International experience,growth aspirations,and the internationalisation of new ventures

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of the breadth and depth of international experience on subsequent new venture internationalisation and to what extent growth aspirations moderate these relationships. Drawing upon previous literature on international new ventures, human capital and growth aspirations, we tested our hypotheses using longitudinal data from the Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence (CAUSEE). Our results support the hypothesis that breadth of international experience has a positive impact on internationalisation. Depth of international experience on its own does not predict subsequent internationalisation activities. However, results support our hypothesis that the interplay of a high growth aspiration and depth of international experience has a positive effect on internationalisation activities. Our study contributes to the research stream on new venture internationalisation by distinguishing between breadth and depth of international experience, suggesting that these dimensions are differentially linked to internationalisation. Further, we test for interaction effects between international experience and growth aspirations. We thereby add to the knowledge by illustrating that some types of human capital are only utilised when accompanied by growth aspirations.     

Commodity taxes and welfare under endogenous market conduct

We consider consumption taxes in a model of endogenous Cournot versus Bertrand competition. It is argued that when the choice of unit versus ad valorem taxes affects longer-term decisions beyond the customary price or quantity decisions, the mix of the two taxes co-determines market conduct. This gives ad valorem taxes an anti-competitive effect that harms ad valorem taxes’ efficiency in comparison with unit taxes. We show that a mix of the taxes—or a unit tax alone if we compare one or the other of the taxes—is sometimes welfare superior on account of consumer-price and tax revenue effects. A practical implication of our findings is that pass-through rates are only sometimes useful guides for policy. In fact, we show when the proper response to demand for higher revenue is a higher unit tax rate and a lower ad valorem tax rate.     

A Characteristics Approach to Optimal Taxation: Line Drawing and Tax‐Driven Product Innovation

Real‐world tax legislation assigns goods to different categories of tax rates on the basis of observable characteristics, allowing the tax system to handle a constantly evolving set of available goods. We recast the theory of optimal taxation in the language of characteristics, and we show how to optimally draw lines that delineate tax‐rate regimes. Such lines are associated with notches in tax liability as a function of characteristics, creating incentives to introduce goods with new combinations of characteristics in order to reduce tax liability. With a restricted set of tax instruments, such notches are in general part of the second‐best optimal tax system.     

Applying Tax Policy Models in Country Economic Work: Bangladesh, China, and India

Three examples from the World Bank's country economic work showhow models can complement general principles in guiding thedesign of a tax reform package. The Bangladesh model highlightsthe sensitivity of judgments about desirable tax bases to assumptionsabout the labor market and substitutability in production. TheChina model quantifies the losses from recommending a singlerate value added tax when prices are controlled and public capitalis freely provided to state enterprises. The India model showswhat fiscal adjustment is consistent with tariff reductionsundertaken to promote an outward-oriented development strategy.Most of the costs of constructing tax policy models are relatedto the need to establish a consistent data set and to calibratethe model in a way that allows its behavior to be consistentwith what good economic analysis would lead one to expect.     

Learning experiences and managerial role performance: Perceptions of New Zealand managers and their subordinates

The present study was based upon Luthans' (1988) model of effective management, which has implications for managerial training and development, but has not been examined cross-nationally. A sample of New Zealand managers was surveyed to explore job-related and off-the-job experiences which they perceived to have affected their skills development. In addition, questionnaires were distributed to subordinates of these managers to assess their perceptions of managerial performance levels. Managers attributed most of their development to on-the-job experiences, which were often haphazard and unplanned, with formal education and training accounting for considerably less skills acquisition. Few links were found, however, between learning experiences and perceptions of managerial performance. Implications of the findings for managerial development and the design of constructive learning environments within organisations are discussed.The authors are from the University of Waikato, New Zealand and the Copenhagen School of Economics and Social Science, Denmark, respectively. Financial assistance for this project from the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand is gratefully acknowledged. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Personnel and Human Resources Management Conference, Hong Kong, 1989. The authors wish to thank Paul Taylor and Elizabeth Brady for their helpful comments. Correspondence should be addressed to Michael P O'Driscoll, Department of Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.     

Beyond the WTO? An Anatomy of EU and US Preferential Trade Agreements

It is often alleged that PTAs involving the EC and the US include a significant number of obligations in areas not currently covered by the WTO Agreement, such as investment protection, competition policy, labour standards and environmental protection. The primary purpose of this study is to highlight the extent to which these claims are true. The study divides the contents of all PTAs involving the EC and the US currently notified to the WTO, into 14 ‘WTO+’ and 38 ‘WTO‐X’ areas, where WTO+ provisions come under the current mandate of the WTO, and WTO‐X provisions deal with issues lying outside the current WTO mandate. As a second step, the legal enforceability of each obligation is evaluated, and judged on the extent to which the text specifies clear obligations. Among the findings are: (i) EC agreements contain almost four times as many instances of WTO‐X provisions as do US agreements; (ii) but EC agreements evidence a very significant amount of ‘legal inflation’ (i.e. non‐legally enforceable provisions) in the WTO‐X category, and US agreements actually contain more enforceable WTO‐X provisions than do the EC agreements; (iii) US agreements tend to emphasise regulatory areas more compared to EC agreements.     

Boards of directors in small and medium-sized industrial firms: examining the effects of the board's working style on board task performance

Increased attention towards the role of the board makes demands on reforms in the boardroom. In many countries, even small and medium-sized firms are experiencing the challenges of creating well functioning boards. In this paper the authors examine the importance of structures and processes in the boardroom of 302 small and medium-sized industrial firms in Sweden. The contribution of the paper is not only that it tries to explore the relationship between processes in the board and board performance, but also that it pays attention to the working structures that exist to maximize the board's task performance. In this study board task performance is measured as the performance of various control and service roles. There are two main findings. (1) The board members' involvement, and (2) the board's formal structures are important for the board's ability to perform its tasks effectively. The findings empirically support the arguments about the importance of a good and clearly defined working style in the board.     

Flexible employment practices in Europe: country versus culture

Abstract This paper examines extent to which variances in flexible employment practices across fourteen European countries may be attributed to cultural variances. Data were gathered through a survey of human resource practices in 4,876 companies. The results indicate that national differences between flexible employment practices were explained by cultural differences. Specifically, we find use of part-time work is related to power distance and individualism; contract work is related to uncertainty avoidance and individualism; shift work is related to uncertainty avoidance, power distance and individualism; and telework is related to femininity.     

Interorganizational cost management in the exchange process

This paper explores interorganizational cost management (IOCM) practices in the exchange process. IOCM can be defined as buyers’ and suppliers’ coordinated efforts to reduce costs. Past research has primarily argued that such practices depend on component characteristics, relationship characteristics, and characteristics of the transaction. Based on a study of three buyer–supplier relationships, this article also finds variations in IOCM practices between six main activities in the exchange process. In this process, the supplier's management accounting is found to be more important than recognized by prior research. The deepest collaboration around IOCM issues and the greatest joint use of suppliers’ management accounting in the three cases typically occurs in earlier activities in the exchange process, including supplier selection, joint product design and joint manufacturing process development. In later activities in the process, during full-speed production as well as in product and manufacturing process redesign, suppliers’ managerial accounting plays a lesser role in our study.