Crisis leadership in economic recession: A three-barrier approach to offset external constraints

An economic recession is a type of crisis originated from external factors that may imperil an organization’s survival depending on the intensity and duration of the crisis. In peripheral European countries, such as Portugal, the recent financial crisis had devastating effects on various business activities. As a result, Portugal represents an important case study in examining how some corporate leaders have handled the economic recession successfully. I interviewed 20 corporate managers to capture their perceptions of the leadership traits and behaviors exhibited by their CEOs in guiding their companies through the recession. In economic recessions, negative constraints do not affect the most effective leaders, who instead erect barriers against the high-pressure conditions to create a supportive, positive work environment. In order to achieve maximum effectiveness, leaders must act as blocking agents against the negative social impacts of the economic crisis, including the fragility of trust in organizational life (i.e., a barrier against distrust), uncertainty of the future (i.e., a barrier against uncertainty), and toxic emotions (i.e., a barrier against toxic emotions).     

Dependent Development: the Subcontracting Networks In the Tiger Economies

The ‘dependency development’ approach attributes the phenomenal economic growth of Hong Kong and Taiwan to their structural linkage with the advanced industrialised countries through trade. Foreign buyers and sourcing agents of the multinationals subcontract to the Hong Kong and Taiwanese manufacturers for low-cost and flexible production of labour-intensive consumer products. Such a dependency relationship is, however, successfully managed by the manufacturers in the two economies of the operation of a very similar subcontracting system in major industries. This paper examines the nature of the subcontracting system, the reasons for subcontracting, the operating dynamics, the sustaining mechanisms and the inherent structural problems of the subcontracting network. With the industrial restructuring process taking place in Hong Kong and Taiwan, there are changes to the subcontracting system which have significant implications for the welfare of the workers.     

Endogenous fluctuations in unionized economies with productive externalities

Summary. We discuss the effects of unions on steady-state multiplicity and welfare, and on the existence of endogenous fluctuations. We consider an OG economy with productive capital externalities and we focus on underemployment equilibria. We find that for wide regions in the parameter space, including an arbitrarily small degree of externalities and a Cobb-Douglas technology, unions increase steady state employment and welfare, and local indeterminacy (sunspots) emerges. Moreover with a CES technology multiplicity of steady states is only possible in the presence of unions. Our results also show that the role of unions in shaping local dynamics and bifurcations depends on technology (externalities and factors substitutability).Received: 16 January 2002, Revised: 18 March 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: E32, J51, D60, D62. Correspondence to: Leonor ModestoThis paper is a much revised version of our former working paper Unions, Increasing Returns and Endogenous Fluctuations. Financial support from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia under the POCTI, is gratefuly acknowledged.     

Analysis of Domestic Factors Affecting Outward Foreign Direct Investment in Brazil

Developing markets have increasingly gained prominence in the world economy, but the domestic factors behind this success are not well established. This uncertainty may interfere with multinational expansion plans. In this article, we examine several macroeconomic and institutional factors affecting Brazilian outward foreign direct investment in 17 destination countries. We applied a pooled ordinary least squares regression over the 2001–2014 period. The findings suggest that macroeconomic factors are still statistically significant to explain investment abroad, but several institutional factors such as corruption have emerged, having a negative effect and political violence having a positive effect on Brazilian outward foreign direct investment.     

Modelling innovation support systems for regional development – analysis of cluster structures in innovation in Portugal

The present article offers a concise theoretical conceptualization and operational analysis of the contribution of innovation to regional development. The latter concepts are closely related to geographical proximity, knowledge diffusion and filters and clustering. Institutional innovation profiles and regional patterns of innovation are two mutually linked, novel conceptual elements in this article. Next to a theoretical framing, the article employs the regional innovation systems concept as a vehicle to analyse institutional innovation profiles. Our case study addresses three Portuguese regions and their institutions, included in a web-based inventory of innovation agencies which offered the foundation for an extensive database. This data-set was analysed by means of a recently developed principal coordinates analysis followed by a Logistic Biplot approach (leading to a Voronoi mapping) to design a systemic typology of innovation structures where each institution is individually represented. There appears to be a significant difference in the regional innovation patterns resulting from the diverse institutional innovation profiles concerned. These profiles appear to be region specific. Our conclusion highlights the main advantages in the use of the method used for policy-makers and business companies.     

Enablers for end‐user entrepreneurship: An investigation on Italian food bloggers

This article examines unconventional entrepreneurship (accidental or end‐user entrepreneurs) to determine whether the decision‐making phase of the entrepreneurial process is collective. The analysis identified a virtuous circle that links knowledge, innovation, judgment, and decision making to collective interactions built on passion, experience, and sharing. To study food bloggers as unconventional user entrepreneurs, data were collected and analyzed using netnographic analysis. A supplementary online survey of food bloggers and their followers was also performed. Three groups of food bloggers are identified: amusing, functional, and fervent. Only fervent food bloggers, thanks to the virtuous circle built on passion, experience, and sharing as enablers, can be considered accidental or end‐user entrepreneurs.     

Initiating U.S. Free Trade Agreements: How Do Potential Partners Stack Up?

This paper addresses the possible endogeneity of income in the gravity model by providing instrumental variables for income. Using these instruments (physical capital, human capital, and labor accumulation rates) in regression equations of the gravity model, it is shown that the effect of income on bilateral trade is highly significant and, in some cases, is not appreciably different from ordinary least squares estimates. The impact on trade of other gravity variables, including dummy variables for membership in various trading blocs, is also examined.     

Value at Risk and Economic Growth

The improvement of data statistics as well as the econometrician methods have facilitated the introduction the new variables and factors I the economic growth analysis. In this sense, real variables have mainly been considered in the economic growth studies, but not financial or risk management aspects. In this sense, it is interesting to analyze the relationship between economic growth and value at risk and the feed-back process. The goal of the paper is to analyze the relationship between economic growth and risk management and the feed-back process. We will consider economic variables, including economic growth, rule of law, human capital, fiscal policy and monetary policy, among others, in our analysis. We will analyze the theoretical relationships between these variables and risk and the effects of risk on economic growth. We will also develop an empirical analysis considering the case of 15 European Union countries.

Motivations and Barriers to Corporate Environmental Management

This paper integrates two conceptual frameworks, utility maximization and institutional theory, to analyze voluntary corporate environmental management. The utility maximization or economic approach centers on motivations to decrease cost, increase revenue and improve manager utility. Institutional theory emphasizes how external pressures from market and non‐market constituents shape the firm's environmental efforts. We view the two frameworks as complementary and postulate a model that includes both types of influences. Survey data from six major industries consisting of a diverse set of facilities are used to estimate the effects of economic and institutional factors on a facility's use of environmental practices and pollution‐prevention activities. Our results support the hypothesized model, and show that cost barriers, management attitudes toward environmental stewardship, company ownership and external institutional forces, including competitiveness, investor and regulatory pressures, all affect a facility's environmental practices and pollution prevention activities. Findings suggest that a multifaceted policy strategy is needed to advance corporate environmental management across diverse firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment