Expatriate selection: back to basics?

Expatriate assignments are becoming increasingly unattractive to potential candidates making the unwieldy myriad of proposed selection criteria of decreasing practical value to internationally assigning firms. When the issue is more to find anyone willing to do the job rather than selecting the best candidate from a large pool of applicants, maybe basic personal characteristics can better guide corporations in their search for suitable expatriate candidates. To examine this proposition, a large sample of Western business expatriates in Hong Kong responded to a mail survey about their sociocultural and psychological adjustment. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis indicated that age had a positive association with general, interaction and work adjustment of the expatriates as well as with psychological adjustment. Gender was not associated with any kind of adjustment whereas being married had a positive relation with work adjustment. The implications for international firms of these results are discussed in detail.     

Expatriate compensation and its link to the subsidiary strategic role: a theoretical analysis

This paper focuses on the strategic design of expatriates' salaries. Unlike standard expatriation literature that assumes a lack of connection between strategy and international managers' compensation, we use the theoretical concepts from the international strategic management research to discuss how different international strategies affect the way expatriates are compensated. In this respect, the paper proposes a series of hypotheses on how expatriate compensation systems take shape according to the role that the expatriates may play in the internationalization process. The hypotheses refer to the type of incentives offered to encourage acceptance of the assignment, the type of criteria used to evaluate their performance and the reference unit used to establish variable compensation.     

Contingent payments in selection contests

The early literature on research contests stressed the advantages of a fixed prize in inspiring R&D effort. More recently the focus has moved towards endogenizing the rewards to research activity in these tournament settings, since this can induce extra effort or enhance the surplus of the buyer. We focus on a research contest as a means of selecting a partner for an R&D enterprise, in an informational setting in which the established providers of R&D services know more about each others’ relative capabilities than does the buyer/sponsor. An alternative use of our model is in choosing between prospective patentees where the Patent Trading Office has less information on the patents than the competitors. This asymmetry creates a source of inefficiency if a rank order contest is used as a selection device; we show how the contest can be modified to improve selection efficiency, while maintaining its simplicity (as only ordinal information is required). The modification that we suggest involves endogenizing the prizes that are awarded contingent upon whether a contestant wins or loses the contest. Furthermore, the payment system and the selection mechanism are detail-free. This paper is part of the project “The Knowledge-Based Society” sponsored by the Research Council of Norway (project 172603/V10).     

供应商选择决策——集成化管理软件ERP系统供应商选择

供应商选择是采购管理中的重要部分，本文讨论供应商选择的决策方法。特别对集成化管理软件ＥＲＰ的供应商选择决策作了深入的讨论。最后，给出了供应商选择决策的今后研究方向。     

Exploring the circular economy paradigm: A natural resource-based view on supplier selection criteria

The paradigm of circular economy and the transfer of its principles to supply chain management has recently received much attention from researchers and practitioners. Limited natural resources, governmental legislation, and social responsibility for environmental preservation are the main factors for the development of circular supply chains. Especially in the automotive industry, critical materials are used to produce electric vehicles, reinforcing the importance of circularity for the industry. As the first stage of the supply chain, suppliers have a considerable influence on creating self-sufficient production systems, and in the automotive sector, a low level of vertical integration is important. Therefore, selecting suppliers is an enabler for circular supply chains, but this decision is a complex process due to multiple, partly conflicting criteria. To contribute to the knowledge in this research area, this study applies a fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory approach for supplier selection in a circular supply chain in a case study of electric vehicles. First, a set of criteria for supplier selection in circular supply chains was identified based on a literature review and was systematically categorized based on the natural resource-based view. Afterward, the criteria were assessed and refined by experts with a strong procurement background in the automotive industry. Second, the experts were interviewed for value collection, and finally, the mutual influence of the criteria was determined. The results show that the most important criteria for circular supplier selection in electric vehicle supply chains are environmental standards, environmental-related certifications, resource consumption, and waste generation. Regarding the natural resource-based view, short-term focused criteria addressing the capability of pollution prevention have a higher importance compared to long-term criteria that drive sustainable development. In addition, this study classifies the criteria into the categories of causes and effects, discusses the prominence of the criteria, and presents a strategic map showing the mutual influences of the criteria. The results contribute to the theoretical and practical discussion on circular supply chains by identifying the key criteria for circular supplier selection and providing decision-making support for procurement managers.     

Classification systems and selection systems: The risks of radical innovation and category spanning

This paper looks at the relations between classification and competition, using the theoretical framework of selection system theory. In a particular competitive arena more than one classification system can be in use. The proportion of classification systems in use by consumers that are also in use by the dominant selectors is a determinant of the risks of category spanning and radical innovation. Furthermore, these risks can be better understood by taking into account whether the selection system has different stages occupied by selectors of different types and by looking at the relations between the selectors of the primary market and the selectors of these selectors.     

Smart money or dumb money? A study on the selection ability of mutual fund investors in China

We examine investors’ mutual fund selection ability in China. Using actively managed equity mutual funds between 2005 and 2011, we find that Chinese investors generally have no mutual fund selection ability, a result contrary to the smart money effect in the United States. We show that mutual funds that receive more new money subsequently underperform significantly. The findings are robust to several risk-adjusted performance measures. The unique data of China provide separate accounts of institutional and individual investors’ new money flowing into and out of mutual funds, allowing us to examine the mutual fund selection ability of institutional and individual investors. We document that institutional investors exhibit a smart money effect, that is, they are able to move new money into (out of) future good (poor) performers. In contrast, individual investors exhibit a dumb money effect. Our results provide useful information for regulators to review their rules, especially for the protection of individual investors regarding mutual fund investing in China. In addition, we show that it is useful to distinguish institutional and individual investors in mutual fund research.     

基于背包问题的散货航次方案优选方法研究

针对散货航运市场的航次方案优选问题,使得公司能够在自身的能力约束下获得最大收益,最终目标是快速地在潜在的商业机会中找出最优的航次方案组合。通过调研定义了合理的航次收益、成本定量预估方法,在此基础上结合背包问题构建了航次方案优选模型,并进行改进,从而快速地求解航次方案优选问题,提高企业的核心竞争力。     

Koalas in the land of the pandas: reviewing Australian expatriates’ China preparation

The unprecedented internationalization of organizations in the past two decades has made the need for cross-cultural awareness, appreciation and understanding in the daily operations of international businesses increasingly prevalent. In both academic circles and the popular press much has been written about the need for individuals to be cross-culturally sensitive, adaptive and responsive when managing across national borders. One of the key aspects identified in literature as contributing towards achieving cross-cultural sensitivity of expatriates is correct selection, pre-departure and post-arrival training and in situ support for the expatriate and his/her family. The research presented in this paper examines the selection, training and support of Australian expatriates in China, a nation that has loomed large in the current and future trading and expansion plans of many Australian corporations since it opened its doors to international commerce in the late 1970?s. Based on information gathered through semi-structured interviews conducted with expatriate Australians in Shanghai in 1999 and 2001, the results of this research indicate that, while organizations are recognizing the need to employ Australians who have prior China knowledge, organizational preparation remains negligible.     

Are Catholic primary schools more effective than public primary schools?

This paper assesses the causal effects of Catholic primary schooling on student outcomes such as test scores, grade retention, and behavior. Catholic school students have substantially better average outcomes than do public school students throughout the primary years, but we present evidence that selection bias is entirely responsible for these advantages. Estimates based on several empirical strategies, including an approach developed by Altonji et al. (2005a) to use selection on observables to assess the bias arising from selection on unobservables, imply that Catholic schools do not appreciably boost test scores. All of the empirical strategies point to sizeable negative effects of Catholic schooling on mathematics achievement. Similarly, we find very little evidence that Catholic schooling improves behavioral and other non-cognitive outcomes once we account for selection on unobservables.     

非对称信息下的审计市场:逆向选择与信号传递

本文从博弈的角度对非对称信息下的审计市场进行了分析,认为目前我国的审计市场存在逆向选择效应,面临成为“柠檬市场”的威胁。审计市场要避免出现逆向选择,建立以会计师事务所品牌为手段的“信号传递机制”是必然之路。     

Multi-stage evaluation and selection in the formation process of complex creative solution

In the case of limited organizational resources, smoothly and effectively completing the multi-stage evaluation and selection in the formation process of complex creative solution is vital for the organization to solve creative problems. In this paper, a multi-stage evaluation criteria system is constructed from the three dimensions of novelty, value and practicality, each of which is composed of three separate evaluation criteria systems, and the fuzzy AHP method is applied to obtain the weights of each dimensions and sub-dimensions, we find that the weights of the same dimensions and sub-dimensions are different in each evaluation criteria systems. The fuzzy TOPSIS method and the fuzzy AHP method are combined to build a multi-stage evaluation and selection model in the formation process of complex creative solution, then the complex creative solutions development activities of rural credit products, which we have been personally involved in, are selected as the analysis case to confirm the practical operability of this model.     

What is required for greener supplier selection? A literature review and conceptual model development

This paper examines the existing literature on green supplier selection. In total, 60 articles are reviewed, all published in peer-reviewed journals between 1991 and 2011. The articles are analyzed in terms of several general variables such as type of research and theoretical viewpoint, as well as more specific variables such as the supply chain position considered, stages of the supplier selection process studied, and the perspective taken on environmental criteria. The main findings are threefold. First, analytical research, focusing on developing normative decision models for the final stage in green supplier selection is clearly most dominant, employing a wide range of techniques. Second, empirical research is less prominent and generally lacks a clear theoretical background. Third, very little conceptual research has been done linking green supplier selection to an organization's strategy. Research on green supplier selection is highly fragmented and in danger of overemphasizing the technical aspects of supplier selection. Based on this review of the articles, a conceptual model of green supplier selection is presented, aimed at integrating the different dimensions of green supplier selection and identifying directions for future research.     

Supplier evaluation in the context of circular economy: A forward step for resilient business and environment concern

Resource depletion is a concern for the global economy; many think that available resources on the planet will not be able to cater to an ever-growing population. Thus, economies are trying to become circular, leaving behind the linear tradition linear approach. In the circular economy (CE), physical resources and energy are made to loop back into the supply chain (SC) for a more extended period. Proper selection of suppliers is an essential criterion towards proper execution of the CE principle in SC. In this research, we have constructed a framework for evaluating the supplier concerning the CE implementation. Further, this research identifies the criterion and sub-criterion, which are pertinent for evaluating the supplier in CE context. Fuzzy-based ‘Criteria Importance Through Inter-Criteria Correlation (CRITIC)’ method is justifiably applied to determine the aggregated weights of the criteria. Finally, ‘Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS)’ method is used to determine the suppliers' ranking in the Indian automobile industry. Six criteria and 24 sub-criteria are obtained as per recent literature and then inputs from experts. ‘Environment’ criterion came out as the most favourable criterion with a subjective weight of 0.230. The current research is one of the first such attempts to provide criteria for supplier selection in a CE environment. The developed framework would help organisations in implementing CE-based supplier selection. The identified criteria and sub-criteria would provide organisations with means to evaluate suppliers and help suppliers develop an effective and efficient CE based on the SC.     

SELECTION BIAS CORRECTIONS BASED ON THE MULTINOMIAL LOGIT MODEL: MONTE CARLO COMPARISONS

Abstract.  This survey presents the set of methods available in the literature on selection bias correction, when selection is specified as a multinomial logit model. It contrasts the underlying assumptions made by the different methods and shows results from a set of Monte Carlo experiments. We find that, in many cases, the approach initiated by Dubin and MacFadden (1984) as well as the semi-parametric alternative recently proposed by Dahl (2002) are to be preferred to the most commonly used Lee (1983) method. We also find that a restriction imposed in the original Dubin and MacFadden paper can be waived to achieve more robust estimators. Monte Carlo experiments also show that selection bias correction based on the multinomial logit model can provide fairly good correction for the outcome equation, even when the IIA hypothesis is violated.     

对于价值工程中对象选择方法的比较研究

价值工程中关于改进对象的选择始终是一个基本问题,如何选取准则是关键。现在就20世纪中期至今的7种主流方法一一进行比较分析,从区域几何特征(包括区域关于标准直线的渐进性以及非对称性)、解析表达式在价值工程上的经济意义、待定常数的易得性、应用中的便利性四个方面进行比较,并给出初步结论。     

决策树算法在物流运输线路选择中的应用

为克服传统物流运输中线路选择主要依赖经验主观确定的问题,对基于决策树算法的物流运输线路选择模型进行了探讨。     

Female self-perception as barrier to international careers?

It is a matter of fact that women are underrepresented in international management. In most of the articles on female expatriates, the companies' reluctance to send women abroad is usually named as first justification why female managers are rare in the international arena. The reasons cited are manifold, ranging from stereotypical views of the personnel managers to the prejudices women are expected to face abroad. Some authors tried to find additional causes such as dual career couples, cultural factors or the general lack of women in top management. However, only little has been written about the women's own fault for not being selected. Literature on gender-based stereotypes, female self-perception or traditional role models is broad. Typical issues are a perceived lack of self-confidence, stereotypical behaviour or underestimation. But a relation to expatriation is rarely found. Therefore, the aim of this article is to answer if and how women themselves contribute to their under-representation in international management.     

基于交易成本的供应商选择研究

本文从交易成本的三个影响因素出发考虑如何在供应商选择过程中对交易成本进行定性和定量分析,并试图利用模糊综合评价方法建立基于交易成本控制的供应商选择模型。