining the economic and environmental supply side effects of policies to a distribution system over a ten year period the policies analyzed include a combination of feed in tariffs co2 tax and cap and trade schemes the results are discussed in the context of the ontario market and its standard offer program implemented on a 32 bus radial distribution system

when the cat s away a content analysis of mnc overseas recruitment print ads this study examines discrimination in the overseas recruitment print ads of multinational national corporations mncs in a lax regulatory environment singapore institutionalization theory suggests that in a weakly regulated environment mnc affiliates would tend to adopt the less stringent requirements with the lack of a strong legal framework in the host country the home country s legal and cultural imperatives would be more salient suggesting differences in discrimination as a function of home country imperatives some 1122 recruitment print ads of u s u k and japanese affiliates of mncs were examined while discrimination was found in the print ads of all organizations u s affiliates were least discriminatory followed by japan and u k affiliates when singapore firms were included they were found to be least discriminatory however singapore firms became more discriminatory when the request for a recent photograph was considered in the discrimination index implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research advanced

licensing duration in foreign markets a real options perspective licensing can be considered an initial trial of a foreign market before a firm fully commits to it through other investment modes the length of trial has great importance because licensing duration represents part of the licensing agreement when it is too short the firm may not acquire the necessary experience and knowledge of the foreign market but if it is too long the firm misses optimal expansion timing arguing that licensing can be considered as a european style real option with a fixed holding period we develop and test a model of the determinants of licensing duration in foreign markets empirical results based on a sample of firms in various countries show that uncertainty and threat of competitive pre emption in the foreign market are related to shorter duration of the technology licensing agreements we also find that irreversibility of the impending investment moderates the relationships between uncertainty and duration specifically market and technology uncertainties in the foreign market induce shorter contracts under low levels of irreversibility

the impact of market orientation and strategic hrm on firm performance the case of chinese enterprises this study examines market orientation as the antecedent to strategic human resource management shrm and the related effects on firm performance in an emerging economy context it is suggested that the relationship between shrm and firm performance is moderated by ownership type and autonomy in staffing of these firms empirical results from a sample of chinese firms from various industries and regions reveal that shrm mediates the relationship between market orientation and firm performance it is also found that the effect of shrm on firm performance is stronger for firms with a higher degree of autonomy in staffing and weaker for private firms other types of ownership state or foreign have no effect on this relationship

cross cultural competence in international business toward a definition and a model many international business failures have been ascribed to a lack of cross cultural competence cc on the part of business practitioners however the international business literature appears to lack an adequate conceptualization and definition of the term cc focusing instead on the knowledge skills and attributes that appear to be its antecedents in this conceptual study we propose a definition of cc as it applies to international business and develop a model for understanding how cc is nurtured in individuals linking our definition to the concept of cultural intelligence we discuss the components of the model and suggest that there are environmental and contextual impediments to the effective application of the requisite skills knowledge and attributes that have been identified as necessary for cc resulting in a gap between knowing and doing we conclude by discussing the implications of the model for practitioners and by suggesting appropriate directions for further research

the effect of human resource management practices on mnc subsidiary performance in russia this study investigates the relationship between human resource management hrm and the performance of 101 foreign owned subsidiaries in russia the study s results provide support for the assertion that investments in hrm practices can substantially assist a firm in improving performance further different hrm practices for managerial and non managerial employees are found to be significantly related to firm performance only limited support however is obtained for the hypothesized relationship between efforts at aligning hrm practices with firm strategy and subsidiary performance

the effects of market economy type and foreign mne subsidiaries on the convergence and divergence of hrm this study explores patterns of human resource management hrm practices across market economies and between indigenous firms and foreign mne subsidiary operations offering a novel perspective on convergence and divergence applying institutional theorizing to improve our understanding of convergence divergence as a process and an outcome data collected from nine countries at three points in time over a decade confirm that convergence and divergence occur to different extents in a nonlinear fashion and vary depending on the area of hrm practice observed patterns of adoption and convergence divergence are explained through the effect of institutional constraints which vary between liberal and coordinated market economies and between indigenous firms and foreign mne subsidiaries specifically we expected and largely found supporting evidence confirming that compensation and wage bargaining level practices show more evidence of being institutionally constrained and hence were less likely to converge than contingent employment training and direct information provision practices the study contributes a more graded conceptualization of convergence divergence from constant no difference through robust convergence non robust convergence non robust divergence and robust divergence to constant difference allowing us to tease out the subtle manifestations of the process that can incorporate the complex dynamic reality of international business

economics food choices and nutrition abstract our goal in this paper is to examine the role and influence of economic factors defined rather broadly on consumer food choices and hence nutritional outcomes we attempt to do this in a non technical fashion we examine the role of prices especially as they relate to the affordability of food in the united states and as a policy lever income is analyzed as a driving force behind changes in eating habits in particular increasing the demand for convenience the role of time constraints as well as time preference are examined as links to healthy eating habits and as forces behind current trends in eating patterns information and knowledge are given prominent play as counter balances to economic forces driving eating habits we conclude with and examination into maternal nutrition knowledge and children s dietary quality

an analysis of u s multinationals recruitment practices in mexico the frequency of discriminatory language in job advertisements placed by u s multinational corporations operating in mexico was compared with that of mexican companies using content analysis a sample of 300 ads placed by companies from each culture was analyzed and coded by two groups of coders to calculate the frequency of discriminatory language in the job ads with respect to age gender physical appearance and marital status results of a chi square analysis revealed that u s multinationals firms in mexico utilize discriminatory language in job ads less frequently in the categories of age gender and marital status this result suggests that the legal and cultural framework of the country of origin of u s enterprises in mexico may be influencing their actual recruitment practice in mexico and in turn help them in setting a positive example of non discrimination in recruitment among their mexican counterparts

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

international human resource strategy and its determinants the case of subsidiaries in taiwan this paper explores how the tension between global integration and local responsiveness affects the dimensions and determinants of international human resource ihr strategy to accomplish this jarillo and martinez s 1990 business strategy framework for parents and their subsidiaries was recast in an ihr strategy setting then the relationships between the two dimensions of ihr strategy that emerged global integration and local responsiveness and a set of interorganizational interdependency variables were explored several new and informative associations between the interorganizational interdependency variables subsidiaries dependence on parent s resources local resources and hot institutions and ihr strategy were observed in a sample of one hundred subsidiaries of japanese u s and european mncs operating in taiwan

prices infrastructure household characteristics and child height household survey data from brazil matched with information collected at the municipio county level are used to examine the relation between parental characteristics primarily education community infrastructure and services and child height data are drawn from 2 sources informacoes basicas municipais 1974 is a periodic survey of 4000 municipios on infrastructure health and education services estudo nacional da despesa familiar 1974 75 is a household survey covering 37000 children under age 8 on income expenditure anthropometry and socio demographic characteristics local food price indices were derived from these data child height is significantly affected by local infrastructure particularly modern sewerage and piped water in urban areas and electricity in rural settings these effects are stronger for children over 2 those of better educated mothers and those in households spending more higher prices for dairy products and sugar are linked to lower urban child height and higher fish prices to lower rural child height significantly for children of illiterate mothers higher prices for meat and rice are associated with taller height possible because men usually eat these foods mothers with elementary schooling can counteract the effects of food prices on child height number of teachers is positively related to height in rural children numbers of nurses and of hospital beds is associated with shorter children suggesting that large hospitals locate in poor urban areas this study has succeeded in identifying some public investments that affect child health