Family CEO and board service: Turning the tide for export scope in family SMEs

Adopting the socioemotional wealth perspective, we argue that the presence of a family CEO in family SMEs negatively affects export scope, but that such negative effect is mitigated by board service. We develop and test a model that considers the synergistic combination of family management and another important aspect of family governance in the context of family firm internationalization: the service behavior of the board of directors. The empirical evidence from a sample of 248 Belgian family SMEs shows that governance is crucial to overcoming the problems of family management: family CEOs may negatively influence export scope, but board service is able to turn the tide so that the family CEO effect becomes positive. With such novel findings, we contribute to international business and family business studies     

Innovation capacity,international experience and export performance of SMEs in Brazil

Innovation capacity and international experience are factors often related to the internationalisation process of firms, with export activities as the first stage of the process. However, firms from emerging countries seem to show advantages and follow patterns of international expansion that may differ from firms based in developed countries, where the internationalisation models were created. Specifically, exporting firms from emerging countries tend to have limited resources, especially small firms (e.g., for investing in R&D). Despite these facts, the literature on export performance seems biased towards recommending firms to enhance, above all, their innovation capacity in order to achieve better export performance, while little attention is paid to international experience as a factor that is as important as innovation. In this context, the objective of this study is to investigate the impact of innovation capacity and international experience on the export performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) located in an emerging country and to identify which factor is more significant. The Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capabilities approach were used as theoretical frameworks. A research model was developed and tested on a significant sample of Brazilian industrial SMEs. The data were analysed through partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results indicate that international experience has a greater impact on export performance than innovation capacity, showing that there is possibility of overemphasising the role of innovation in the export performance of SMEs, at least, in the Brazilian context.     

Organizational innovation,technological innovation,and export performance: The effects of innovation radicalness and extensiveness

This study focuses on the relevance of different types of innovation for firms’ export performance. Despite ample research on the innovation–performance relationship, previous studies have mainly focused on technological innovations, leaving the effects of organizational innovations relatively unexplored. Hypotheses on the relationship between organizational and technological innovations and firm export performance are tested by structural equation modelling using data from 218 Swedish export ventures. The results indicate that organizational innovation enhances export performance both directly and indirectly by sustaining technological innovation. Moreover, by fine-graining our analysis of the mediating role of technological innovation, according to its radicalness and extensiveness, for organizational innovation, we show how the latter enhances both the radicalness and extensiveness of technological innovation although, notably, only extensiveness is actually beneficial for export performance. This study helps alleviate the scarcity of research examining the links among different types of innovation in relation to export performance and contributes to international business and marketing literature by generating new evidence regarding the mechanisms through which organizational and technological innovations may improve export performance.     

“一带一路”倡议背景下加强中印两国农业合作的构想

"一带一路"倡议的开展,为中国与沿线国家农业合作带来了新的机遇与挑战。中国和印度同为"一带一路"倡议沿线国家,近年来,双方宏观发展环境等不断改善,进入农业合作的黄金发展期。采用SWOT分析方法,剖析"一带一路"背景下,中国和印度双边农业合作的优势、劣势、机遇与挑战,指出未来农业合作应该集中在农产品贸易、农业技术合作、农业投资及共同扶贫等四方面。未来应该从建立健全宏观规划、政策支持体系、双边合作机制、项目监测与评价系统、农业合作信息平台等入手,推动中印双边农业合作深入开展。     

Unpacking the impact of innovation ambidexterity on export performance: Microfoundations and infrastructure investment

When designing and managing routines for their innovation activities firms often face a challenge. Either they can concentrate their efforts on one approach i.e. exploring new ideas or exploiting its existing capabilities, or they can try to do both, i.e. becoming ambidextrous. In this paper, we aim to explore first the effect of exploration, exploitation and ambidexterity on export performance and second the moderating role of investment in infrastructure. Using firm-level data from the UK’s innovation survey (CIS) we find that both exploration and exploitation improve export performance. We also find that investment in infrastructure weakens this relationship. Counterintuitively, we find that ambidexterity has a negative effect on export performance, and that it is negatively moderated by investment in infrastructure. We use microfoundations arguments (the routines firms employ and the actions taken by individuals and groups within them to shape their exporting capabilities) to explain how efforts to achieve ambidexterity can improve export performance.     

The acculturative stress of host country managers working at MNC subsidiaries: Determinants and effects

This paper introduces the concept of acculturative stress to indicate a distinct psychological difficulty faced by host country managers working at multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries. Drawing on the social identity and self-verification theories, we suggest that host country managers are exposed to acculturative stress due to the challenges they face in verifying their national cultural identity. We identify the perceived cultural incongruence and the lower relative standing of host country managers as proximal determinants of acculturative stress and examine its negative impact on their work engagement. The analysis results of a sample of 643 Korean managers working at 60 MNC subsidiaries in Korea support our hypotheses on the determinants and effects of acculturative stress.     

Concurrent sourcing strategy of multinational firms in China: Drivers and performance implications

Concurrent sourcing is critical to multinational firms’ operations in emerging economies, such as China. Despite its prominence, research is lacking on the underlying conditions and performance implications of this strategy. We investigate the driving factors of multinational firms’ concurrent sourcing strategy and test whether concurrent sourcing outperforms other types of sourcing strategies. Our empirical findings suggest that multinational firms tend to choose concurrent sourcing under high levels of institutional regulations. Furthermore, the results show that concurrent sourcing generates better performance at high levels of uncertainties and the performance deficiency of concurrent sourcing can be mitigated when institutional regulations are high.     

Breakthrough innovation in international business: The impact of tech-innovation and market-innovation on performance

The literature suggests that the greater the perceived novelty of a firm’s products and markets, the greater the potential value to the user (Lepak et al., 2007). In this study we analyze the extent to which breakthrough innovation (both tech-innovation and market-innovation) has a positive impact on both economic and strategic export performance. Tech-innovation incorporates technological developments to improve customer benefits versus existing alternatives in the market. Our findings reveal that tech-innovation has a positive impact on the economic and strategic export performance of firms. This relationship becomes stronger when more human resources are available and the exporter becomes more oriented toward the importer. In less competitive markets, the positive relationship between tech-innovation and both types of export performance becomes even stronger.Market-innovation occurs when the product concept or benefits depart from serving existing or conventional markets. Market-innovation was found to be negatively associated with strategic export performance, as it requires major learning effort by importers. This suggests that to create value, exporters need to develop solutions jointly with importers. Overall, these findings suggest that value creation in terms of both tech-innovation and market-innovation needs to involve importers to achieve expectations, thereby leading to improvement in a firm’s short-term and long-term export performance.     

The impact structure of social capital on corporate performance: Empirical evidence from listed companies in China

Vertical relationships with the government, particular relational capital and organizational social network capital, constitute corporate social capital (CSC). Using the empirical data of 97 listed companies in China, this paper examines the impact of CSC on corporate performance, finds that CSC has a positive impact on sales revenue but an insignificant impact on the improvement of ROA. More specifically, when a firm enlarges its sales revenue, the function of organizational network capital is stronger than that of a particular relational capital and that of governmental connections. The paper also finds that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have more advantages in using governmental connections, therefore leading to better social status than non-SOEs do, who have fewer advantages in using any particular relational capital. The article suggests that managers should appraise carefully the effectiveness of CSC, and combine it with other resources; firms should distinguish the structure of the impact of CSC on performance improvement in a dynamic way. With respect to the implication of this paper, it could help in analyzing firm behaviors in the transitional China. Translated from paper in International Symposium on Entrepreneur Research and Education, 2006, April (in Chinese)     

The Yin and Yang of entrepreneurship: Gender differences in the importance of communal and agentic characteristics for entrepreneurs' subjective well-being and performance

This research examines gender differences in the relationships of entrepreneurs' agentic and communal personality characteristics with measures of subjective well-being and new venture performance. Results from a stratified national (USA) random sample of founding CEOs (N = 303) demonstrate the advantages of an agentic characteristic (creativity) for women and a communal characteristic (teamwork) for men, with regard to the respective abilities of such persons to achieve high levels of subjective well-being and new venture performance. These relative advantages for women and men were mediated by perceptions of person-work fit.     

中国东北和俄罗斯远东两地产能合作的现状、问题及对策--基于“一带一路”倡议

在"一带一路"倡议下,中国东北地区和俄罗斯远东地区在基础设施、能源、制造业以及农业等领域开展了广泛的合作。然而,中俄双方对产能合作准备不足且缺乏有效的互信机制,加上俄罗斯远东地区基础设施落后、制度环境较差,使得双方产能合作成效有限。双方必须尽快构建合作共赢机制,建立产能合作共同体,加速推进双方产业结构升级,为中国东北地区和俄罗斯远东地区产能深度合作夯实基础。     

Integrating nonmarket and market resources,strategy and performance in Chinese enterprises: a review of the field and a resource-based empirical study

The resource-based view (RBV) regards strategy as deploying resources to obtain a competitive advantage. This article adopts such a RBV, by a simultaneous consideration of nonmarket and market factors, and then an empirical analysis of the relationships between such nonmarket and market resources, strategies and performance, focusing specifically on Chinese enterprises. The results test hypotheses related to the integrated strategy and RBV of the firm on linkages of nonmarket and market components. Combining those two views, this study reveals that there is a high and positive correlation between nonmarket and market strategies, while nonmarket strategy has a positive indirect effect on market performance via nonmarket performance. These findings suggest that the RBV is an appropriate theory for addressing the shortcomings in integrated strategy research.     

“一带一路”倡议下我国生物安全问题的法律应对--以非洲猪瘟事件为视角

非洲猪瘟等生物安全事件给我国带来诸多危害,直接影响人们的生活质量和健康,也不利于国际贸易。造成该现象的原因主要有:一带一路倡议下国际合作带来的商品流通速度加快和生物迁移路径的多样性,使动物疫病的侵入防不胜防;我国生物安全风险防范意识、相关制度及其实施等方面存在不足。为有效防控生物安全事件,应参照相关国际条约,借鉴他国做法,在国内和国际两个层面采取有效措施:前者如提升防范意识、完善进出境货物等涉及的生物安全法律法规。后者以构建人类命运共同体理念为指导,推进生物安全全球共治规则的形成与完善,以利于国际贸易和交流的健康发展;在 一带一路参与国间加强合作,建立生物安全防控长效机制。     

Knowledge management and organizational performance in the service industry: The role of transformational leadership beyond the effects of transactional leadership

This study examines a comprehensive model comprising of various relationships between transformational and transactional leadership, knowledge management (KM) process, and organizational performance. Data are collected from human resource managers and general managers working in 119 service firms. Exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical regression analysis are used to analyze the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that transformational leadership has strong and positive effects on KM process and organizational performance after controlling for the effects of transactional leadership. Further, KM process partially mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance after controlling for the effects of transactional leadership. Implications and directions for future research are also discussed.     

Internet Technologies in China: Insights on the Morally Important Influence of Managers

Within Science and Technology Studies, much work has been accomplished to identify the moral importance of technology in order to clarify the influence of scientists, technologists, and managers. However, similar studies within business ethics have not kept pace with the nuanced and contextualized study of technology within Science and Technology Studies. In this article, I analyze current arguments within business ethics as limiting both the moral importance of technology and the influence of managers. As I argue, such assumptions serve to narrow the scope of business ethics in the examination of technology. To reinforce the practical implications of these assumptions and to further illustrated the current arguments, I leverage the recent dialog around U.S. Internet technologies in China. The goal of this article is to broaden that which is morally salient and relevant to business managers and business ethicists in the analysis of technology by highlighting key lessons from seminal STS scholars. This article should be viewed as part of a nascent yet burgeoning dialog between business ethics and Science and Technology Studies – a dialog that benefits both fields of study.     

市场导向、组织学习创新及组织绩效:基于珠江三角洲企业的实证研究

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among market orientation, learning orientation, organizational innovation and organizational performance through a structural equation modeling approach. This study uses a sample of 143 companies in the Pearl River Delta region of China. Results show that (1) market orientation has no positive direct impact on organizational performance; (2) market orientation has a direct impact on learning orientation; (3) learning orientation has a direct impact on administrative and technical innovation; (4) market orientation has a direct impact on organizational innovation by learning orientation; (5) administrative innovation has a positive direct impact on organizational performance while technical innovation does not impact on organizational performance directly; (6) technical innovation has a positive impact on administrative innovation; (7) learning orientation has an indirect impact on organizational performance through influencing organizational innovation; (8) market orientation has impact on learning orientation, which has an impact on organizational innovation, which in turn has an impact on organizational performance. Managerial implications are discussed, along with suggestions for further research. Translated from Guanli Shijie 管理世界 (Management World), 2006, (2): 80–94, 143     

The Influence of Culture and Biographical Variables on the Brand Image of Google and Baidu.. An Exploratory Study in Guangzhou,China

The study found significant correlations between the culture dimensions of Confucian work dynamism, human - heartedness and moral discipline and the brand image dimensions of online search engines. It was also found that several significant relationships exist between the biographical variables of age and education and the brand image dimensions, and that culture and bi- ographical variables have a linear relationship with brand image. The findings highlight that culture and biographical information can influence Chinese consumer perceptions of an international or local brand. Organizations thus need to align their brands with the culture and biographical profile of their target markets.     

教育与健康水平对农户劳动生产率的影响：对中国农村贫困地区的一项研究

根据中国23个贫困县农户抽样调查数据,分析了不同教育和健康水平农户劳动生产率的差异,探讨了农户劳动生产率的决定因素,确定改进农户教育和健康水平对提高劳动生产率的贡献.研究表明,农户的教育和健康水平的提高对贫困地区农业劳动生产率的提高有非常显著的影响.     

中国内外贸一体化的实践、目标与政策建议(上)--对流通组织形式的考察

本文从流通组织形式的视角研究了中国内外贸一体化问题.文章首先总结了中国一批优势的生产企业、外贸企业和商业企业近年来在内外贸结合和国内外市场一体化经营方面的有益探索和实践,然后提出了流通组织的发展目标.为了推动内外贸一体化的发展和深化,作者还分别针对综合商社的发展、工业型跨国公司和零售企业的国际化经营提出了政策建议.     

中国自贸区的经济增长效应评估--基于沪津闽粤自贸区的实证研究

为考察中国自贸区对地区经济增长的效应,结合1995~2018年省级面板数据,采用双重差分法实证评估了自贸区带来的经济增长效应,并在此基础上进一步用合成控制法检验了自贸区经济增长效应的地区异质性,研究发现:第一,自贸区对区域经济增长具有显著持续的推动作用,且设立时间越久,推动作用逐渐增强;第二,影响机制检验结果表明,自贸区主要是通过扩大贸易水平和吸引外商投资的方式促进经济增长,通过产业结构优化升级的途径还未得以充分发挥;第三,自贸区经济增长效应存在地区异质性,上海、广东、福建的自贸区对地区经济增长推动作用显著,天津自贸区的经济增长效应相对不明显。