Sustainability Issues in Transnational Education Service: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Insights

ABSTRACT

Many transnational education (TNE) services have been operating successfully to export education. However, many other TNE programs and partnerships have also been terminated. TNEs' sustainability is under-researched; specifically, its sustainability from the contexts of strategic partnership considerations, all recognized TNE activities, and its sustainability indicators. This conceptual article analyzes literature on TNE partnership issues, the standardization-adaptation (StandAdapt) concept of international business strategy and sustainability issues, with an aim to establish an initial route to develop TNE services that would sustain business viability, centered on transnational market-specific conditions. The analysis suggests that there is a consistent interrelationship between different sustainability indicators and market orientation, which has implications for incorporating sustainability issues into TNE services and transnational strategies. An initial framework is proposed to develop TNE services in order to sustain TNE businesses. Some empirical insights are developed in support of this conceptual framework. Further research areas are discussed.     

Postponement Strategies for Global Downstream Supply Chains: A Conceptual Framework

Postponement is a well-known organizational concept and usually relates to the deferment in time of manufacturing and/or logistics operations. In the current global competitive landscape, situations where postponement can be applied are rapidly increasing. Faced with the wide range of customs duties and free-trade agreements currently in place, companies need to (re)design their postponement strategies to customize their products appropriately, and to the proper degree, in each market. As the actual location where operations take place has a major impact on a company’s overall performance, the spatial perspective must also be taken into account when designing global postponement strategies, alongside the conventional temporal perspective. Heretofore, the academic literature does not offer any comprehensive framework on a global scale either for handling what is known as the postponement boundary problem, or for conceptualizing the related postponement strategies. Building on previous research, the aim of the present study was to investigate the postponement concept in a global environment with a downstream focus. The intended purpose is twofold: first, to review and expand previous studies on the subject and, second, to provide some guidelines for conceptualizing global postponement strategies. A structured literature review was first conducted, followed by the development of a framework that combines both the temporal and the spatial dimensions. Finally, the framework was applied to a group of 28 business cases taken from the literature, to act as a bridge between academic theories and practitioners’ current business operations.     

Managerial Work and Lying: A Conceptual Framework and an Explorative Case Study

In the last few years there has been a lot of fuzzy talk, scientific discourses and comments of business life about the values, ethics and social responsibility of companies. Companies are expected to have also some other tasks besides that of gaining profit. A part of the tasks which management has, except for thinking of the benefits of their own organization, are things which work for the well-being of the whole society. Issues like this are, among others, working for employment, taking care of the environment, and promoting consumer security.While making decisions of their own action in the company, the management often has to face ethical solutions. The benefit of the company may be different from that of other business stakeholders. In this case, the manager has to decide for which part he should act, for the company or for the stakeholders. The ethical problems in deciding may appear also inside the company. In our study, we are very interested in the decision-making processes which are connected with the honesty of the manager and his/her being honest with the stakeholders both inside and outside the company.In our research, we have tried to create a framework which helps us to find out in what kind of situations a manager faces the problem whether he/she should tell the truth to the stakeholders or not. We have also studied the means which the managers use in their potential dishonesty. Further, we have tried to find out how the managers see themselves in situations where they cannot tell the truth or have to cover it.     

Ethnocentrism and Domestic Food Choice: Insights From an Affluent Protectionist Market

This study has investigated the domestic food choices of consumers in an affluent protectionist market, and the role of consumer ethnocentrism in relation to those choices. A short focus group method called CurroCus-groups were chosen for the study. Seven group interviews were conducted with a total of 54 respondents. The data was analyzed using a two level Grounded Theory approach. The analysis resulted in two main categories and five subcategories, all indicating the consumers’ different reasons for choosing domestic food. The two main categories are social involvement and quality whereas the five subcategories are sensory quality, food safety, products, environmental care and Jobs and producers. Consumer ethnocentrism was discussed in relation to the categories and different levels of consumer ethnocentrism were found in some, but not all of the categories.     

How Firm Strategies Impact Size of Partner‐Based Retail Networks: Evidence From Franchising

How do firms' partnering strategies impact the size of their partner‐based retail networks? We draw on agency theory to address this question in the context of franchising. Our econometric analyses (based on 9 years of longitudinal balanced panel data) include assessment of data nonstationarity and estimation of a dynamic panel data model that accounts for unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity. Our findings indicate that franchisee network size is driven more by franchisor strategies that mitigate agency costs than by strategies that simply lower entry and ongoing costs and barriers for franchisees.     

Brand Power Relationships: A Co-Evolutionary Conceptual Framework

Abstract

In the era of the Internet and networking, stakeholders increasingly acquire power by influencing brand value and meanings. However, this does not imply that marketing managers have lost their power over brand creation and management. Thus, the aim of this study is to explore brand power relationships taking the co-evolutionary perspective as conceptual lenses. In particular, this article seeks to address the competitive relationship between the corporation and its stakeholders in determining the corporate brand evolution over time, suggesting that corporate brand management is successful when co-evolving power relationships are established. The relational interplay between managers and stakeholders is framed into the Brand Power Relationship Model that suggests four potential evolutionary paths. It offers new brand typologies supported by examples from business practices, which mirror four different ways of managing and adapting brands over time; namely, through the None’s Brand, the Managers’ Brand, the Stakeholders’ Brand, and the Co-Evolutionary Brand. Focusing on the latter, this study depicts managers and stakeholders as having reciprocal influences and co-determining themselves, thus triggering interrelated relational effects that influence corporate brand evolution over time. The bilateral power of managers and stakeholders is framed into a further model, focused on corporate brand co-evolution. It is proposed that corporate brands can successfully co-create their value and meanings over time only if corporations co-evolve with their environment—in this study, multiple external stakeholders.     

城市间流通网络及其形成与演化的微观动力机制研究

从历史的角度看,城市与流通之间存在着天然的联系.但无论是以城市为研究对象的各种城市理论,还是以流通过程为研究对象的流通理论都没能对城市与流通之间的关联发展出一个理论体系.文章以世界城市网络理论为基础,建构了一个城市间流通网络理论模型,并对城市间流通网络的构成,及其形成与演化的微观动力机制等基础性问题进行了研究.     

Social Media Marketing Management: A Conceptual Framework

Managers today face many challenges when using social media in their marketing strategies. Drawing from social media literature, this study introduces a new framework to assist managers in developing and using social media as a marketing tool. This framework has four dimensions related to the actions managers perform when implementing and engaging with social media: messaging/projecting, monitoring, assessing, and responding. Each dimension of the framework may be applied differently based on the firm’s strategic direction or focus. The framework provides an opportunity for a firm to examine the entire scope of social media marketing from a broad strategic perspective as well as a more tactical perspective. Propositions formulated by the authors suggest how organizations with different strategic characteristics may manage social media differently. The study provides an understanding for managers of the variety of issues related to the specific aspects of maintaining a firm’s online presence based on a firm’s scope, culture, structure, and governance.     

Channel Member Satisfaction and Performance in African Export Marketing Channels: Some Insights From Ghana

This article investigates the impact of channel member satisfaction on channel performance in Ghanaian cocoa marketing channels. Channel member satisfaction is treated as a multidimensional construct consisting of both economic and social satisfaction. Channel performance is defined in terms of farmers’ acceptance of a large-scale marketing channel improvement. The results of the study indicate that initial acceptance of the channel improvement was based on economic satisfaction and continued use was based primarily on trust. Implications for theory and managerial practice are discussed.     

From the Digital Internet to the Physical Internet: A Conceptual Framework With a Stylized Network Model

Despite the increasing academic interest and financial support for the Physical Internet (PI), surprisingly little is known about its operationalization and implementation. In this paper, we suggest studying the PI on the basis of the Digital Internet (DI), which is a well‐established entity. We propose a conceptual framework for the PI network using the DI as a starting point, and find that the PI network not only needs to solve the reachability problem, that is, how to route an item from A to B, but also must confront a more complicated optimality problem, that is, how to dynamically optimize a set of additional logistics‐related metrics such as cost, emissions and time for a shipment. These last issues are less critical for the DI and handled using relatively simpler procedures. Based on our conceptual framework, we then propose a simple network model using graph theory to support the operationalization of the PI. The model covers the characteristics of the PI raised in the current literature and suggests future directions for further quantitative analyses.     

Owner Commitment and Relational Governance in the Privately-Held Firm: An Empirical Study

This paper examines owner commitment and relational governance in the privately-held firm. The proposed model goes beyond agency theory to include research on organization commitment and organization citizenship behaviors, as well as stewardship theory, organizational social capital theory, social identity theory and social exchange theory. Results support predictions of stewardship theory and organizational social capital theory that owner commitment and firm performance are positively related.      

State Ownership and Firm Performance: A Revisit

The low efficiency of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is widely accepted by academics. However, the accounting literature shows that non-SOEs are more likely to engage in earnings management, which artificially boosts their financial performance. This suggests that the higher financial performance in non-SOEs may be merely cosmetic. This study compares the real financial performance between SOEs and non-SOEs, while the real performance is obtained by estimating the level of earnings management and removing it from the reported financial performance. The result shows that there is no significant difference in real performance between SOEs and non-SOEs. This study sheds new light on the debate over the efficiency of SOEs and the relationship between ownership structure and financial performance.     

Strategy Development: Conceptual Framework on Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its action-oriented offspring Corporate Citizenship (CC) currently trigger an intensifying debate on ethics, role and behavior of companies within civil society. For companies, CSR raises the question of what may be the “good reason(s)” for acting responsible towards its members, customers or society. In order to answer this question, we face the debate on CSR and its strategic engagement drivers on the levels of corporate culture, social innovation, and civil society. In this article, we provide a conceptual framework based on the analytic distinction of legitimation and sensemaking. The conceptual framework developed in this article can serve as a basis to develop a company’s CSR strategy. It provides measures and instruments to make complex CSR processes more visible and manageable.     

Managing CSR Stakeholder Engagement: A New Conceptual Framework

As concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) continue to evolve, the predicament facing CSR managers when attempting to balance the differing interests of various stakeholders remains a persistent management challenge. A review of the extensive literature in this field reveals that the conceptualisation of corporate approaches to responsible stakeholder management remains underdeveloped. In particular, CSR practices within the specific context of the pharmaceutical industry, a sector which particularly dramatically depicts the stakeholder management dilemmas faced by business managers, has been under-researched. To address this gap, this paper utilises qualitative, exploratory data, obtained via multiple research methods, to investigate the CSR practices of major pharmaceutical companies in the UK and Germany. The data are employed to critically re-examine and revise a previously published explanatory framework which identifies the management steps involved in CSR stakeholder engagement. The resulting revised explanatory framework is the main contribution of this paper. By abstracting those factors which influence CSR practice, it provides an analytical tool which is designed to be of practical use for business decision-makers when managing their stakeholder engagement activities. Given that the research addresses values and ideals and prescribes practical recommendations for practitioners, it is essentially applied and normative in nature. Ultimately, the framework proposes a set of steps for developing CSR strategies which could help CSR professionals to make a ‘mindset transition’ from a narrower ‘traditional’ approach to CSR to a more innovative way of thinking.     

Quality of Export Memory Content: A Conceptual Framework

Exporting is still one of the most common ways for organisations to reach foreign markets and its success is often key to sustaining and enhancing overall firm performance. In order to maximise the likelihood of developing sustainable competitive advantage in export markets, exporting organisations now need to learn better and faster than their competitors. This paper examines organisational learning in the context of exporting activities, and more specifically focuses on export memory. A framework of export memory is proposed, with key propositions concerning performance outcomes of export memory. Conclusions are made and future research directions are indicated.     

公司规模、分析师选择偏差和公司市场绩效——基于收购方公司视角的研究

在对中国2769个股权收购样本进行分析后发现,分析师跟踪和收购公告日效应(短期绩效)之间呈显著负向关系,但当控制公司规模时显著性消失;进一步研究发现,这种负向关系是由分析师偏好跟踪大规模公司造成的,从而证明了中国分析师存在选择偏差.分析师跟踪和收购方公司的长期市场绩效间存在显著的正向关系,从而为分析师的长期价值发现功能提供了证据.对于中国证券分析师的选择偏差问题,本文建议用残差分析师跟踪替代分析师跟踪的原始值来解决.随着证券市场制度创新和小型公司上市成为新常态,监管部门需要规范分析师跟踪公司的规模分布,并考虑进一步放宽机构投资者的投资标的选择范围.     

Understanding Complexity: the Curvilinear Relationship Between Environmental Performance and Firm Performance

The nature of the relationship between environmental performance (EP) and firm performance (FP) of corporations is a long standing and contentious issue in the literature. This study is intended to advance this debate by arguing for the existence of curvilinear relationship and empirically testing the same using survey data on UK manufacturing firms. FP is captured in terms of growth in sales and market share. Our results show evidence for a quadratic relationship—as firms improve their EP, they seem to achieve much higher levels of FP. These results are consistent with the resource-based view of a firm; as firms engage in EP activities, they are able to gain inimitable knowledge that helps in further learning to further improve performance. Based on our results, we suggest that new studies focus on strategies to extend the period of increasing returns and maximizing the benefits of the positive association between EP and FP.     

Linking Innovation and Firm Performance: A New Approach

Using the second Community Innovation Survey (CIS-2) for the Netherlands, we analyse the input and output stages of the innovation process and the links between the innovation process and overall economic performance. We investigate the existence of feedback links running from past economic performance to the input and the output stage of the innovation process and compare the results of a single-equation approach with the results obtained from a simultaneous-equation model.     

Market-Based Organisational Learning - Theoretical Reflections and Conceptual Insights

As an area of academic inquiry, organisational learning has matured to such an extent that it can now be described as an institutionalisation of a body of knowledge. Nonetheless, underlying the apparent maturity of this literature lies the proliferation of disciplines that claim aspects of this theoretical territory, each with their own ontological premises and schools of thought resulting in frequently conflicting theories which often reflect a diverse pattern of phenomenological domains, interpretative issues, methodological predilections and conflicting operationalisations. The marketing literature is characteristic in detecting elements in cognate disciplines and introducing them within the guise of mainstream marketing thought. Consequently, it was a matter of time before marketing academicians became interested in exploiting seams of organisational learning research that are relevant to areas of marketing. Consequently, a recent announcement by the Marketing Science Institute finds that market-based organisational learning is now a 'second tier' research priority for 2002-2004, reflecting its developing attraction in organisational, conceptual, theoretical and empirical respects. In this paper, an attempt will be made to address the following: to delineate the organisational learning concept by reviewing multi-disciplinary contributions; to evaluate the intellectual roots to market-based organisational learning by considering its theoretical heritage; to propose a model of the theoretical properties of market-based organisational learning; to consider the extent to which market-based organisational theory satisfies criteria for theory construction in marketing and organisation science; to identify critical gaps in our knowledge of market-based organisational learning; and, to indicate the contextual issues surrounding the development of market-based organisational learning programs in firms.     

Marketing Capabilities and Firm Performance: A Hierarchical Model

The resource based theory of the firm (RBV) is briefly reviewed together with its recent application in the marketing literature. Significant contributions by Webster (1992) and Day (1994) are identified and an integration of the two presented as a hierarchical model of marketing capabilities. Three research propositions concerning the relationships between marketing capabilities and performance are developed and tested empirically in the transition economies of central and eastern Europe. In line with expectations from the theory of the RBV, higher order marketing capabilities are seen to be more important than operational capabilities in explaining superior competitive performance. The overall model is shown to be a helpful conceptualization of marketing capabilities and a number of issues for further research are identified.