The Unequal Effect of India's Industrial Liberalization on Firms’ Decision to Innovate: Do Business Conditions Matter?

Product‐market competition can boost industry growth if firms invest more in innovation. Using a natural policy experiment, the removal of India's License Raj, we show that firms in liberalized industries were 9% more likely to invest in R&D than firms in non‐liberalized industries. However, the impacts were not the same across firms of different size. After the reforms, firms in the top quartile were 23% more likely to invest in R&D than those in the lowest size quartile. Both productivity differences across firms and the heterogeneous impacts of business conditions on firms explain unequal effects of India's industrial liberalization reform.     

Women in the migrant economy. A positional approach to contextualize gendered transnational trajectories

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the life histories of migrant women entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and Spain, this article explores the influence of transnational trajectories on their social positions and business strategies. A translocational positional approach enables us to research the transnational strategies of women entrepreneurs more effectively in addition to examining the changes in social positions and gendered identities between the country of origin and the country of destination. This approach contributes to scholarship on ‘context’ by offering a transnational gendered dimension in relation to the effects of social, spatial and institutional factors. Our findings demonstrate how female migrant entrepreneurs redefine their social status in different contexts by establishing a business and challenge, contest or comply with gender relations in their transnational entrepreneurial journeys.     

Advancing Theory with Review Articles

Reviewing a body of work presents unique opportunities for making a theoretical contribution. Review articles can make readers think theoretically differently about a given field or phenomenon. Yet, review articles that advance theory have been historically under-represented in Journal of Management Studies. Accordingly, the purpose of this editorial is to propose a multi-faceted approach for fashioning theoretical contributions in review articles, which we hope will inspire more authors to develop and submit innovative, original, and high-quality theory-building review articles. We argue that advancing theory with review articles requires an integrative and generative approach. We propose a non-exhaustive set of avenues for developing theory with a review article: exposing emerging perspectives, analysing assumptions, clarifying constructs, establishing boundary conditions, testing new theory, theorizing with systems theory, and theorizing with mechanisms. As a journal, Journal of Management Studies is a journal of ideas – new ideas; ideas drawn from reflections on extant theory and ideas with potential to change the way we understand and interpret theory. With this in mind, we think that advancing theory with review articles is an untapped source of new ideas.     

Book briefs

Food policy: Integrating supply, distribution and consumption, EDI series in economic development, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1987

Food poverty and consumption patterns in Kenya, International Labour Office, Geneva, 1986     

Agriculture and proximity to roads: How should farmers and retailers adapt? Examples from the Ile-de-France region

The present study was carried out in the Ile-de-France region surrounding Paris, which is both the biggest conurbation in France and a large agricultural area. In areas such as these, airborne pollutants from road traffic may adversely affect the quality of the food produced by farms close by. This raises questions about the spatial compatibility of farming and road networks, although there is currently no scientific consensus concerning potential health risks for producers and consumers. Some actors in agricultural supply chains have tried to limit potential risks by producing technical guidelines, including isolation distances between major roads and fields farmed under contract. This paper analyses these “isolation distances”, using approaches from the agricultural and social sciences: surveys on stakeholders in agribusiness and on farmers, and a cartographic simulation submitted to the surveyed farmers for discussion. The results show that isolation distances serve to create market opportunities in a context of market segmentation, or are applied as a precautionary principle. Though not a widespread practice, safety distances could have considerable impacts on farms in terms of both technical management and total farm area, thus calling for further scientific research on this issue.     

Who is she and who are we? A reflexive journey in research into the rarity of women in the highest ranks of accountancy

This paper proposes a reflexive examination of research into the rarity of women at the highest hierarchical levels of accountancy, with the aim of contributing to the transformation of gendered structures of domination.We practice reflexivity in two ways. First, we provide an analysis of the relationships between research objects, research design, and the implications of research findings, based on a sample of papers dealing with the rarity of women at the highest levels of accountancy. We show that self-proclaimed “neutral” research that rejects any form of prediction is adopting an illusory position which is detrimental to the situation of women. We also point out the risks associated with taking a subjective stance, which can be involuntarily detrimental to the cause it intends to serve.Second, we draw on our various experiences at conferences. We show that our intention to transform the structures of domination has led us to adapt our own discourses, seeking to convince reluctant audiences by adopting a pragmatic style. We also discuss how conferences have shaped our research choices and interests, while making us aware of our own potential tendency towards universalism and a biased standpoint as Western scholars.     

European gas imports from North Africa

The uprising and military confrontation in Libya that began in February 2011 has led to a disruption of the country’s gas exports to Europe. An analysis of how Europe has compensated for these missing gas volumes shows that the disruption has not affected security of supply. However, this situation would change if the North African uprising were to spread to Algeria.     

Reconfiguring Belonging in the Suburban US South: Diversity, ‘Merit’ and the Persistence of White Privilege

In the past few decades, a diverse body of scholarship has complicated the image of American suburbs as spaces of white, middle‐class homogeneity. Revisionist suburban histories and accounts of African American and immigrant suburbanization have drawn attention to the longstanding presence of non‐white others in US suburbs. Yet despite diversification, white privilege remains deeply entrenched in suburbia. This article explores the shifting character of white privilege in the US — especially in the US South — and asks how whites interpret diversity and identify those with whom they are, or are not, willing to share their privileges. This article uses the results of a pilot study in a subdivision near Columbia, South Carolina, to explore how white suburbanites articulate belonging in neighborhood space. This discussion highlights the ways in which respondents reject the pre‐civil‐rights order marked by overt racial discrimination, but also reveals the ways in which they evaluate the relative merit of minority groups and identify certain differences as unacceptable. While limited in scope, this study encourages scholars to further explore the ways in which shifting configurations of race become intertwined with processes of contemporary suburban change.