two bidder all pay auctions with interdependent valuations including the highly competitive case abstract we analyze symmetric two bidder all pay auctions with interdependent valuations and discrete type spaces relaxing previous restrictions on the distribution of types and the valuation structure we present a construction that characterizes all symmetric equilibria we show how the search problem this construction faces can be complex in equilibrium randomization can take place over disjoint intervals of bids equilibrium supports can have a rich structure and non monotonicity of the equilibrium may result in a positive probability of allocative inefficiency when the value of the prize is not common particular attention is paid to the case in which an increase in a bidder s posterior expected value of winning the auction is likely to be accompanied by a corresponding increase for the other bidder such environments are highly competitive in the sense that the bidder s higher valuation also signals that the other bidder has an incentive to bid aggressively

monotone equilibrium of two bidder all pay auctions redux abstract in this paper we revisit the two bidder asymmetric all pay auction of amann and leininger 1996 by allowing interdependent values and correlated signals both values and signals are distributed on continuous supports we provide conditions for the existence and uniqueness of a monotone pure strategy equilibrium mpse and constructively characterize the mpse when it exists we find that given the marginal distributions of the signals the equilibrium allocation is solely determined by how bidders values depend on their signals in particular the equilibrium allocation does not depend on how bidders signals are correlated

factors determining the location decisions of spanish mnes an analysis based on the investment development path on the basis of theoretical assumptions approached via the investment development path idp this study examines the most important factors for and against the location decisions in foreign direct investment taken by multinational enterprises considering host countries at very different stages of economic development latin american and european union countries we carry out different kinds of analysis on a sample of 103 firms belonging to a medium sized country that has recently achieved the status of developed country the results reveal that the importance that home country firm managers give to diverse location factors depends to a certain extent on the stage that each group of host countries has reached in the idp in line with prior research we find that firm managers consider mainly the group of factors associated with strategic asset seeking when deciding to locate their investments in the group of more developed countries european union in contrast our results show that when these firm managers choose the group of less developed countries latin america social and cultural factors play a more determinant role thus suggesting the importance of historical and cultural ties between the home and host countries

cosmopolitan consumers as a target group for segmentation for international companies the literature recommends directing segmentation efforts at customer characteristics rather than country characteristics consumers degree of cosmopolitan orientation has been suggested as a powerful segmentation base as this characteristic is expected to drive consumers tastes and preferences to advance research on this segmentation base this article offers a conceptualization of the consumer cosmopolitanism construct by 1 delineating its conceptual domain 2 highlighting its key dimensions namely open mindedness diversity appreciation and consumption transcending borders and 3 examining its links with theoretically relevant variables specifically consumer ethnocentrism and global consumption orientation based on the aforementioned conceptualization a consumer research specific and psychometrically sound measurement instrument the c cosmo scale is subsequently developed and tested in a series of complementary studies finally empirically based insights into the characteristics of cosmopolitan consumers are offered by 1 profiling them on consumption relevant variables innovativeness risk aversion susceptibility to normative influence consumer ethnocentrism and demographic characteristics 2 examining the link between consumer cosmopolitanism and willingness to buy foreign products and 3 developing an empirically based typology of cosmopolitan local consumers using a cluster analysis approach from a managerial perspective findings suggest that the identification and subsequent targeting of cosmopolitan consumers may well represent an appropriate strategy for internationally active companies

marriage meets the joneses relative income identity and marital status abstract this paper investigates the effect of relative income on marriage accounting flexibly for absolute income the ratio between a man s income and a local reference group median is a strong predictor of marital status but only for low income men relative income affects marriage even among those living with a partner a 10 percent higher reference group income is associated with a 2 percent reduction in marriage we propose an identity model to explain the results

the influence of parent control structure on parent conflict in vietnamese international joint ventures an organizational justice based contingency approach there has been significant interest in understanding how the distribution of parental control over international joint ventures ijv influences ijv outcomes e g parent conflict survival performance yet the accumulation of research on the relationship between control structure and ijv outcomes has been somewhat inconclusive and even contradictory we contribute to this research stream by developing an organizational justice based contingency model relating parental control structure to parent conflict we suggest that the level of conflict between ijv parents will depend on the consistencies between the control structure and parents contribution of proprietary resources and between control structure and the parents abilities to effectively monitor operations our analysis of vietnamese joint ventures provides some support for our model and suggests that the relationship between parent control structure and ijv outcomes is perhaps more complex than previously thought

why and how does shared language affect subsidiary knowledge inflows a social identity perspective extending existing international business ib research we conceptualize shared social identity as an outcome rather than only an antecedent of multinational enterprise knowledge flows to provide an alternative reason for why such knowledge flows occur we further argue that shared language among subsidiary and headquarters hq managers is an insufficient condition for subsidiary knowledge receipt accordingly we develop a moderated mediation model at the subsidiary level to examine how shared language affects subsidiaries tacit knowledge inflows from hq specifically we study 1 whether this relationship is mediated by the extent to which subsidiary managers share hq goals and vision and the extent to which human resources decisions are centralized at hq and 2 whether subsidiary type greenfields vs acquisitions moderates these mediated relationships such that in both cases the mediation will be stronger in foreign acquisitions compared with foreign greenfields building on a sample of 817 subsidiaries in 9 countries regions and a novel subjective measure of shared language we find support for our model implications for research on hq subsidiary knowledge flows social identity theory and the literature on sociolinguistics and international human resource management are discussed and managerial implications outlined

asymmetric all pay auctions with incomplete information the two player case abstract we prove existence and uniqueness of bayesian equilibrium for a class of generally asymmetric all pay auctions with incomplete information due to its importance in applications some prominence is given to the first price all pay auction for which a detailed characterization of equilibrium and an approximation to equilibrium of its well studied complete information version are supplied furthermore we relate our uniqueness result to the well known multiplicity of equilibria in the war of attrition second price all pay auction which emerges as a limit point of the class of two player auction games considered journalof economic literature classification numbers d44 c62 c72

internal equity financing and the performance of multinational subsidiaries in emerging economies we examine the internal equity financing of the multinational subsidiary which retains and reinvests its own earnings internal equity financing is a type of firm specific advantage fsa along with other traditional fsas in innovation research and development brands and management skills it also reflects subsidiary level financial management decision making here we test the contributions of internal equity financing and subsidiary level financial management decision making to subsidiary performance using original survey data from british multinational subsidiaries in six emerging countries in the south east asia region our first finding is that internal equity financing acts as an fsa to improve subsidiary performance our second finding is that over 90 of financing sources including capital investment by the parent firms in the british subsidiaries come from internal funding our third finding is that subsidiary level financial management decision making has a statistically significant positive impact on subsidiary performance our findings advance the theoretical empirical and managerial analysis of subsidiary performance in emerging economies

what shapes player performance in soccer empirical findings from a panel analysis in this article we investigate the pay performance relationship of soccer players using individual data from eight seasons of the german soccer league bundesliga we find a nonlinear pay performance relationship indicating that salary does indeed affect individual performance the results further show that player performance is affected not only by absolute income level but also by relative income position an additional analysis of the performance impact of team effects provides evidence of a direct impact of team mate attributes on individual player performance

seeking commonalities or avoiding differences re conceptualizing distance and its effects on internationalization decisions past research established distance s key influence on internationalization however theoretical issues methodological challenges and inconsistent results hinder scholarship on why distance plays such an influential role to address these problems we draw from cognitive research on similarity comparisons to re conceptualize distance and test a model of internationalization decisions analyzing the verbal protocols of executives considering a series of internationalization opportunities we demonstrate that over and above objective distance indicators considerations that reduce distance commonalities and considerations that augment distance differences have distinct effects on decisions of where when and how to internationalize as such our study contributes new insights for understanding the nature and effects of distance across different dimensions of distance and internationalization decisions moreover internationalization theories have come to emphasize different theoretical rationales for explaining the influential role of distance on different decisions by integrating these rationales together with the notion that distance reducing commonalities and distance augmenting differences have distinct implications for internationalization decisions we introduce the notion that it is not only the addition of distance considerations that matters but also the directionality of such changes doing so our study points to new theoretical and methodological insights to help address prior criticisms and advance future research

mnc knowledge transfer subsidiary absorptive capacity and hrm based on a sample of 169 subsidiaries of multinational corporations mncs operating in the usa russia and finland this paper investigates the relationship between mnc subsidiary human resource management hrm practices absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer first we examine the relationship between the application of specific hrm practices and the level of the absorptive capacity second we suggest that absorptive capacity should be conceptualized as being comprised of both employees ability and motivation further results indicate that both ability and motivation absorptive capacity are needed to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from other parts of the mnc

managerial metric use in marketing decisions across 16 countries a cultural perspective research on metrics is consistently designated a priority by academics and practitioners however less is known about how culture and cross national differences can potentially impact metric use which is theoretically and managerially limiting this work develops a model that examines national and organizational cultural antecedents while controlling for the decision setting testing the model on data collected from 4384 managerial decisions from 1637 firms in 16 countries reveals that both levels of culture are associated with metric use but each has varying effects our results enable multinational executives to better understand and increase managerial metric use across different cultures and settings

do country level institutional frameworks and interfirm governance arrangements substitute or complement in international business relationships interfirm relationships among partners from institutionally distant environments are subject to governance difficulties owing to the paucity of shared cognitive and regulatory frameworks we examine the potential of formal contracting and relational governance developed at the partnership level to overcome the formal and informal institutional gap at the country level empirical results from a sample of 184 international partnerships of large us firms support an overall substitutive relationship between informal institutional frameworks and interorganizational relational arrangements whereby the performance benefits of relational governance are reinforced at higher degrees of informal institutional distance contrastingly formal institutional frameworks and contractual governance are found to have a complementary relationship with performance gains from formal contracting undermined at higher degrees of formal distance

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

from the editors common method variance in international business research jibs receives many manuscripts that report findings from analyzing survey data based on same respondent replies this can be problematic since same respondent studies can suffer from common method variance cmv currently authors who submit manuscripts to jibs that appear to suffer from cmv are asked to perform validity checks and resubmit their manuscripts this letter from the editors is designed to outline the current state of best practice for handling cmv in international business research

tipping and the dynamics of segregation schelling dynamic models of segregation journal of mathematical sociology 1 1971 143 186 showed that extreme segregation can arise from social interactions in white preferences once the minority share in a neighborhood exceeds a tipping point all the whites leave we use regression discontinuity methods and census tract data from 1970 through 2000 to test for discontinuities in the dynamics of neighborhood racial composition we find strong evidence that white population flows exhibit tipping like behavior in most cities with a distribution of tipping points ranging from 5 to 20 minority share tipping is prevalent both in the suburbs and near existing minority enclaves in contrast to white population flows there is little evidence of nonlinearities in rents or housing prices around the tipping point tipping points are higher in cities where whites have more tolerant racial attitudes

asset specificity and foreign market entry mode choice of small and medium sized enterprises the moderating influence of knowledge safeguards and institutional safeguards according to transaction cost economics tce reasoning firms choose equity as opposed to non equity foreign market entry modes to safeguard specific assets the present paper contextualizes the well researched relationship between asset specificity and foreign market entry mode choice by introducing knowledge safeguards international experience host country networks and imitation and institutional safeguards property rights protection and cultural proximity as alternative mechanisms for securing a firm s specific assets testing our hypotheses on a sample of 206 small and medium sized enterprises we find that knowledge safeguards and institutional safeguards weaken the effect of asset specificity on the choice of equity foreign market entry modes contextualizing the relationship between asset specificity and foreign market entry mode choice helps to enhance our understanding of the scope conditions of tce based entry mode studies and beyond

uniqueness and existence of equilibrium in auctions with a reserve price abstract we prove existence and uniqueness of equilibrium for a general class of two player bidding games we apply our results to the first price auction the combination of first and second price auctions the war of attrition the all pay auction as well as combinations of the latter two auction forms we also treat the first price auction without risk neutrality our results deal with the asymmetric affiliated common values environment in the case where signals are independent our results apply to all equilibria when signals are not independent our uniqueness results hold in the class of nondecreasing strategy equilibria journal of economic literature classification number d44

managing knowledge transfer in mncs the impact of headquarters control mechanisms in this paper we explore the impact of organisational mechanisms on inter unit knowledge flows in multinational corporations mncs a comprehensive model based on agency theory and socialisation theory is tested on a sample of 134 finnish and chinese mnc subsidiaries our findings indicate that mncs can influence inter unit knowledge transfer by specifying the objectives of the subsidiary and by utilising corporate socialisation mechanisms however we found no support for the hypothesised impact of management compensation systems and the use of expatriate managers on the extent of knowledge transfers from foreign subsidiaries to other parts of the mnc

careers in foreign owned firms in japan this article examines how organizational environments affect labor market processes in japan i hypothesize that labor market inequality is generated through workers being positioned in either domestic or in foreign firms i apply the concept of social versus economic exchange to distinguish the nature of transactions between domestic and foreign firms i argue that foreign firms operate under an institutional context that is conducive to the economic mode of exchange which has enormous consequences for their personnel practices and reward systems using a dataset of japanese workers collected in 2000 i examine the extent to which employment practices in foreign firms deviate from the benchmark features observed in the japanese labor market my results confirm that employment in foreign firms significantly affects career outcomes the highcommitment culture commonly associated with the japanese workforce is an outcome of the organizational environment i find little evidence of japanese employment pra

marriage and divorce changes and their driving forces the family is not a static institution in recent decades marriage rates have fallen divorce rates have risen and the defining characteristics of marriage have changed the economic approach to the family seeks to explain these trends by reference to models that can also explain how and why families form gary becker s 1981 treatise on the family proposed a theory based on production complementarities in which husband and wife specialize in the market and domestic spheres respectively production complementarities also arise in the production and rearing of one s own children however production complementarities at least as initially described are decreasingly central to modern family life increased longevity and declining fertility mean that most of one s adult life is spent without one s own children in the household also the rise in marital formation at older ages including remarriage means that many families form with no intention of producing children moreover increases in female labor force participation suggest that household specialization has either declined or at least taken on a different meaning these changes have come about as what is produced in the home has been dramatically altered both by the emergence of labor saving technology in the home and by the development of service industries that allow much of what was once provided by specialized homemakers to be purchased in the market the availabil

outside in global demand heterogeneity and dynamic capabilities of multinational enterprises we conceptualize the dynamic capabilities of multinational enterprises mnes as learning and adaptation capabilities that address the pressure of global integration and local responsiveness complementing the extant literature on dynamic capabilities which is focused on the supply side our study draws attention to the demand side influences especially in terms of global demand heterogeneity we propose that global demand heterogeneity provides pressures and opportunities for mnes to learn and adapt and thus positively relates to the development of mne dynamic capabilities however external sources per se may be insufficient firm specific advantages particularly human capital at the managerial and employee levels facilitate the internalization of external knowledge and pressure into the development of dynamic capabilities an empirical study of chinese multinational service firms strongly supports these arguments

from the editors how to write articles that are relevant to practice although the journal of international business studies is not a practice oriented journal thinking deeper about the practical relevance of our articles can only help enrich them and help decision makers implement better decisions however while many academic articles in social sciences go to great lengths to explain their theoretical and empirical impact in many cases their explanation of practical relevance is a paragraph in the conclusion section with a few cursory ideas that appear to be an afterthought rather than an integral part of the article here we provide suggestions for crafting a practical implications section that is relevant for decision makers

are all the good men married uncovering the sources of the marital wage premium a longstanding and yet unsettled question in labor economics is does marriage cause men s wages to rise cross sectional wage studies consistently find that married men earn significantly higher wages than do men who are not currently married however it is well known that inferring causal relationships from crosssectional analysis is inappropriate because of the biases introduced by unobserved heterogeneity as a means of circumventing this problem this paper uses data on identical twins to control for unobserved heterogeneity our estimates suggest that marriage increases men s wages by as much as 27 and that little if any of the cross sectional relationship between marriage and wages is due to selection in addition we find little evidence that the marital wage premium is a consequence of household specialization

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

relative income race and mortality abstract this paper examines the relationship between relative income and mortality our research is motivated by recent literature that posits that holding individual income fixed those whose income are low relative to the incomes of those in a reference group will have worse health we develop an empirical model in which an individual s health is a function of his or her own income and the incomes of those who live in the same geographical area we show how this individual level model can be estimated using semi aggregated data on the mortality rates of people categorized by age race gender and place of residence the model is estimated using mortality data from the 1980 and 1990 compressed mortality files merged with income data from the 1980 and 1990 5 public use samples of the us census we find no evidence that having relatively wealthy neighbors holding own income fixed is associated with higher mortality instead we find evidence that among some demographic and age groups in particular working aged black males having relatively wealthy neighbors is associated with lower mortality for example among younger aged 25 64 black men an increase in the income of others is estimated to have a beneficial effect on mortality that is 40 as large as an equivalent increase in own income

asymmetric all pay auctions with interdependent valuations abstract i show that a unique equilibrium exists in an asymmetric two player all pay auction with a discrete signal structure correlated signals and interdependent valuations the proof is constructive and the construction can be implemented as a computer program and be used to derive comparative statics i also characterize the set of equilibria when a reserve price is introduced

knowledge transfer in multinational corporations productive and counterproductive effects of language sensitive recruitment this paper focuses on the multifaceted role of language and language sensitive recruitment in knowledge transfer in multinational corporations mncs in particular we develop a framework that helps to better understand how language sensitive recruitment is related to competence networks identity and power we started by conducting a qualitative interview based study of 101 mnc subsidiaries this analysis elucidates the productive and counterproductive effects of language sensitive recruitment on knowledge transfer related to communication competence networks identity and power to further understand the productive and counterproductive effects we conducted a quantitative study in 285 mnc subsidiaries we found an inverted u shaped relationship between language sensitive recruitment and knowledge transfer together these two studies provide a better understanding of the multifaceted and at times counterintuitive implications of language sensitive recruitment on knowledge transfer in mncs by elucidating these effects this paper contributes to the stream of research examining the role of language in mncs and international business more generally it further adds to research on mnc knowledge transfer that to date has focused little attention on language by elaborating on the potential unintended consequences of language sensitive recruitment this paper also has implications for international human resource management research

why have divorce rates fallen the role of women s age at marriage american divorce rates rose from the 1950s to the 1970s peaked around 1980 and have fallen ever since the mean age at marriage also substantially increased after 1970 i explore the extent to which the rise in age at marriage can explain the decrease in divorce rates for cohorts marrying after 1980 using data from the survey of income and program participation 1979 national longitudinal survey of youth and national survey of family growth three different empirical approaches suggest that the increase in women s age at marriage is the main proximate cause of the fall in divorce rates

economics and identity this paper considers how identity a person s sense of self affects economic outcomes we incorporate the psychology and sociology of identity into an economic model of behavior in the utility function we propose identity is associated with different social categories and how people in these categories should behave we then construct a simple game theoretic model showing how identity can affect individual interactions the paper adapts these models to gender discrimination in the workplace the economics of poverty and social exclusion and the household division of labor in each case the inclusion of identity substantively changes conclusions of previous economic analysis

waiting for mr right rising inequality and declining marriage rates abstract this paper demonstrates that women search longer for their first or second husband in cities with higher male wage inequality and examines several alternative explanations a causal link is established by controlling for city fixed effects and city specific time trends and by using inequality in the woman s state of birth as a proxy for local male inequality increasing inequality explains about 25 of the marriage rate decline over the last few decades and this is not due to the endogenous moving or labor force decisions of women nor to the marital decisions of men in reaction to changes in their own wages

ex post information rents in sequential screening abstract we study ex post information rents in sequential screening models where the agent receives private ex ante and ex post information the principal has to pay ex post information rents for preventing the agent to coordinate lies about his ex ante and ex post information when the agent s ex ante information is discrete these rents are positive whereas they are zero in continuous models consequently full disclosure of ex post information is generally suboptimal optimal disclosure rules trade off the benefits from adapting the allocation to better information against the effect that more information aggravates truth telling

common value contests with asymmetric information abstract we consider two player perfectly discriminatory common value contests or all pay auctions in which one player knows the value of the contested object with certainty and the other knows only its prior distribution we show among other things that in equilibrium the players win with equal probability this contrasts with a large class of imperfectly discriminatory contests in which the uninformed player wins with a strictly greater probability than the informed player

trans specialization understanding in international technology alliances the influence of cultural distance in the information age the firm s performance hinges on combining partners specialist knowledge to achieve value co creation combining knowledge from different specialties could be a costly process in the international technology alliances itas context we argue that the combination of different specializations requires the development of trans specialization understanding tsu instead of the internalization of partners specialist knowledge this article examines the extent to which inter firm governance in itas shapes tsu and whether the development of tsu is endangered by cultural distance we hypothesize that relational governance product modularity and cultural distance influence tsu development which in turn influences firm performance we collected data from 110 non equity itas between software and hardware firms participating in the mobile device sector we analyzed the data using partial least squares path modeling our findings suggest that tsu largely depends on product modularity and relational governance in alliances however while cultural distance negatively moderates the path from relational governance to tsu it has no effect on the relationship between product modularity and tsu based on this we conclude that product modularity can substitute for relational governance when strong relational norms are not well developed in international alliances thus cultural distance does not invariably amount to a liability in itas

extending the internationalization process model increases and decreases of mne commitment in emerging economies the internationalization process model suggests that firms internationalize by building positions in foreign markets and networks following iterative cycles of learning and changes in commitment however as subsidiaries evolve commitments may be decreased as well as increased a phenomenon that has rarely been studied moreover it remains an open question why strategic intentions at the outset of an investment project differ from the actual operations established we address these questions by extending the model and combining it with mintzberg and waters framework of strategy formation specifically we suggest that commitment decisions correspond to statements of intended strategy while network positions correspond to realized strategies the processes of learning opportunity creation and trust building triggered by commitment decisions are however moderated by institutional influences that lead to divergences between realized and intended strategies we test propositions derived from this framework on a survey data set of subsidiaries of multinational enterprises in hungary lithuania and poland and find that institutional voids and institutional uncertainty affect subsidiary strategy implementation but in opposing directions under high institutional uncertainty investors prefer low commitment but flexible modes that enable later commitment increases whereas institutional voids increase up front information search and adaptation costs that reduce the likelihood of early post entry adjustments our analysis reinforces the need for more differentiated theoretical analyses of how institutions affect business strategies over time

marriage markets and assortative mating with household public goods theoretical results and empirical implications this paper analyzes marriage market equilibria when the gains from marriage result from joint consumption of household public goods assuming transferable utility within marriage the paper proves that marriage markets will be characterized by positive assortative mating on wealth when spouses differ only in endowments and the gains to marriage result only from public goods when spouses differ in wages and household public goods are produced at home the results imply offsetting effects with public good economies creating an incentive for positive assortative mating on wages and gains from specialization creating an incentive for negative assortative mating on wages the results help explain the persistent lack of empirical support for becker s prediction of negative assortative mating on wages and have implications for empirical analysis of all joint living arrangement decisions

media choice in multilingual virtual teams this study investigates the impact of language barriers on multilingual virtual teams members choice between different communication media in their inner team interactions through interviewing team leaders and members in both mono and multilingual virtual teams we discover discrepancies in media choice and media performance between these two settings and identify foreign language induced cognitive load as a key reason for these divergences our study advances research on communication and knowledge exchange in multilingual virtual collaboration by showing how language barriers alter the process of converging different viewpoints through team interaction by suggesting language related modifications to the seminal media synchronicity theory and by demonstrating the benefits of new media in multilingual settings it also broadens the disciplinary scope of language research in international business by introducing theories from communication studies and cognitive research in practical terms it highlights the benefits of redundant communication the need for an adequate media infrastructure in multinational corporations and the importance of motivating team members to use new media

a test of the relative income hypothesis the original permanent income and life cycle models were constructed around the view that savings rates are independent of the level of long run income 19 since then it has been well documented using household data that savings rates rise with long run income to be consistent with the empirical evidence modigliani suggests modifying the life cycle hypothesis to include a bequest motive his hypothesis however is that the share of lifetime resources that a household plans to devote to bequests is an increasing function of its lifetime resources relative to others in the same age cohort 17 the share of resources devoted to bequests is made a function of the relative and not the absolute level of resources so as to be consistent with menchik and david s empirical study of the bequest function 16 but if saving for bequests is influenced by relative income why not other forms of saving a simple model in which all types of saving are influenced by relative income was proposed by duesenberry in 1949 4 his basic hypothesis was that households are concerned about community consumption standards and that this concern leads to savings rates being an increasing function of a household s position in the income distribution although a per se desire for status is seen by some economists as inconsistent with rational behavior it is clear that a relative advantage is often instrumental in achieving absolute goals 6 7 10 11 22 while several policy implications of the relative income hypothesis have come to light 2 6 it has rarely been analyzed empirically the purpose of this paper is to present a test of the relative income model the hypothesis is that if income rank is really the variable driving savings rates then it should be possible to hold the level of income constant and still see the average propensity to save aps moving with income rank section ii presents a simple model of the savings decision in which concern for relative standing in the current consumption hierarchy is integrated into a permanent income framework the model is then used to explore the issue of functional form section iii discusses the data the equation to be estimated and the regression results section iv presents a summary and concluding remarks

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

gender identity and relative income within households band s income we argue that this pattern is best explained by gender identity norms which induce an aversion to a situation where the wife earns more than her husband we present evidence that this aversion also impacts marriage formation the wife s labor force participation the wife s income conditional on working marriage satisfaction likelihood of divorce and the division of home production within marriage markets when a randomly chosen woman becomes more likely to earn more than a randomly chosen man marriage rates decline in couples where the wife s potential income is likely to exceed the husband s the wife is less likely to be in the labor force and earns less than her potential if she does work in couples where the wife earns more than the husband the wife spends more time on household chores moreover those couples are less satisfied with their marriage and are more likely to divorce these patterns hold both cross sectionally and within couples over time

innovation in multinational corporations control and communication patterns in international r d operations this paper addresses issues of global innovation in multinational corporations by examining the patterns of communication and control in international rd 2 local and international adaptors both focus their communication on their internal corporate network and 3 international creators have strong internally and externally oriented networks of relationships the implications for the management of global innovation are discussed 1998 john wiley sons ltd

all pay auctions with affiliated binary signals abstract we analyze all pay auctions with affiliated values and binary signals we analyze the unique symmetric equilibrium with any number of bidders and show that the bidders earn positive rents only if the equilibrium is monotone we also characterize the symmetric equilibrium of the closely related two player war of attrition we compare expected revenues across these formats all pay auctions result in lower expected rents to the bidders than standard auctions but they also induce inefficient allocations in some models with affiliated private values with two bidders the effect on rent extraction dominates and the all pay auctions outperform standard auctions in terms of expected revenue with many bidders standard auctions may result in higher expected revenue the war of attrition outperforms the standard auctions in terms of revenue but its ranking relative to all pay auctions is ambiguous

global delivery models the role of talent speed and time zones in the global outsourcing industry global delivery models gdms are transforming the global it and business process outsourcing industry gdms are a new form of client specific investment promoting service integration with clients by combining client proximity with time zone spread for 24 7 service operations we investigate antecedents and contingencies of setting up gdm structures based on comprehensive data we show that providers are likely to establish gdm location configurations when clients value access to globally distributed talent and speed of service delivery in particular when services are highly commoditized findings imply that coordination across time zones increasingly affects international operations in business to business and born global industries

contests with three or more heterogeneous agents abstract we study monotone equilibrium behavior in contests with observable effort bid where three or more participants have distinct risk attitudes and the monetary value for the prize of each is drawn independently from a distinct distribution these differences can either cause a player to drop out that is always choose zero effort regardless of his valuation or use all or nothing strategies with discontinuous effort choice neither complete drop out nor discontinuous bidding with finitely many gaps is consistent with pure strategy monotone bayesian nash equilibrium in a contest with either ex ante identical players or only two distinct participants

income inequality and early nonmarital childbearing using individual level data from the united states we empirically investigate the role of lower tail income inequality in determining rates of early nonmarital childbearing among low socioeconomic status ses women we present robust evidence that young low ses women are more likely to have a nonmarital birth when they live in places with larger lower tail income inequality all else held constant we calculate that differences in the level of inequality are able to explain a sizeable share of the geographic variation in teen fertility rates we propose a model of adolescent decision making that facilitates the interpretation of our results

the effect of male wage inequality on female age at first marriage a model in which women search for husbands characterized by their wages predicts increasing within group male wage inequality raises the expected value of continued marital search and so lowers female marriage propensities using 1970 1980 and 1990 census data i test this hypothesis within geographically racially and educationally defined marriage markets the estimates suggest rising male wage inequality accounted for 7 to 18 of the decline in the propensity to marry between 1970 and 1990 for white women and more educated black women growing wage inequality appears to have had little effect on the marriage behavior of less educated black women

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

ranking disclosure policies in all pay auctions in this paper we study information disclosure policies in all pay auctions with incomplete information two symmetric players have either high or low private value the contest organizer observes players values ex post and can commit ex ante to four different symmetric information policies exhaustively she can fully disclose or conceal the players types and she can disclose their types if and only if when both are high or if and only if when both are low we characterize the unique equilibriums and completely rank the four policies by various criteria we find the full concealment policy extracts highest aggregate expected effort followed by the policy of disclosing types if and only if when both are high the policy of disclosing types if and only if when both are low induces least aggregate expected effort players enjoy highest expected payoffs under the policy of disclosing types if and only if when both are low the other three policies yield the same expected payoffs to players in terms of prize allocation efficiency the full concealment policy is ranked highest and the full disclosure policy is ranked lowest in between the other two policies rankings depend on the probability of high type jel c72 d44 d82 d83 j48

limits to international entry mode learning in smes despite extensive research the literature is unclear about the circumstances under which a firm learns from its past foreign entry modes and how this experiential learning is related to future mode choices building on the internationalization process ip model and the idea that some experiential learning is location bound while other learning is non location bound we develop and test theory to explain how experiential learning about foreign operation modes and markets impact future mode choices in new foreign markets overall we argue that mode based experiential learning is limited through the repeated use of a specific operation mode firms develop routines and processes that are non location bound and can be replicated in new foreign markets leading to the use of this same mode type in new locations but when complemented by experiential learning about a target market region firms opt for operation modes with greater commitment in new foreign markets drawing on a sample of german smes and examining four different types of entry modes we find some support however we also identify a number of notable exceptions to our theory in this way we help provide unique new insights informing future ip model experiential learning and international entry mode research

an analysis of the war of attrition and the all pay auction we study the war of attrition and the all pay auction when players signals are affiliated and symmetrically distributed we a find sufficient conditions for the existence of symmetric monotonic equilibrium bidding strategies and b examine the performance of these auction forms in terms of the expected revenue accruing to the seller under our conditions the war of attrition raises greater expected revenue than all other known sealed bid auction forms journal of economic literature classification numbers d44 d82 1997 academic press

male earnings marriageable men and nonmarital fertility evidence from the fracking boom we investigate whether an increase in the potential earnings of men leads to an increase in marriage and a reduction in nonmarital births by exploiting the positive economic shock associated with fracking in the 2000s a reduced form analysis reveals that in response to local area fracking production which increased wages and jobs for non college educated men both marital and nonmarital birth rates increase but marriage rates do not the pattern of results is consistent with positive income effects on births but no associated increase in marriage we contrast our findings to the appalachian coal boom experience of the 1970s and 1980s

strategic alliance based sourcing and market performance evidence from foreign firms operating in china although foreign multinational firms from the triad regions increasingly use mainland china as both a sourcing and a marketing location no study has directly examined the sourcing strategy performance linkage using resource complementarity and resource dependence theory we extend the sourcing literature and apply these perspectives to an important transitional economy china these two theoretical perspectives suggest that product and uncertainty factors moderate the relationship between strategic alliance based sourcing sa sourcing of major components and market performance we find that at low levels of product innovativeness and technological uncertainty the use of sa sourcing is positively related to market performance however the effects of product differentiation and demand uncertainty on the sourcing performance relationship are insignificant journal of international business studies 2005 36 187 208 doi 10 1057 palgrave jibs 8400120