Opening Markets and Industrial Restructuring

Abstract

Industries are responding to the challenge of increasing globalization of production by restructuring into leaner and more flexible production processes in order to cut costs and gain global competitiveness. The auto industry, which is one of the most globally oriented industries has been especially involved in this movement. Since 1990 the market environment of the Argentine auto industry has changed rapidly from that of a closed, highly protected environment to an open one that includes economic integration with the world’s 9th largest auto producer, Brazil. The need to be globally competitive has forced firms to adopt Just-in-Time/Total-Quality-Control (JIT/TQC) systems of production. This paper presents micro, plant level research on the response of Argentine autopart manufacturers to this radical change in its market environment. The analysis is based on a case study of 10 well-established autopart firms which were interviewed in depth to get some idea of the measures being taken by them to survive in this new global climate. The extent to which the “world class manufacturing techniques” of JIT/TQC are being adopted in these firms is examined. The survey finds a wide variety of adaptations of these techniques.     

Globalization of Management Education

A new study, sponsored by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, presented a comprehensive new perspective on the globalization of management education, (AACSB International, 2011). Its findings are sobering: with regard to emerging global trends in higher education and cross-border business, the report reveals a sizable gap between what the world needs and what management educators generally do. Key areas for attention include the expansion of mechanisms for quality improvement and assurance globally, strengthening the use of international partnerships, more intentional internationalization within the curriculum, and connecting various global activities to one another through a comprehensive globalization strategy.     

Global convergence of consumer spending: Conceptualization and propositions

The convergence versus divergence debate has persistently presented a puzzle in the scholarly literature. Forces of globalization created a wave of convergence. Yet, the recent worldwide events have changed the course of globalization, slowing its seemingly unavoidable forward direction. It is, therefore, incumbent upon international business scholars to reexamine the convergence versus divergence debate in the contemporary world economy. Despite the central role that global convergence plays in international business decisions, the literature is lacking a conceptualization of the convergence construct in terms of consumer spending behavior. Offering a new perspective derived from the convergence-divergence-crossvergence (CDC) framework and the coevolution theory, the authors define and conceptualize the convergence construct associated with consumer spending behavior. The proposed conceptual framework is comprehensive, offers refinements to the convergence phenomenon, and leads the way for further development of new theories in the international marketing domain.     

Antecedents of Global Attitude

Abstract

The term “globalization” has recently been used to explain multiple world trends. Such trends include worldwide accessibility to the same products, access to the same resources around the globe, world travel, communication, convergence of lifestyles, development of “world culture,” and worldwide fascination with environmental issues. This paper explores the population's attitude towards globalization (global attitude) and investigates antecedents that affect the level of global attitude. The antecedents examined are population's current satisfaction, opinion of governance, and future expectations. Results from structural equation modeling show that current satisfaction with life and opinion of governance have a positive and significant influence on development of global attitude.     

Football – marketplace icon?

Football has always been an important part of consumer culture, in many countries producing a global audience for World Cups and millions of people celebrating annual football competitions. It was once described by iconic Liverpool Football Club (FC) football manager Bill Shankly as follows, “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.” This marketplace icon contribution puzzles over whether football truly represents a marketplace icon and if so how does this effect the world’s most popular sports game? The commentary explores the significance of the beautiful game asking the reader to consider that it is not only a marketplace icon but much more than that, likened here to a “supra socio-cultural phenomenon” which rises above market logic or as Foer argues Football explains the world.     

上海国际航运中心国家战略的政治经济学研究

世界历史表明,世界经济中心转移的历史同时也是国际航运中心转移的历史,航运是联系全球生产与全球市场的纽带。随着我国外向型经济的发展,随着我国参与到经济全球化进程中,参与到全球商品竞争与全球资源配置过程中,我国航运业也得到了发展。而上海由于其特殊的地理位置、发达的腹地经济和重要的军事战略地位,加强上海国际航运中心建设,对于我国承接发达国家产业转移,参与全球资源配置,适应经济全球化需要,提升产业层次,提高在国际航运业中的地位,加强海权建设具有重要战略意义。     

From grobal management to glocal management: Latin American perspectives as a counter‐dominant management epistemology

Management is known as a global phenomenon. However, its “global” façade tends to mean that management knowledge and practices are usually created and developed in Western countries—mainly the United States—to be transferred supposedly problem‐free to other locations. This paper discusses how management has spread globally via Americanization, and is therefore a grobal phenomenon. From a Latin American perspective, this transfer can be problematic, especially as it tends to suppress locally developed knowledge and experiences. In denaturalizing grobal management, we propose glocal management as an alternative to the current Anglo‐centric view of the field, and believe this new view can take into account hybridism and local realities. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Late globalization and evolution,episodes and epochs of industries: Evidence from Danish textile and fashion industry, 1945–2015

This paper explores the conceptual terrain of what we term late globalization. The late globalization phenomena are multilevel and multidimensional; this paper offers an initial portal into these phenomena. Understanding late globalization would provide academic insights and help in shaping practices at international, national, sectoral, and corporate levels. The paper follows a macro‐conceptual to a micro‐empirical path to provide illustrative empirical evidence. Studying the emergence and evolution of Danish Textile and Fashion Industry (DTFI) between 1945 and 2015—a quintessential sector for globalization—allows the examination of several interrelated issues: critical events, impediments, pressures, and turning points that shaped DTFI; main institutional players that motivated key policy changes in and evolution of DTFI; and effects of late globalization on size, mission, location, knowledge, growth, and structure of DTFI. This longitudinal case study of the development of the DTFI brings to the fore key features that shape late globalization at the sectoral‐national level: government industrial policies toward domestic and foreign players in an industry, global competition that shapes and continually reshapes (cost as well as quality‐driven) location of key value chain activities (and the concomitant global distribution of core competencies and skills), and the growing role of information technologies that enable globally‐dispersed value chains to function in cohesive and unified ways. Late globalization has additional levels and dimensions; and we point to implications for future research.     

What Advertisers Need to Know About Promotion in the Arab World: Technology and Media Perspectives

There is little doubt that globalization has and continues to have a significant impact on business activities worldwide. The impact of globalization was made possible mainly by advances in technological innovation including the area of global communication. Among the many regions that have been significantly impacted by globalization is the Arab world. The purpose of this paper is to provide answers to the following questions: (a) What technological innovations related to advertising and promotion are dominating the Arab world?; (b) What is the media landscape as it relates to advertising and promotion in the Arab world?; (c) What media outlets are being consumed by Arab consumers?; and (d) What are the most effective media outlets in reaching the Arab consumer? Arguments have been made that the growth of mobile phones, Internet technology, and multimedia devices such as iPods and PlayStation Portables has contributed to the trend of youth moving away from traditional media platforms such as television. While this finding has been supported in research for some regions of the world, this paper studies whether it holds true for the Arab population.     

Cultural Diversity and Universal Ethics in a Global World

Cultural diversity and globalization bring about a tension between universal ethics and local values and norms. Simultaneously, the current globalization and the existence of an increasingly interconnected world seem to require a common ground to promote dialog, peace, and a more humane world. This article is the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics regarding these problems. We highlight five topics, which intertwine the eight papers of this issue. The first is whether moral diversity in different cultures is a plausible argument for moral relativism. The second focuses on the possibility of finding shared values and virtues worldwide. The third topic deals with convectional universalistic ethical theories in a global world and the problems they present. Fourth, we consider the traditional natural moral law approach in the context of a global world. The last topic is about human rights, as a practical proposal for introducing universal standards in business.     

Patterns of Hedonic Consumption Over Time

Two experiments investigated whether individuals choose to listen to songs that maximize their enjoyment on each trial (local maximization) or across the sequence of trials (global maximization). In Study 1, participants made repeated choices between one liked song and one disliked song. In Study 2, participants made repeated choices between a liked song and two less-preferred songs. Participants' choices and ratings indicate that they did not maximize locally. In both studies, participants switched to the less-preferred songs before their ratings of the favored songs had declined to the level of the less-preferred songs. Additionally, in Study 2, more participants chose their favorite song on a given trial when it was the last trial of the block than when the block was expected to continue. This indicates that participants who did not choose the favored song in the latter case were not maximizing locally. That individuals continued to choose variety even at the very end of the experiments also suggests that they were not maximizing globally. Thus, the present studies suggest the intriguing possibility that participants' variety seeking did not reflect local or global maximization. Implications for variety seeking are discussed.     

The interface between globalization,trade and development: Theoretical issues for international business studies

Globalization, widely cited as the dominant international economic trend of the post-World War II era, is deeply connected with the opening of the world economy. The relationship between trade and growth has been intensively debated in the economic literature, within the fields of economics, sociology, political sciences, and others. However, in the areas of International Business (IB) and management studies, research about an integrated approach to the issues of globalization deserves further attention. In particular, in the 21st century, companies are being challenged to think differently about the purpose and societal impact of their activities on the poorest nations. Therefore, this paper addresses economic and social issues of accelerating globalization within a framework of IB and management studies.     

Organizational CQ: Cultural intelligence for 21st-century organizations

We live in an age of massive global disruption. Technological advancements threaten century-old business models, globalization is reordering supply chains, and people need to work with colleagues and customers who have vastly different backgrounds. On top of that, we have been in the midst of a global pandemic, and customers, employers, and investors are demanding more than just a Black Lives Matter social media post from organizations that purport to take social justice seriously. Organizations with high cultural intelligence (CQ) are able to navigate this volatility and complexity effectively. Over the last two decades, scholars from across the world have published hundreds of articles on CQ, the capability to relate and work effectively in complex, culturally diverse situations. Most of the work has examined CQ at the individual level. But what about organizations? Can organizations be culturally intelligent? The emerging research on CQ at the organizational level offers leaders and organizations critical insights for navigating today’s diverse, digital world. Organizational CQ is a firm’s capability to function effectively in a complex and unpredictable multicultural world. This article stresses the importance of the culturally intelligent organization and explains how to develop organizational CQ.     

International diversification of the emerging-market enterprises: A multi-level examination

This study develops a cross-level research model based on insights from the capabilities view and institutional theory. We examine the drivers of international diversification for firms from emerging economies, specifically how top managers’ prior experiences and a favorable institutional environment for human capital affects the international diversification of emerging-market enterprises (EMEs). This research demonstrates that firm- and country-level factors collectively influence the international diversification of EMEs. We find that an EME whose top managers have global managerial and technological experiences is more likely to venture into international markets when a favorable institutional environment provides globally competitive, highly skilled human capital. This study demonstrates that for a multidimensional phenomenon such as EMEs’ international diversification, a more complete picture emerges given a theoretical framework that builds on diverse perspectives which are empirically tested across levels.     

The counter-conventional mindsets of entrepreneurs

These days, it seems, nearly everyone aspires to be an entrepreneur. But many entrepreneurs think and act differently than the way in which most other businesspeople do and the way much of today’s business education encourages them to think and act. My in-depth examination of dozens of entrepreneurs I’ve come to know well over the past 2 decades tells me that their unconventional—or, dare I say, counter-conventional—mindsets and behaviors are marked by six common patterns: (1) ‘Yes, we can;’ (2) beg, borrow, or steal; (3) think narrow, not broad; (4) problem-first, not product-first logic; (5) ‘No’ is something waiting to be turned into ‘Yes’; and (6) ask for the cash and ride the float. Thankfully, we now know that entrepreneurs are made, not born. These six patterns of entrepreneurial thought and action are eminently learnable. If you want to someday be an entrepreneur, or if you want the people in your company to become more entrepreneurial, then developing—or encouraging and incentivizing your people to develop—such a mindset might constitute a suitable first step toward preparing you to follow a more entrepreneurial path or to foster a more entrepreneurial culture in your company.     

Old problems remain, new ones crop up: Political risk in the 21 century

Despite the fact that most developing countries now generally welcome multinational companies, political risk still represents a huge concern for international business. In fact, multinational companies today probably face a much broader array of risks than during the nationalization wave of the 1960s and 1970s. To substantiate this claim, a theoretical framework is presented herein which outlines the key causal relationships in the political risk landscape. It is explained why a discernible attitude change in the developing and emerging world does not necessarily equal a reduced overall level of political risk. To illustrate the framework and the complexity of the political risk phenomenon, a number of recent case examples are presented from the international bauxite and aluminium industry—an industry whose wide-ranging value chain, international focus, global significance, and natural exposure to risks make it very suitable for analysis. The conceptual discussion and the empirical examples presented in this article suggest that political risk is now surely a highly complex, multidimensional phenomenon. This trait poses major challenges for the global business community, particularly in terms of accurately assessing these risks.     

Winning in Global Value Chain：A Shifting Strategy of Chinese Companies

With the trend of globalization, no country will be spared and immune to what is happening on the global stage. Faced with the current global financial crisis and subsequent economic recession, to every corner of the world, what measures should be taken are heatedly discussed on the level of international community, country and company. On the level of international community, two words on every leader＇s lips are coordination and cooperation; most of them have realized no country can take on the crisis alone. On the level of sovereign country,     

大众文化视域下的社会主义意识形态建设研究

意识形态作为社会意识的内容,是社会存在的反映,并且以文化形式出现;而文化作为意识形态产生的土壤,反映了意识形态制约下具体的社会生活现象。在当今社会,意识形态正在由人们的世界观或思想概念向大众日常生活经验本身转变。社会主义意识形态功能的发挥要以大众的日常生活世界为基础,又要对日常生活世界进行引导和提升。在当代中国,就大众文化对社会主义意识形态的双重影响来看,社会主义意识形态建设须实现其内容形式的大众化、传播方式的媒体化、宣传普及的商品化、影响范围的全球化。     

中国科协建设高端科技创新智库的SWOT分析

建设高端科技创新智库是中国科协走中国特色群团发展道路的重大举措,对中国科协建设高端科技创新智库面临的内外环境进行分析具有重要的现实意义。本文采用SWOT分析法对中国科协建设高端科技创新智库面临的优势、劣势、机遇和挑战进行分析,研究结果表明：中国科协在组织网络、科技工作者状况调查、民间科技外交、智库成果宣传等方面具有自身优势,但同时也存在着智库网络未充分发挥作用、人才队伍结构有待完善、体制机制障碍、智库成果水平有待提升等劣势。深度参与全球科技治理、深化科技体制改革、科协事业转型升级、大数据技术发展是中国科协面临的机遇;国际竞争格局剧烈变动、全球科技治理领域话语权有限、国内外科技智库发展迅速是中国科协建设高端科技创新智库需要应对的挑战。