Fragmented networks and transnational entrepreneurship: Building strategies to prosper in challenging surroundings

Transnational entrepreneurship studies highlight the importance of personal profiles, institutions, and networks in creating and succeeding in this type of entrepreneurship. Even so, less is known about migrants whose networks are fragmented and closed, facing challenging environments at home and abroad. This paper aims to study the attributes of transnational entrepreneurs with small and fragmented networks, from post-conflict environments, who can perform an important role in the socioeconomic development and internationalization level of their countries of origin due to the cross border mobilization of resources they encourage. For that reason, the specific case of Colombian transnational entrepreneurs who have been able to overcome those obstacles with their transnational business is analyzed with the intention of understanding how they manage those shortcomings when engaging in transnational entrepreneurship. In aiming to obtain a deeper understanding of their characteristics, similitudes, differences, and motivations, the research uses multiple case studies. The main findings suggest that transnational entrepreneurs form purposeful–strategic networks to compensate their lack of amalgamated social systems, and that they have special qualities that distinguish them from other Colombian migrants and transnational entrepreneurs. Moreover, Colombian transnational entrepreneurs focus their business in the international market, using strategically their knowledge of both the local and foreign environment, while their main interest to do so is not altruistic but business oriented. Governments from post-conflict countries should promote transnational entrepreneurship while facilitating network formation and institutional trust through diverse strategies. Finally, implications for further research are drawn.     

How helpful is a long memory on financial markets?

Summary. How should portfolio decisions depend on the past? In a simple model with boundedly rational agents we show that there is no universal answer to this question. Both, long and short memory, can be optimal in the appropriate environment. In most cases there is an equilibrium where both dispositions are equally successful. We characterize such equilibria for the case of two assets and two states. For dynamics based on average payoff, equilibria are global attractors whereas discrete choice dynamics in general do not converge to the equilibrium. Received: August 31, 1998; revised version: November 15, 1999     

Corporate responsibility and financial performance: the role of intangible resources

This paper examines the effects of a firm's intangible resources in mediating the relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance. We hypothesize that previous empirical findings of a positive relationship between social and financial performance may be spurious because the researchers failed to account for the mediating effects of intangible resources. Our results indicate that there is no direct relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance—merely an indirect relationship that relies on the mediating effect of a firm's intangible resources. We demonstrate our theoretical contention with the use of a database comprising 599 companies from 28 countries. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transforming economics values toward life: From heterodoxy to orthodoxy

In the face of numerous crises, including a global pandemic, it is time to challenge economic orthodoxy—neoliberalism—and develop a new economic orthodoxy built around values and principles that give life and prominence to socioecological systems. In this essay, I link six values of life-affirming economics to principles that give life to systems. The life-affirming economic values are stewardship of the whole; cocreating collective value; cosmopolitan localist-governance; regenerativity, reciprocity, and circularity; relationality and connectedness; and equitable markets and trade. These values can be linked to principles that give life to systems, which include wholeness, purpose, boundedness, connectedness and diversity, and human consciousness or awareness. Because humans can design markets and trade to be equitable, if they so desire, all of the principles that give life are linked to that value. Combined these principles provide a platform for a set of assumptions underpinning a potential new economic orthodoxy to replace the flawed set of assumptions in the neoliberal economics currently dominant in industrialized nations.     

Financial return or social responsibility? An investigation into the stakeholder focus of institutional investors

Since the financial crisis, regulators have put emphasis on encouraging institutional investors to take their governance responsibilities more seriously. In the UK, the Stewardship Code was introduced to enhance the engagement of institutional investors with shareholdings in UK listed companies. In the literature, institutional investors have been predominantly conceptualised as owners, although a number of authors have rejected this view, arguing that traders would be more appropriate. The UK Stewardship Code adds a third view: the institutional investor as steward. The literature generally considers the stewardship concept to be the ownership role combined with wider stakeholder responsibilities. By focussing primarily on this new stakeholder element, this study examines empirically the new stewardship concept by undertaking a content analysis of the published Stewardship Statements of 81 asset managers. The results find support for both the ownership and stewardship role but also highlight significant variations in practices that point toward different competitive strategies.     

The Chinese business system and its authoriliberal economic model

China's position as one of the most powerful nations in the world is undisputed. However, in an evolving landscape, China's utilization of a path-dependent business system may hinder the ability of the country's institutions to undergo necessary change, which will have important implications for international business literature. Through business system theory, empirical evidence, and a mixed methods approach, we discuss China's business system explaining how the system may impair sustainable growth and the transformation required by a less dependent industrial society. Our research suggests that the Chinese business system is still very arrested due to its recent past, and the Chinese Communist Party has only partial interest in improving some of the most important bases for the development of modern enterprises, even if fostering a somewhat liberal economic approach. Since similar political (authoritarian) and economic (liberal) approaches are found elsewhere, we theorize on what we called an authoriliberal economic approach.     

Nowcasting and monitoring SDG 8

Empirica - We propose a nowcasting approach for indicators assigned to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8, calling for decent work and economic growth. The nowcasts of SDG indicators are...     

Support for bigger government: The principle-implementation gap and COVID-19

We study the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on government and market attitudes using within-subject comparisons of survey responses elicited before and after the onset of the pandemic. We find that participants develop significantly less favorable opinions toward government and markets; and that participants increase support for bigger government significantly and for redistribution, in general, marginally significantly. There is no evidence this leads to an increase in support for specific redistributive policies, nor for government to play a larger role in specific functions. Our results echo the stubbornness of American preferences for redistribution and suggest the presence of a principle-implementation gap.