Deadlock in corporate governance: Finding a common strategy for private telephone companies, 1978–1998

This paper looks at how a group of small, incumbent private telephone companies complied with the international convergence of market structures. The existing research has mainly focused on large national incumbents, assuming a transition to multinational enterprise. This development process is often associated with privatisation policies and various institutional factors. The article tests these assumptions using a case study of the network of Finnish local telephone companies. It looks at the development of an interfirm network, its perspectives on the different phases of the deregulation process, and how the network tried to regenerate itself but failed to form a unified corporate structure capable of mounting a common business strategy. The reason for this failure resembles the idea of governance inseparability: private telecom companies were committed to the objectives and form of a tried and trusted cooperation model, which no longer met the requirements of the competitive and increasingly liberalised business environment of the 1990s. This case demonstrates that the significance of both corporate governance and organisational development are, above all, related to the firm’s ability to regenerate itself.     

How to Establish a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise in China?

Wholly foreign owned enter prises are permitted to regis ter in cases where at least half of their annual output is exported or if the nature of their operations relies heavily on advanced technology and the application of this high technology is beneficial to China. Approval to establish a wholly foreign owned enterprise is granted much more sparingly when compared to joint ventures.     

How can leaders of multinational organizations be ethical by contributing to corporate social responsibility initiatives? Guidelines and pitfalls for leaders trying to do good

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a laudable goal for multinational enterprises (MNEs) because of the significant positive impact they can bring to the society and environment around the world. However, there are significant challenges to the practice of CSR in MNEs. This article discusses two major barriers to CSR that are especially significant for MNEs: leaders’ attitudes and cultural variance. We then apply insights from Rest’s ethical decision-making and cross-cultural research to offer guidance to leaders of MNEs to implement CSR in their organizations. We present a multistep process by which leaders first reflect on and clarify what goals they want to accomplish in the realm of CSR and then how to build consensus for those goals and modify them to incorporate the values and beliefs of local constituents.     

How different are corporate social responsibility motives in a developing country? Insights from a study of Indian agribusiness firms

Against the backdrop of increasing foreign direct investment flows in the developing economies in Asia, the investigation of topical aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the region increases in importance. We examine the CSR motives of four large indigenous agribusiness firms in India with a view of assessing the validity of the claim that CSR in this country, compared to developed countries, is influenced substantially more by moral, cultural, and religious considerations and less by self‐interest and profit seeking. Unlike numerous other investigations of CSR that rely on questionnaires and company reports, our data are drawn from in‐depth interviews and theme analysis revealing some intricate motives behind CSR behavior and business conditions that inspire them. Our findings challenge some previously reported results and indicate that the degree to which such a behavior is affected by the state of economic development and cultural differences may be smaller than is often argued.     

Privacy Notice for Dummies? Towards European Guidelines on How to Give “Clear and Comprehensive Information” on the Cookies’ Use in Order to Protect the Internet Users’ Right to Online Privacy

The reviewed ePrivacy Directive aims at ensuring internet users’ online privacy by requiring users to give informed consent to the gathering, storing, and processing of their data by internet service providers, e.g., through the cookies’ use. However, it is hardly possible to talk about an “informed” consent if internet users are not aware of cookies or do not understand when and how they work. Currently, European rules require internet service providers to provide internet users with a “clear and comprehensive” information on the cookies’ use without further specifying what kind of disclosure would be seen as compliant therewith. This paper assesses the need for harmonized European guidelines on transparent and readable disclosure on the cookies’ use and suggests the way forward based on comparative legal research and findings from consumer behaviour research.     

Collectivism and Corruption in Commercial Loan Production: How to Break the Curse?

Recent research suggests that collectivism breeds corruption in bank lending. This finding, together with the stickiness of culture, poses a direct challenge to economic growth in collectivist societies. In this paper, we address this grim outlook by examining the types of firms that are susceptible to the detrimental effect of collectivism on lending integrity and the formal institutions that can help alleviate such effect. We find that the adverse effect of collectivism on bank corruption is more severe in small and medium-sized firms, privately owned firms, and non-exporting firms, while it is considerably weaker in countries with more effective private monitoring, a higher (lower) fraction of foreign-owned (government-owned) banks, a more competitive banking sector, better information sharing, and stronger legal and political institutions. Our findings are robust to using alternative measures of collectivism and alternative dependent variables. These results highlight how firm-level characteristics and formal institutions interact with collectivism in affecting firms’ access to bank credit.     

Building a competitive advantage based on transparency: When and why does transparency matter for corporate social responsibility?

Customers today are increasingly demanding transparency from firms. This article discusses the concept of performance transparency and explores when and why transparency plays a key role for a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) effectiveness. In doing so, it addresses consumer skepticism as the logic of the transparency-CSR interaction and presents empirical evidence of the effect. It also discusses key principles for managing performance transparency effectively. Companies should monitor and track performance transparency regularly, initiate consistent transparency practices along with CSR activities, pay attention to the types of information made available, and adapt the transparency practices to the involvement level.     

How do interorganizational and interpersonal networks affect a firm's strategic adaptive capability in a transition economy?

This paper examines the effects of a firm's interorganizational network characteristics and a CEO's interpersonal network ties on a firm's strategic adaptive capability in a transition economy. Using a unique survey dataset of 250 Chinese firms, the paper focuses on the compositional diversity of a firm's interorganizational network and the structural holes in a CEO's interpersonal network. The results show that an interorganizational network that is diverse in composition and an interpersonal network that is rich in structural holes have significantly positive effects on a firm's strategic adaptive capability in China's transition economy. However, a negative interaction effect occurs between interorganizational network diversity and interpersonal network structural holes. The results suggest that managers simultaneously consider both the individual and joint effects of interorganizational and interpersonal network characteristics when developing firm strategies.     

Is less more or a bore? Package design simplicity and brand perception: an application to Champagne

Packaging design as a medium for brand communication has a strong impact on the point-of-purchase decision. Therefore, marketers need a keen understanding of how packaging design influences brand perception. Although many studies have investigated the impact of design elements like color or typeface, few have examined the impact of holistic variables like the degree of elaborateness. This study proposes to fill this gap by investigating the influence of the degree of simplicity/complexity in package design on brand perception. The topic is first investigated through a multidisciplinary approach mobilizing the fields of semiotics, art history and marketing. Then, we conduct an experiment in which three bottles of Champagne operationalizing three levels of simplicity/complexity are tested with a sample of 305 consumers. The results indicate that the simplicity/complexity of a package design has a significant impact on brand perception, with simplicity being associated with modernity, reliability, authenticity, success and sobriety and complexity with seniority, joy, imagination, charm, femininity and sophistication.     

How much of a socialist legacy? The re-emergence of entrepreneurship in the East German transformation to a market economy

We investigate how institutional change—the transition from a socialist system to a western type market economy—relates to the re-emergence of entrepreneurship in East Germany. This region is particularly well suited for such a study because of the rapid change of the institutional framework and the possibility to use West Germany as a benchmark. It took about 15 years until self-employment levels in East Germany reached those of West Germany. Despite this catch up, we find a number of peculiarities in East German self-employment that appear to be a continuing legacy of the socialist period. There is also a considerable correspondence of the regional levels of self-employment before, during and after the socialist period, suggesting the existence of a long-lasting regional entrepreneurship culture that can be regarded as an informal institution. This is in line with the hypothesis that informal institutions change much more slowly than formal institutions.     

Formal and informal management training programs for women in Canada: Who seems to be doing a good job?

The increasing complexity of Canadian businesses in a changing marketplace indicates that women as well as men managers will have to be well trained to be able to position themselves in this new environment with a certain degree of success and personal happiness. As management educators, we have to accept an important share in this responsibility. This paper examines some of the factors that should be considered by those who want to develop management training programs for the future women managers or entrepreneurs.Dina Lavoie is associate professor of management and organization development at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales at Montreal since 1977. Her main area of interest is entrepreneurship. She has authored the first studies on women entrepreneurs in Canada and has developed some of the first management training programs for women managers in Quebec, New Brunswick and several Asean Countries where she has resided and worked for several years. She is secretary-treasurer general of the new National Entrepreneurship Development Institute of Canada (NEDI) and is advisor to the federal and several provincial governments on issues related to women entrepreneurs and women managers. She is member of the board of trustees of several organisations including NEDI and the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok). We find her listed in Who's Who of Canadian Women, The World Who's Who of Women, the International Directory of Distinguished Leadership etc.     

Incentives for investments in next generation access and customer choice: a dichotomy?

According to Noam,1 “The central question for telecom — and for many other media — is how to generate the funds and invest in upgraded infrastructure, while being subject to competition”. Investment in next generation access network is needed to deliver broadband services with signifi cantly higher bandwidth than today. This will allow the development of more innovative and better services. Investments under competitive conditions require a positive business case, which might not be viable for long-lived assets like fi xed access networks. This might lead to the situation where we can only have competition or a next generation access network but not both. This paper looks at the aspects of investments in next generation access (NGA) networks and competition and specifi cally focuses on potential effects of the EU commission draft recommendation on NGA. The authors would like to thank Igor Brusic and Matthias Ehrler for valuable comments to the draft version of this paper. Further, the authors would like to thank Brigitte Preissl for a critical review of the paper.     

Relative power of online buyers in regard to a store: How it encourages them to disclose their personal data?

The current study contributes to the knowledge as to how the relative power of buyers impacts their willingness to disclose personal data in online buying. The theoretical framework is based on social exchange theory, which makes it possible to consider the importance of trust in stores and perceptions about external privacy regulations. Data were collected via a representative survey (985 respondents) and analysed with the help of two-step structural equation modelling. The key findings show the presence of the indirect effect of relative power on willingness to disclose personal data (mediated by store trust), while the direct impact was found to be insignificant. It was found that store trust is built by relative power of buyers, along with their perceptions about external privacy regulations. This suggests that relative power grows when perceptions about the effectiveness of privacy regulations improve. These findings help to develop theoretical and managerial implications.     

How Developed-Country Firms Make Standardization/Transfer and Adaptations Decisions in Relation to their Developing-Host-Country Operations?

Factors influencing firms’ standardization and adaptations decisions tend to be treated as static isolated entities in the extant literature. Further, the focus is predominantly on Western MNCs and product development or marketing functions with manufacturing firms and the emerging/developing country perspective underrepresented. We explore factors, as well as their interrelations that determine standardization and adaptations decisions when a developed country manufacturing firm establishes operations in a developing country. Purposefully, Italian manufacturing firms with operations in Vietnam are examined. We identify functions, processes, and practices that are standardized/transferred and those that are adapted. A theoretical model is developed based on the findings.     

How close do we feel to virtual product to make a purchase decision? Impact of perceived proximity to virtual product and temporal purchase intention

This study, utilizing construal level theory, aims to understand the underlying effect of perceived proximity to a virtual product on perceived purchase intention in the near future through perceived measurement feedback and perceived generality. This research examines a lab experiment to test six hypotheses. Results indicate that perceived proximity to virtual products enhances perceived measurement feedback and, thereby, perceived generality. In addition, perceived generality fully mediates the effect of perceived measurement feedback on perceived purchase intention in the near future when consumers interact with non-augmented reality applications. In contrast, perceived measurement feedback directly influences perceived purchase intention in the near future in AR applications. Furthermore, the absence of product in consumers’ consideration set dilutes the effect of perceived generality on perceived purchase intention in the near future when consumers interact with non-augmented reality application. This study suggests several managerial implications for AR developers and online retail managers.     

How Can a Ratings-based Method for Assessing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Provide an Incentive to Firms Excluded from Socially Responsible Investment Indices to Invest in CSR?

Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) indices play a major role in the stock markets. A connection between doing good and doing well in business is implied. Leading indices, such as the Domini Social Index and others, exemplify the movement toward investing in socially responsible corporations. However, the question remains: Does the ratings-based methodology for assessing corporate social responsibility (CSR) provide an incentive to firms excluded from SRI indices to invest in CSR? Not in its current format. The ratings-based methodology employed by SRI indices in their selection processes excludes many corporations by creating limited-membership lists. This received ratings-based structure is yet to offer an incentive for most of the excluded corporations to invest in improving their levels of CSR. We, therefore, ask under what circumstances a ratings-based method for assessing CSR could provide an incentive to firms excluded from SRI indices to invest in CSR. In this article, we attempt to offer a theoretical reply to this question. We show that when all firms are publicly ranked according to SRI index parameters, such indices can indeed create a market incentive for increased investment by firms in improving their performance in the area of social responsibility. We further show that this incentive tapers off as the amount of investment required exceeds a certain point or if the amount of payback on that investment fails to reach a certain threshold.     

Should We Hire David Beckham to Endorse our Brand? Contextual Interference and Consumer Memory for Brands in a Celebrity's Endorsement Portfolio

Imagine that you are browsing through a magazine, and you see one of your favorite celebrities in an advertisement. Then, a bit further into the magazine you see that same celebrity in an ad for a different product. A few hours later, you think of the celebrity again and try to remember the products s/he was endorsing, but what will you actually recall? This paper examines consumer memory for celebrity advertising under conditions where a single celebrity advertises for more than one brand. Using contextual interference as the theoretical lens, the current research posits and demonstrates how brands in a celebrity's “endorsement portfolio” compete with one another when consumers use the celebrity as retrieval cue for information that was contained in the ads. The findings of the laboratory experiment reveal that brands sharing either a high or low match with the celebrity win the battle during retrieval and inhibit consumers’ ability to accurately recall ad information for brands sharing a more moderate match with the celebrity. The theoretical practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Determinants for Effects of Celebrity Negative Information: When to Terminate a Relationship with a Celebrity Endorser in Trouble?

This study examines three factors that influence consumers’ brand evaluation and purchase intention under negative celebrity information. The study is designed to investigate the effects of consumers’ perceived associative strength between celebrity endorser and brand, the role of congruence between a celebrity endorser's negative information and his/her endorsed brand, and the effects of consumers’ level of brand commitment. The study's findings suggest that congruence or “fit” between a celebrity endorser's negative information and an endorsed brand moderates a consumers’ evaluation of brand and purchase intentions. The study finds that a strong associative link between the brand and the celebrity endorser leads to lower brand evaluation as well as lower purchase intention. It also finds that consumers with a higher level of brand commitment are less likely to react negatively to a celebrity's bad publicity than are consumers with a lower level of brand commitment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.