bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Theorising strategic investment decision-making using strong structuration theory
Authors: Harris Elaine Pamela , Northcott Deryl , Elmassri Moataz Moamen , Huikku Jari 
Published: August 2016

PurposeIn the field of strategic investment decision making (SIDM) a body of research has grown up via international case studies and organisation-based fieldwork. However, there has been little systematic theorisation around SIDM processes and practices. The purpose of this paper is to show how strong structuration theory (SST) can be employed to guide how future SIDM studies are conducted and theorised.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw upon the concepts from SST to reanalyse prior empirically based work. The authors apply SST-informed analysis to four SIDM case studies selected from the total of 18 published over the period 1970-2016 to explore the utility of SST compared with other approaches.FindingsThe analysis highlights the role of agents’ knowledgeability and position-practice relations in SIDM, which has largely been neglected by prior studies. The authors demonstrate the potential of SST to inform meso-level theorising by applying it to four published case studies. Whilst the authors argue for the adoption of SST, the authors also identify key methodological and conceptual issues in using SST in SIDM research.Research limitations/implicationsThe examples and recommendations could assist management accounting researchers, particularly those engaged in case studies and organisational fieldwork, to build knowledge via the improved comparison, integration and theorisation of cases undertaken by different researchers in different contexts.Originality/valueThe authors offer a bridge between SST concepts and case study evidence for theorising, carrying out and analysing case study and field research on SIDM.
Strong structuration and carbon accounting
Authors: Moore David R.J. , McPhail Ken 
Published: August 2016

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to utilize the three abstract-concrete levels of ontology of strong structuration theory (strong ST) to examine how, and to what extent, was the development of carbon accounting frameworks at the policy, industry, and organizational levels enabled by external structures as conditions of action, that is, what was the nature of active agency within a field of position-practice relations that led to the development of these frameworks.Design/methodology/approachA case study was undertaken drawing upon interviews that were undertaken between 2008 and 2011 at the industry and organizational levels as well as documentary evidence relating to carbon accounting policy development at the macro, or policy level.FindingsThe parliamentary committee hearings into the development of the carbon price legislation represented fields of position-practice relationships which highlighted the interplay of the internal structures, capabilities and the roles of both power and trust of the agent(s)-in-focus. A meso-level analysis of the Victorian water industry highlighted how it was able to mediate the exercise of power by the macro level through the early adoption of carbon accounting frameworks. At the ontic or micro level of the individual water business, the development of a greenhouse strategy was also the outcome of position-practice relationships which highlighted the interplay of the internal structures and dispositions of the agent(s)-in-focus. The position-practice relationships at both the industry and organizational level were characterized by both soft power and trust.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research could investigate how the withdrawal of the carbon pricing mechanism in Australia has affected the development of carbon accounting practices whilst overseas research could examine the extent to which carbon accounting frameworks were the outcome of position-practice relationships.Practical implicationsGiven the global significance of carbon accounting, this paper provides an overview as to how the early adoption of voluntary carbon accounting practices resulted in a reduction in carbon emissions within the water industry and therefore limited its liability for the carbon price.Originality/valueThis paper illustrates how the strong ST ontological concept of position-practices can be utilized at the macro, meso, and ontic levels and how these relationships mediated the impact of the carbon price upon both the water industry and the individual water business.
The digitalization of retailing: an exploratory framework
Authors: Hagberg Johan , Sundstrom Malin , Egels-Zandén Niklas 
Published: August 2016

Purpose– Digitalization denotes an on-going transformation of great importance for the retail sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the phenomenon of the digitalization of retailing by developing a conceptual framework that can be used to further delineate current transformations of the retailer-consumer interface.Design/methodology/approach– This paper develops a framework for digitalization in the retail-consumer interface that consists of four elements: exchanges, actors, offerings, and settings. Drawing on the previous literature, it describes and exemplifies how digitalization transforms each of these elements and identifies implications and proposals for future research.Findings– Digitalization transforms the following: retailing exchanges (in a number of ways and in various facets of exchange, including communications, transactions, and distribution); the nature of retail offerings (blurred distinctions between products and services, what constitutes the actual offering and how it is priced); retail settings (i.e. where and when retailing takes place); and the actors who participate in retailing (i.e. retailers and consumers, among other parties).Research limitations/implications– The framework developed can be used to further delineate current transformations of retailing due to digitalization. The current transformation has created challenges for research, as it demands sensitivity to development over time and insists that categories that have been taken for granted are becoming increasingly blurred due to greater hybridity.Originality/value– This paper addresses a significant and on-going transformation in retailing and develops a framework that can both guide future research and aid retail practitioners in analysing retailing’s current transformation due to digitalization.
Are business school deans doomed? The global financial crisis, Brexit and all that
Authors: Davies Julie 
Published: August 2016

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to focus on different types of university-based business school dean (BSD) in a context of insecurities within the business school business and more widely with changing business and educational models and disruptions such as the global financial crisis and Brexit. The position of the BSD is contextualised within the industry sector, institutionally, and in relation to individuals’ tenures to make sense of how BSDs are operating on a burning platform. A well-established middle management strategic role framework is applied to the empirical data.Design/methodology/approach– In total, 50 one-to-one interviews were conducted with deans and their colleagues. Deans’ behaviours were analysed according to attention paid to “facilitating”, “synthesizing”, “championing”, and “implementing” strategic activities.Findings– Behaviours from primary professional identities as scholars and educators were identified as prevalent. It is suggested that to achieve greater legitimacy in declining mature markets, future deans will need to re-negotiate their roles to champion as public intellectuals the societal impact of business schools more widely in a context of shifting business and educational models.Practical implications– The study is relevant to current and aspiring deans and for those hiring and developing business school deans.Originality/value– The dean is conceptualised as a hybrid upper middle manager besieged by multiple stakeholders and challenges. Novel first-order insights into a typology of strategists are highlighted.
The academic triathlon – bridging the agora and academia
Authors: Iñiguez De Onzoño Santiago , Carmona Salvador 
Published: August 2016

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to address the lack of relevance of business school research and how the potential gap between research and practice may be related to the lack of interaction between faculty members and non-academic stakeholders (e.g. industry, professions, society).Design/methodology/approach– The review of the extant literature in this area is combined with the experiences and discussions with business school leaders from around the world.Findings– The problematization of the lack of relevance of business school research leads us to conclude that it is a case of reward folly; the authors hope for relevance to external stakeholders but the authors reward for relevance to academic stakeholders. Drawing on Stokes’ (1997) research taxonomy, the authors conclude that business-school research should combine internal and external validity, which would involve business school faculty performing rigorous and relevant research, and interacting with practitioners; that is, an “academic triathlon”.Social implications– Faculty members should conduct research and teaching activities as well as interact with industry, and act to disseminate their research findings among external stakeholders. Consequently this should have implications for both the academic structure at business schools and the resources available to faculty members. Proceeding in this way will result in the narrowing of the gap of understanding between faculty members and management, and ultimately, to bridge the gap between contemporary versions of the Agora and the Academe.Originality/value– The authors provide a taxonomy of stakeholders of business school research and outline changes in the structure of business schools, resources provided to faculty members and impact on accreditation agencies.
Pedagogical advances in business models at business schools – in the age of networks
Authors: Lorange Peter , Thomas Howard 
Published: August 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to focus on potential advances in pedagogy and on the process of learning in business schools. It examines innovations in teaching and learning methods particularly in the context of networked organizations.

Design/methodology/approach
– It approaches, and examine the impact of, three key developments in business schools, namely, recent advances in IT, changes in the architecture of classrooms and learning spaces and advances in the way teaching is undertaken.

Findings
– The paper suggests that a blend between self-learning via distance approaches and face-to-face learning will increasingly become the norm. Face-to-face sessions might be in a “flat room” environment with a creative mix of short lectures, experiential, group learning and conceptual plenary lectures, software innovations, and digital textbooks “open plan” learning spaces would complement the instructional process.

Research limitations/implications
– There are clear implications for parallel IT (developments in course modules) and architectural innovations for the design of more effective and creative learning spaces.

Practical implications
– Improving pedagogy together with the physical design and layout of learning spaces is critical. The aim is, through enhanced participative pedagogy and “friendly” architecture, to improve learning by encouraging dialogue and closer interaction between students and professors from different disciplines and fields.

Social implications
– The authors argue that this model of collaborative learning and an interactive teaching framework should enable the same amount of learning material to be covered in a business school in approximately half-the-time required in conventional pedagogical approaches.

Originality/value
– It offers a prescription for a participative, technology enhanced and interactive teaching pedagogy that could produce more effective and efficient, teaching outcomes. This has strong implications for the sustainability, and funding capability, of many existing business schools and business school models.
GBSN’s perspective on business education and globalization
Authors: Pfeffermann Guy 
Published: August 2016

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to consider the role that business schools and other providers of management education play in a globalized world, and suggests ways in which that role could be enhanced. In this paper, “Business school” and “Management school” are used interchangeably.Design/methodology/approach– The paper reflects the author’s and GBSN’s experience.Findings– The paper shows how business schools can be strengthened so as to increase their impact on economic and social development, with a focus on the developing world.Originality/value– The role of business education in global development/value for government policy-makers, development funding institutions and business school leaders. Interrelated dimensions of the relationship between business education and globalization are examined: global shifts in demand for talent; responses by leading business schools in the developed world; the challenges of local relevance; the growth of business education in the emerging markets; and the contribution of business education to global development.
Entrepreneurial orientation, passion for work, perceived environmental dynamism and firm performance in an emerging economy
Authors: Adomako Samuel , Howard Quartey Samuel , Narteh Bedman 
Published: August 2016

Purpose– Previous scholarly studies have concluded that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) positively relates to firm performance and that relationship is dependent on several contingencies. The purpose of this paper is to show how managers’ passion for work and the external environment (i.e. environmental dynamism) within which firms operate interactively impact on EO-firm performance relationship.Design/methodology/approach– This theoretically derived research model is empirically validated using survey data from 250 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Ghana.Findings– The study’s empirical findings indicate that passion for work strengthens the EO-performance relationship in dynamic market environments.Research limitations/implications– The cross-sectional design of the study does not permit causal inferences to be made regarding the variables examined. Future studies may use longitudinal design to examine the causal links of the variables.Practical implications– The study’s findings provide managers with a deeper understanding of how to achieve superior product firm performance, especially when firms are entrepreneurially oriented. The understanding of this issue can promote the development and maintenance of further entrepreneurial ventures in developing economies.Originality/value– The paper has a strong theoretical value because to the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the moderating role of passion for work on the relationship between EO and firm performance in dynamic environments.
Foreign business ownership and domestic entrepreneurial exports
Authors: Thompson Piers , Zang Wenyu 
Published: August 2016

Purpose– There has been considerable debate about the impact that Foreign Direct Investment has upon home grown enterprise (Pathaket al., 2015). The purpose of this paper is to examine how foreign business ownership at the local level affects the decision of individual UK entrepreneurs to export their production.Design/methodology/approach– The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data and ONS foreign firm employment data are used within this study. In order to control for entrepreneurial and firm characteristics, a multivariate approach is adopted with logit, ordered logit and multinominal logit regressions utilised.Findings– It is found that the influence of foreign firms, as captured by their share of local employment, has a negative influence on domestic entrepreneurs’ probability of exporting, but has no significant effect on the intensity of these export activities.Research limitations/implications– The results suggest that local economies may not only become highly reliant on foreign employers, but also on local demand for domestic production. This means actions might be required to reduce this over-reliance to ensure the development of resilient local economies.Originality/value– Unlike many other studies the relationship between the SME exports and foreign influence is considered at a local level. With the current UK government seeking to increase UK firms’ exports substantially, understanding this relationship is of key importance to policy makers.
Formal accounting planning in SMEs
Authors: Samuelsson Joachim , Andersén Jim , Ljungkvist Torbjörn , Jansson Christian 
Published: August 2016

Purpose– Several studies have highlighted the importance of management accounting practices such as formal short-term planning and formal long-term planning for SME performance. However, few studies have considered what actually explains differences in the use of formal planning (from a management accounting approach) in SMEs. Family ownership and EO are two plausible explanations for such differences. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine how family ownership and EO are correlated to the use of formal short-term planning and formal long-term planning in SMEs.Design/methodology/approach– In this study, the authors examined how family ownership and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) affect the use of formal planning by analyzing a sample of 156 Swedish manufacturing SMEs, using multivariate regression analysis.Findings– As could be expected, the authors were able to validate the notion that family firms use less formal planning than non-family firms. However, in contrast to some previous studies, the authors found that there is a strongly positive relationship between EO and the use of formal short-term planning and long-term planning.Originality/value– Whereas many previous studies on family business have assumed that family firms use less formal planning than non-family firms, the present study is one of few to actually confirm this notion. Also, this study has provided strong evidence that EO is positively correlated to the use of formal planning, in the short term and in the longer term.
Putting process on track: empirical research on start-ups’ growth drivers
Authors: Pugliese Roberto , Bortoluzzi Guido , Zupic Ivan 
Published: August 2016

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on the growth drivers of start-up firms from the process perspective. Increasing scholarly attention to the growth of start-up firms has led to a more sophisticated understanding of their drivers. However, the richness of the results is partly offset by both potential and real contradictions in the literature.Design/methodology/approach– In this paper, 233 studies on the growth of start-up firms are reviewed using a process-oriented lens.Findings– The analysis reveals an imbalance in the use of variance-based empirical approaches to study the process-based phenomenon and some misalignments in the use of non-process-based empirical approaches to improve a process-based theory.Originality/value– This paper offers an original perspective from which to reconsider the relevant literature and provides useful recommendations for researchers to forge a path ahead in this field.
How are corporate disclosures related to the cost of capital? The fundamental role of information asymmetry
Authors: Cuadrado-Ballesteros Beatriz , Garcia-Sanchez Isabel-Maria , Martinez Ferrero Jennifer 
Published: August 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to analyze empirically the fundamental role that information asymmetry plays in the functioning of an efficient capital market as mediator in the relation between corporate disclosures and cost of capital.

Design/methodology/approach
– By using a sample of 1,260 international non-financial listed companies in the period 2007-2014.

Findings
– The findings suggest that high-quality financial and social disclosures quality reduce the cost of capital, by decreasing information asymmetry. In other words, the authors find evidence of the mediator role of information asymmetry in the relation between corporate disclosures and the cost of capital. These results are also controlled for differences on accounting standards and other institutional factors.

Originality/value
– The central assumption is that the demand for corporate disclosures that reduces the information advantages of some investors (who are more informed) arises from agency conflicts and these information differences in turn, determine the cost of capital. This paper is the first attempt to study, jointly, the effects of decreasing information asymmetries by corporate disclosures on the cost of capital in an international setting. In addition, the authors focussed on both financial and social disclosures, creating empirical proxies whose validity for the analysis has been evidenced.
Productivity Catch‐up Between Chinese and Taiwanese Electronics Firms
Authors: Ho Chih‐Chin , Lin Hui‐Lin , Yang Chih‐Hai , Lyu Ya‐Pin 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis paper aims to depict the patterns of China's productivity catch‐up with Taiwan in the electronics industry over the period 2001–2007. Specifically, we investigate the roles that ownership structure and innovation efforts play in the dynamics of the productivity gap. The firm‐level evidence suggests that the labour productivity gap between Chinese and Taiwanese electronics firms has narrowed during the past decade. Second, the narrowing of the labour productivity gap has occurred in foreign‐owned enterprises rather than in local firms. Examining the determinants of productivity catch‐up show that R&D significantly contributes to Chinese electronics firms' catching up with their Taiwanese counterparts.
Comparison of Important Laws Governing the Macroeconomies of Taiwan and China
Authors: Chow Gregory C. , Yin Shou‐Yung 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThis is a comparative study of the important laws governing the macroeconomies of Taiwan and China. The laws are concerned with consumption, investment and fiscal and monetary policies of the government. Following similar studies on China, the present paper focuses on the case of Taiwan. Using annual data from 1961 to 2014 we find that the consumption function satisfies the permanent income hypothesis of Friedman and the investment function satisfies the accelerations principle as in the case of China. Money supply does not affect GDP but government expenditure has a positive effect on consumption and a negative effect on investment. These results are opposite to those obtained for China. Explanations of the differences are given.
Importing High Food Prices by Exporting: Rice Prices in LaoPDR
Authors: Durevall Dick , van der Weide Roy 
Published: August 2016

AbstractLaoPDRhas extensive export controls on its staple food, glutinous rice, which keep domestic prices low relative to international prices. Using price, harvest, and export data this paper analyses how glutinous rice prices in LaosPDRare related to those in its trading partners, Thailand and Vietnam. We find that rice prices in LaoPDRare more likely to rise following a good harvest year than a bad or a normal year. This is consistent with export controls being relaxed after good harvests, leading to an increase in exports early in the season and rising prices later as stocks are depleted. There is thus a case for removal of trade restrictions since they give rise to price spikes while keeping the long‐term price of glutinous rice low, and thereby hinder increases in income from agriculture. However, since high rice prices are likely to affect the poor negatively in the short to medium term, a combination of an export tax and cash transfers is recommended during the transition period. Although this is a case study of LaoPDR, the findings may equally apply to other developing countries that export their staple food.