Building international entrepreneurial virtual networks in cyberspace

We examine how software international entrepreneurs in Iceland use online social network sites to develop and harness their network relationships. To study these relationships, we use a combination of participant observation on LinkedIn and open ended face-to-face interviews. The framework for this study is based on resource-based view, networks and international entrepreneurship theories. We found that entrepreneurs with the largest networks use the online social network to demonstrate their network strength and to identify opportunities to bridge relationships. Our contribution illustrates how entrepreneurs acquire resources to internationalize through online social capital formation.     

Roles,Authority and Involvement of the Management Accounting Function: A Multiple Case-study Perspective

Recent techniques and shifts in the environment are often viewed as leading management accountants to adopt a business orientation. However, empirical evidence pointing to clear shifts in the role played by management accountants remains relatively scarce. From in-depth qualitative research based on 73 interviews in ten multinational companies, we identify four distinct styles of management accounting function: discrete, safeguarding, partner, and omnipotent. We show that each style can be associated with one main role: discrete control of managerial behaviour, socialisation of managers, facilitation of decision-making, and centralisation of power. From this in-depth analysis of management accountants' styles and roles we move on to discuss the authority they hold and the independence/involvement dilemma they face.     

Performance management effectiveness: practices or context?

Although much research has focused on the technical or measurement issues involved in employee performance management, this study investigates the mutual influence of practices and context on performance management effectiveness. From a sample of 312 private and public sector organizations with 200 or more employees, the results indicate positive associations between practices – training and employee recognition – and performance management effectiveness. They further underscore the relevance of three contextual variables – culture, climate and the strategic integration of human resource management – as they are also related to more positive performance management outcomes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

THE EVOLUTION OF GENDER EARNINGS GAPS AND DISCRIMINATION IN URBAN CHINA, 1988–95

This paper analyzes the impact of market liberalization on gender earnings differentials and discrimination against women in urban China at the beginning of the 1990s. The observed stability in the overall gender earnings gap between 1988 and 1995 is shown to result from a complex set of evolutions across enterprises, earnings distributions, and time. Our results highlight the interplay of opposing forces, with economic reforms contributing to changes in managers’ behaviors in different dimensions. On the one hand, by bringing more competition, liberalization favored a reduction in discriminating behaviors in both urban collectives and foreign‐invested enterprises; on the other hand, by relaxing institutional rules, it led to a loosening of the government's egalitarian wage‐setting policies, leaving more space for discrimination in state‐owned enterprises.     

Size, strategic, and market orientation affects on innovation

Based on a random sample of 500 South Yorkshire non-hi-tech manufacturing small, medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) the quantitative findings support the hypothesis that size, strategic, and market orientation associate with innovation. The results show that prospectors are medium-sized companies and small companies, defenders. Prospectors are more innovative and market-oriented than defenders. The findings reveal that to succeed in an intense competitive environment, non-hi-tech manufacturing SMEs have to be proactive toward market opportunities, receptive to innovation and take the lead in new product innovation. However, their weaknesses include a lack of flexibility, a partial open culture and an organizational structure that impedes sustained innovation. This study addresses a gap in the literature, by linking innovation to the strategic orientation of the firm instead of examining firms' specific characteristics or the effects of external environment and structural factors. The research focuses on non-hi-tech manufacturing SMEs.     

Productivity in Chinese Provincial Agriculture

Technical change, technical efficiency and multifactor productivity indices are reported for a multiple-output, multiple-input production technology using Chinese provincial data for the 1979-95 period. Results show significant variation in productivity change from year to year and province to province. Using panel methods, we regress the three production indices on several factors important in explaining productivity changes. Decollectivisation in the early 1980s accounts for a significant expansion of the frontier, while rural industrialisation decreased agricultural productivity. Productivity is also sensitive to relative grain prices, to natural disasters such as flood and drought, and proximity of the provinces to coastal areas.     

SMPs’ Strategic Responses to Conflicting Normative,Material and Client Constraints

The objective of this study is to understand how small and medium audit practices (SMPs) deal with the obligation to conform to evolving norms, given their limited resources and the fact that they serve a client base of mainly small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Semi‐structured interviews held with 36 respondents working in 33 SMPs revealed that the main response of some SMPs’ to conflicting normative, material and client constraints was to eliminate the normative constraints by exiting the field to which the constraints pertained. When this was impossible, they resorted to less radical strategies. All strategies eventually led to adverse effects, including loss of expertise by some firms and practitioners, a condition that exacerbates the fragmentation within the accounting profession. Disenchanted by an increasingly demanding normative environment, the majority of respondents dealt with their disillusionment by mechanically applying the updates, a process that can lead to lower audit quality. Although the accounting profession was attempting to overcome a confidence crisis by issuing the updates, it ended up ignoring its less visible members and thus triggered upheavals with potentially irreversible consequences. In addition, banks may have been involved in narrowing the audit market for SMPs.     

Cost analysis of water utilities: A goodness-of-fit approach

The behavior of privately owned and publicly owned water utilities is examined by calculating the percentage difference between the observed cost and the optimum cost consistent with the Weak Axiom of Cost Minimization for each individual water utility. It allows for a comprehensive analysis of nearly optimizing behavior of economic units as opposed to the conventional analysis of exact optimizing behavior. The empirical results provide evidence that private water utilities are more efficient than public water utilities.     

Conflict resolution in organizational buying centers

This article reports the results of a field study of buying center conflict and conflict resolution processes—factors often seen as key ingredients in modeling the organizational buying process. The problem-solving and persuasion modes were found to be more often used than the potentially destructive power and politics modes. As expected, increasing levels of conflict were found to be associated with confrontation-oriented modes of resolution. Differences in resolution mode across stages of the purchase process were not significant.