Affective and Normative Motives to Work Overtime in Asian Organizations: Four Cultural Orientations from Confucian Ethics

Asian workplaces are often characterized by cultures that require more overtime than other cultures. Although predictors for overtime work have been rigorously studied, it is still meaningful to investigate specific aspects of Eastern cultural values that stem from Confucian ethics and may influence overtime work among Asian employees. We suggest that four major Confucian orientations are positively associated with employees’ affective and normative motives, which in turn affect working overtime. This article extends management literature on the subjects of cultural ethics and workaholism. It also suggests how Eastern cultural values lead to working overtime. We hope that our research effort on Confucian cultural value and its associations with other managerial outcomes and theories is a small cornerstone that allows management researchers to explore interesting and meaningful ways to apply Confucian culture and orientations in the workplace.     

A multidimensional perspective of SME internationalization speed: The influence of entrepreneurial characteristics

This paper contributes to a multidimensional perspective on the speed of SME internationalization. It examines the influence of entrepreneurial characteristics – experience, rationales and innovation strategies – on multiple dimensions of internationalization speed. Findings from a sample of 180 SMEs show that earliness, speed of deepening, and speed of geographic diversification can be viewed as three different strategic alternatives and that each dimension is predicted by a different set of entrepreneurial antecedents. Earliness of internationalization is associated with entrepreneurs’ international business experience and their perception of opportunities abroad as well as preference for an innovation strategy characterized by ambidextrous innovation. Speed of deepening is related to entrepreneurs’ international business experience, their orientation towards differentiation vis-à-vis competitors, and commitment to innovation and a strategy focusing on exploration. These results indicate the importance of distinguishing between different forms of innovation. Speed of geographic diversification is predicted only by entrepreneurs’ orientation towards differentiation vis-à-vis competitors.     

Ranking local authorities: The Lilley league tables

Public sector managers hear the slogan ‘do it like the private sector’ a lot, but the private sector actually functions in complex and differentiated ways. To get around uncertainty people use markets in ways that do not fit the stereotype. Public sector managers may learn from the way in which markets actually operate, but should ignore the slogans.     

Echoes of Silence: Employee Silence as a Mediator Between Overall Justice and Employee Outcomes

Despite burgeoning interest in employee silence, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of (a) the antecedents of employee silence in organizations and (b) the implications of engaging in silence for employees. Using two experimental studies (Study 1a, N = 91; Study 1b, N = 152) and a field survey of full-time working adults (Study 2, N = 308), we examined overall justice as an antecedent of acquiescent (i.e., silence motivated by futility) and quiescent silence (i.e., silence motivated by fear of sanctions). Across the studies, results indicated that overall justice is a significant predictor of both types of silence in organizations. Furthermore, Study 2 indicated that the implications of silence extend beyond the restriction of information flow in organizations to include employee outcomes. Specifically, acquiescent silence partially or fully mediated the relationship between overall justice perceptions and emotional exhaustion, psychological withdrawal, physical withdrawal, and performance. Quiescent silence partially mediated these relationships, with the exception of performance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for both the justice and silence literatures are discussed.     

HOST-COUNTRY MANAGERIAL BEHAVIOUR AND LEARNING IN CHINESE AND HUNGARIAN JOINT VENTURES*

Close similarities in the behaviour reported of host country managers in Chinese and Hungarian joint ventures have emerged from recent research. an assessment is offered of four perspectives which purport to account for managerial behaviour in these contexts, namely those referring to the system of industrial governance, the nature of industrialization, national culture and resistance to change. the system of industrial governance provides the most direct and comprehensive explanation, and is also linked with influences from national culture and industrialization. the article concludes by examining the modes of host country learning in process within the joint ventures as foreign partners endeavour to change the behaviour of local managers.     

PREDICTING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF MEGA‐SPORTING EVENTS: MISJUDGEMENT OF OLYMPIC PROPORTIONS?

The economic benefits of hosting mega-sporting events are often exaggerated. Ex-ante impact studies typically overestimate the gains and underestimate the costs involved. It is therefore difficult to explain in economic terms the intense competition among cities to hold such events.     

A Permanent Jobs Program for the U.S.: Economic Restructuring to Meet Human Needs

This paper proposes a jobs program to address both the chronic problems of unemployment and underemployment in the U.S. economy and the debilitating economic and political impacts of growing inequality in the U.S. The jobs program consists of three parts. First, the reduction of unemployment and underemployment by stimulating output, either under public or private auspices, of infrastructure, or social investment, in areas such as: transportation, education, health care, human services, and parks. Second, to recognize and respond to the failure of the private market to provide needed current public services, which will include a massive upgrading of pay and working conditions of these ??human service?? jobs by expanding public employment, sharing the costs of an enhanced and expanded social safety net. Third, to, explicitly and as a matter of industrial policy, target government investment and overall job growth towards the industries of the future, particularly in the areas of energy, agriculture, and other broadly defined ??green?? technologies.     

Co‐evolution in an Institutionalized Environment*

abstract This paper examines the extent to which co‐evolution can take place within a heavily constrained environment and how changes in the degree of institutionalization are relevant to opportunities for exercising strategic choice at the level of the firm. It addresses these questions through a detailed case study of a major Brazilian telecommunications company, Telemig, covering its life span of 27 years from 1973 to 2000. The insights obtained advance the theory of co‐evolution by incorporating a political dimension of how organizations are transformed into new forms. In the case studied, new forms arose with radical changes in the rules affecting competition and with de‐institutionalization of the economic regime by coalitions of actors who were strategically located in networks that crossed system levels. Although the Telemig case presents circumstances different to those usually addressed by studies of co‐evolution, it nevertheless points to the virtues of combining a strategic choice approach with one that focuses on the isomorphic effects of institutional constraints.     

Predicting the Performance of International Joint Ventures: An Investigation in China*

ABSTRACT Organizational learning, resourcing and control have been identified in the literature as potential firm‐level influences on the performance of international joint ventures (IJVs). The study reported here examines the impact of these factors on the performance of Sino‐foreign IJVs. Their performance is assessed in terms of both ‘goal’ and ‘system’ criteria. The hypothesized performance determinants are found to be more strongly associated with variance in system performance than in goal performance. The main performance predictors are the parent companies’ experience with international business and joint ventures, and the quality of resources they provide to the joint ventures in respect of capital investment, new facilities and operational inputs. When good quality resourcing is provided, the sharing of control with local partners also predicts higher IJV performance. The performance effects of these factors appears to be cumulative, implying that further research should examine them together rather than singularly.     

State capitalism and the urban fiscal crisis in the United States1

A quoi peut-on attribuer la crise fiscale qui engouffre une grande partie du c?ur urbain américain? Est-ce que cette crise et l'intensification de la lutte politique présagent des changements fondamentaux dans la structure de l'économie politique des Etats-Unis? Cet essai est une réponse tentative à ces questions. L'exposition de la crise fiscale urbaine aux Etats-Unis demande une analyse générale de la relation entre accumulation du capital, urbanisation, et expansion de l'état. Cette analyse doit ětre le fondement d'une exploration des origines particulières du financement urbain qui confronte beaucoup de villes centrales, ainsi que de la relation entre crise fiscale et lutte politique. Il est suggéré en dernière partie que la menace posée par la crise fiscale urbaine et la lutte politique envers la stabilité et la légitimité des institutions capitalistes américaines est la cause d'une réponse parmi les sections les plus éclairées de la classe capitaliste, qui tend vers un accroissement de leurs efforts à developper la Cité Capitaliste d'état en tant que noyau d'un complex socio-industriel grandissant.