Collaborate at Home to Win Abroad: How Does Access to Local Network Resources Influence Export Behavior?

By drawing on the resource‐based view and on elements from social network theory, we use a sample of southern Brazilian small and medium‐sized furniture manufacturers to find evidence for the hypothesis that access to local network resources, facilitated by a firm's membership in an industry association, strongly predicts the propensity to export. Likewise, we find that a firm's local collaborative intensity is positively related to its export intensity and that both relations are moderated by the firm's distance from the local network's center. This study contributes to the literature on how local collaboration may facilitate overcoming export barriers.     

Corporate Social Responsibility,Product Differentiation Strategy and Export Performance

This article examines why an organization might wish to manage workplace romance, and describes a number of alternative approaches to managing dating. At first sight the ethics of dating bans balances the need to protect female employees from harassment against employee rights to privacy and freedom of association – a rights versus rights issue. However, dating bans seem not to be directed at protecting female employees from harm, but rather protect employers from sexual harassment liability claims – an employer self-interest versus employee rights issue. This article advocates a consequentialist approach to the problem, via the factoring in of other harms caused by prohibiting workplace romance. Given that most workplace romances end up in marriage or long-term partnerships, a ban on workplace romance is argued to be antisocial. The incidence of sexual harassment is very low in comparison to the number of long-term relationships initiated in the workplace. This article concludes by citing examples of firms that encourage romance, showing that is feasible to manage any resulting problems within these firms’ existing conflict of interest and sexual harassment rules.     

The moderating effect of institutional context on the relationship between associational activity and new business activity in emerging economies

Varying institutional environments provide the foundation for a great deal of international business (IB) research yet relatively little empirical work has examined the association between institutional factors and new business development in emerging economies, although the importance of new business development for economic transition and growth is widely acknowledged. Drawing from social network and institutional theories, we address this gap by examining the effect of associational activity on the level of new business activity in emerging economies, and testing the thesis that associational activity becomes more instrumental for new business creation when aspiring entrepreneurs confront higher institutional burdens (i.e., obstacles derived from underdeveloped or absent institutions). On the basis of data from two cross-national research projects—the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and the World Values Survey—we find a positive relationship between a country's associational activity and new business activity; this relationship is stronger for higher regulatory and normative institutional burdens and lower cognitive institutional burdens. This study is among the first to examine empirically the possible substitution effect between social ties and institutions to predict new business activity; it paints a nuanced picture of how social networks might be more instrumental in contexts characterized by weak institutions. We discuss the implications of these findings for IB theory and practice and offer directions for further research in the area.     

Adäquate Wundauflagen

Wundumgebung und Wundauflagen - Die wundumgebende Haut, sofern sie intakt ist, hat eigentlich keinen direkten Einfluss auf die Wundheilung, da aber die Wundauflagen oder der Sekund?rverband auf der wundumgebenden Haut fixiert wird, ist die Beurteilung und Schutz dieser Hautareale für die Wundheilung von Bedeutung.     

Indonesian politics in 2010: the perils of stagnation

In the first year after President Yudhoyono's re-election, Indonesian politics continued to evolve in largely familiar patterns. Contrary to the expectations of some observers, Yudhoyono's strong popular mandate and his Democratic Party's newly won parliamentary plurality did not result in significant changes to the president's cautious style of governing or the fickle nature of president–parliament relations. Most political parties also opted for continuity over change, electing or re-electing established figures as leaders despite high levels of public dissatisfaction with their performance. The fact that the 2009 election failed to generate any new momentum for reform does not augur well for the remainder of Yudhoyono's second term. Although the basic parameters of Indonesia's democracy remain intact, political developments during 2010 have also confirmed a pattern of stagnation that is likely to see Indonesia barely muddle through as a reasonably stable yet low-quality democracy.     

Market entry in japan—Some problems and solutions 1

Japan is recognised as a major competitor in world markets but is less well‐known as an attractive market in its own right. This paper proposes that with the right strategies it is possible to successfully penetrate the difficult Japanese market. Problems and opportunities presented by the market are discussed, and some of the findings of a survey of Japanese and German managers in Japan and German‐based managers are reviewed. The paper covers the survey findings on market characteristics, barriers to entry, information requirements, factors contributing to success and methods of market entry. German and UK sources of information and advice on the Japanese market are given for those interested in pursuing the matter further.     

Understanding financial crisis through accounting models

This paper presents evidence that accounting (or flow-of-funds) macroeconomic models helped anticipate the credit crisis and economic recession. Equilibrium models ubiquitous in mainstream policy and research did not. This study traces the intellectual pedigrees of the accounting approach as an alternative to neo-classical economics, and the post-war rise and decline of flow-of-funds models in policy use. It includes contemporary case studies of both types of models, and considers why the accounting approach has remained outside mainstream economics. It provides constructive recommendations on revising methods of financial stability assessment and advocates an ‘accounting of economics’.     

Corporate bond credit spreads and forecast dispersion

Recent research establishes a negative relation between stock returns and dispersion of analysts’ earnings forecasts, arguing that asset prices more reflect the views of optimistic investors because of short-sale constraints in equity markets. In this article, we examine whether a similar effect prevails in corporate bond markets. After controlling for common bond-level, firm-level, and macroeconomic variables, we find evidence that bonds of firms with higher dispersion demand significantly higher credit spreads than otherwise similar bonds and that changes in dispersion reliably predict changes in credit spreads. This evidence suggests a limited role of short-sale constraints in our corporate bond data sets. Consistent with a rational explanation, dispersion appears to proxy largely for future cash flow uncertainty in corporate bond markets.     

Is Gold a Hedge or a Safe Haven? An Analysis of Stocks,Bonds and Gold

Is gold a hedge, defined as a security that is uncorrelated with stocks or bonds on average, or is it a safe haven, defined as a security that is uncorrelated with stocks and bonds in a market crash? We study constant and time‐varying relations between U.S., U.K. and German stock and bond returns and gold returns to investigate gold as a hedge and a safe haven. We find that gold is a hedge against stocks on average and a safe haven in extreme stock market conditions. A portfolio analysis further shows that the safe haven property is short‐lived.