Multinational decision-making: Reconciling international norms

How should highly-placed multinational managers, typically schooled in home country moral traditions, reconcile conflicts between those traditions and ones of the host country? When host country standards for pollution, discrimination, and salary schedules appear substandard from the perspective of the home country, should the manager take the high road and implement home country standards? Or does the high road imply a failure to respect cultural diversity and national integrity? In this paper, I construct and defend an ethical algorithm for multinational managers to use in reconciling such international normative conflicts.     

Developing a culturally synergistic approach to international human resource management

This paper offers international human resource (IHR) professionals guidelines how to decide which IHRM approach to choose. In choosing among an adaptive, exportive, or integrated IHR approach, IHR managers may want to consider three decision criteria, e.g. forces for global integration and local adaptation, the cultural component of HRM, and the power dynamics within the MNC. To develop an organization that values cultural differences, IHR professionals may choose a culturally synergistic approach to IHRM. This approach has the potential of designing new combinations of HRM practices and simultaneously attends to the three decision criteria.     

Developing a framework to improve retail category management through category captain arrangements

Manufacturers and retailers have divergent profit objectives. A manufacturer wants to maximize the profits of its own brands. The retailer, on the other hand, wants to maximize the profit of the entire product category. In spite of these apparently diverging profit objectives, both manufacturers and retailers are increasingly realizing that profit margins of both can be increased through cooperation rather than confrontation. Category management is one such cooperative strategy that often involves the appointment of a leading manufacturer as the “category captain”. A category captain advises the retailer on the best way to price, display, and promote products in a category, including those of the competitors. This arrangement, therefore, ensures retail efficiency but raises doubt about possible misuse of power by the category captain to circumvent fair competition. In this paper, we outline the antitrust concerns about this arrangement, and provide a framework that effectively addresses these concerns.     

Global employees and exogenous shocks: considering positive psychological capital as a personal resource in international human resource management

While positive psychological capital (PsyCap) is a significant antecedent of favorable work outcomes, it is unclear whether this is true for global employees during an exogenous shock. Applying conservation of resources theory, we found that, under conditions of crisis-induced role novelty, global employees leveraged PsyCap to follow a resource-gain route to job satisfaction, whereas their ability to mitigate resource loss was limited. We differentiate among global employees, finding that role novelty compensated for lower PsyCap in motivating job engagement for those with higher travel obligations. Our results stress the importance of PsyCap in international human resource management scholarship and practice.     

Mapping international business and international business policy research: Intellectual structure and research trends

This paper analyzes the core international business (IB) areas covered by ten IB-focused journals to date using 13,937 documents reflecting more than 300 years of combined publication history. Using bibliometric and citation analysis, it provides a systematic understanding of the current IB landscape, explicates the relevance of the future of IB research and depicts trends in this research field with emerging prevalent themes identified. The strongest themes across IB journals are performance, perspective and emerging economies/MNEs, shared strongly across UK/Europe, US and Asia-based journals. Our findings report on the prevalent research field, economy and geography, the latter analyzing the impact of author numbers and distribution, and thus, scale effects. Within this context, sole authorships are largely replaced by co-authorships, yet often on national level. We further limited the study to IB policy and found the focus centers on key themes of foreign business attraction, transnational governance and IB promotion.     

旅游景区营销管理一般模式及实证研究

旅游景区是旅游产业发展的核心要素,景区营销管理的研究滞后于景区开发规划等研究,严重影响了景区的发展与建设。根据游客的需求状况和营销任务的不同,旅游景区营销管理大体分为扭转性营销、刺激性营销等八类方式。景区营销管理是一项系统工程,真正把握营销策略的针对性和景区营销的高效率性,必须在分析市场营销机会、目标市场选择与定位、制定市场营销战略和市场营销的控制与管理等四个方面下功夫,从而建立起适合本景区、本企业的营销管理模式。     

The positive and negative effects of inventory on category purchase: An empirical analysis

Product inventory exerts two countervailing forces on the probability of purchase: More inventory on hand reduces the need to purchase; however, theory suggests higher levels of inventory can drive up consumption, thereby increasing the chance of purchase. Moreover, consumers have biased estimations of their own inventory—especially at high levels of inventory (Chandon and Wansink, 2006), which again suggests a positive relationship between inventory and purchase probability. We model the negative (standard) and positive effects of inventory on the probability of purchase. The model is calibrated on ten product categories and fits better than the standard nested logit and an alternative developed by Ailawadi and Neslin (1998). The elasticity of purchase incidence with respect to inventory represents these opposing forces in an intuitive way, implying an inventory threshold below (above) which the net effect is positive (negative). Estimated thresholds are plausible across categories, with the food categories of hot dogs, ice cream and soft drinks showing the largest effects.     

Taking a positive approach to organizational downsizing

We drew from the literature on positive organizational behaviour (Luthans & Youssef, 2007) to test a process model relating generalized optimism (Carver & Scheier, 1999) to the cognitions, affect, and behaviour of 237 Canadian federal government managers during and following a major organizational downsizing. Our data supported a model in which generalized optimism measured 18 months prior to the downsizing (T1) associated positively with managers' cognitions, attitudes, job performance, and self‐reported coping effectiveness measured 12 months postdownsizing (T3). Analyses suggested that some of these associations were partially mediated by a positive thinking coping strategy and expectations for future career and job success reported during the downsizing (T2). We advocate for more research that draws from the positive organizational behaviour literature to study the effects of downsizing on survivors. Copyright © 2008 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consumers' evaluations of an international airport: a facet theoretical approach

Results are presented of a study of consumers' satisfaction with an international airport. A facet theory approach is adopted in research design and data analysis and the results are presented in relation to previous facet theory-guided research into design evaluation. Opportunity-sampled passengers (N = 115) arriving or departing air passengers returned completed and usable questionnaires. Analysis revealed the air passengers questioned were generally satisfied with the airport. Similarity structure analysis (SSA) provided support for the 'general mapping sentence for place experience' which was used to design the questionnaire. The mapping sentence has been developed in the literature through demonstrating a common structure to place evaluation which consists in facets of referent, focus and level. The referent facet composed elements of service, spatial and comfort; a focus facet with contained elements of primary and ancillary; and a level facet was independently present with elements of direct and indirect levels of contact. The paper concludes by developing a mapping sentence for airport design evaluation.     

Differences in international opportunity identification between native and immigrant entrepreneurs

The aim of this study is to understand more about how identification of international opportunities differs between native and immigrant entrepreneurs. Based on a survey of 116 immigrant and 864 native Norwegian entrepreneurs with newly registered firms, we show that immigrant entrepreneurs are more likely to identify international opportunities than native entrepreneurs are. We reveal important differences in the identification process between native and immigrant entrepreneurs. Whereas general human capital has a significant positive effect on international opportunity identification for native entrepreneurs, we cannot find the same effect among immigrant entrepreneurs. Moreover, although financial capital positively influences international opportunity identification among native entrepreneurs, the same effect is significantly negative among immigrant entrepreneurs. Based on these findings, we conclude that native and immigrant entrepreneurs do not utilise the same resources to identify international opportunities. This study contributes to the literature on international entrepreneurship by documenting significant differences in how native and immigrant entrepreneurs identify international opportunities. It also contributes to immigrant entrepreneurship literature by bringing the opportunity-based view of entrepreneurship into the field.     

Contextualizing international business research: Enhancing rigor and relevance

Context differentiates international business (IB) from traditional Business research. Along with many IB scholars, we argue that context should be much more adequately emphasized in IB research. Location differences are commonly ignored; complexity and polycomplexity--and other levels of analysis issues--are rarely acknowledged; and the relevance of models and theory developed in Western contexts is not adequately questioned or explored. This paper suggests contextualization guidelines for scholars to enhance the rigor of their research and to make their IB research more relevant for practitioners. In conclusion we suggest solutions for closing rigor and relevance gaps in IB research by enhancing contextualization.     

Cross-national research and international business: An interdisciplinary path

Comparative cross-national research is among the oldest approaches of scientific inquiry in the social sciences. We investigate the foundations of published works in cross-national research (CNR) in international business (IB), sociology, and psychology with an eye on leveraging their rich traditions for future IB research. Our approach aims to contribute and address repeated calls for taking an interdisciplinary approach in IB. We examined published CNR in 106 scholarly journals and identified 817 articles with 51,738 citations in IB, 477 works with 30,017 citations in sociology, and 835 articles with 54,519 citations in psychology. We use metric multidimensional scaling to examine the co-citation data for each field and identify knowledge and approaches commonplace in sociology and psychology to propose future research paths in IB. In particular multilevel analysis, which is scarcely used in IB, offers the potential of unfolding new dimensions within the field. Based on the emergent results from our MDS solutions, we recommend multiple future paths for CNR, particularly with respect to IB relationships, market entry, and related domains.     

关于国际石油工程风险管理中存在的不足及对策的分析研究

最近二十年,中国石油企业已逐步走入世界.而国际石油工程因为结构功能复杂且规模较大,又有着与中国不同的政治因素,还有其存在的自然灾害,施工风险,市场风险等因素,导致国际石油工程存在很大的风险.所以我们应当充分认识工程中的风险,并及时的针对这些风险探讨解决的对策.     

关于国际石油工程风险管理中存在的不足及对策的分析研究

最近二十年,中国石油企业已逐步走入世界.而国际石油工程因为结构功能复杂且规模较大,又有着与中国不同的政治因素,还有其存在的自然灾害,施工风险,市场风险等因素,导致国际石油工程存在很大的风险.所以我们应当充分认识工程中的风险,并及时的针对这些风险探讨解决的对策.     

Hermeneutic phenomenology and international entrepreneurship research

It is not uncommon for business researchers to avoid discussion associated with the philosophy of science. In this paper, it is argued that this avoidance weakens the quality and insightfulness of entrepreneurship and international entrepreneurship research, which by definition should be concerned with human action and activity. This paper explores the implications of alternative research philosophies and argues that a dichotomy between objective and subjective meaning is manifestly inadequate for the study of opportunity recognition and exploitation and by implication for many other problems of international entrepreneurship research. In response, hermeneutic phenomenology is proposed as an underutilized, misunderstood, yet highly relevant research paradigm.     

Adding consumer behavior insights to category management: Improving item placement decisions

Although practitioners attribute significant sales growth to category management, many believe more potential lies untapped. This paper suggests improvements through the use of consumer behavior research as a supplement to point-of-purchase scanner information. In particular, we outline several concepts and theories with special promise in six decision areas of category management, suggesting opportunities for both future research and industry application. An empirical demonstration of one such opportunity is presented showing how two consumer behavior concepts - context effects and categorization theory - reveal insights relevant to item placement decisions within category management that would not be revealed by scanner data.     

An international review of sponsorship research: extension and update

This article extends and updates an existing review of 80 Anglo-Saxon studies on sponsorship published prior to 1996 with contributions of European origin (66 additional studies) and studies published subsequently (87 additional studies). It thus gives an account of the evolution and current state of sponsorship research worldwide and points out new research directions. Over the past six years there have been clear advances in research into, and evaluation of, sponsorship effects and strategic sponsorship management. There has also been a notable shift towards a better understanding of how sponsorship is perceived by the end consumer. Overall, however, research is focused too much on consumer goods and service companies pursuing awareness and image objectives while engaged in sports sponsorship. Other types of institutions, other sponsorship objectives and other sponsorship areas are widely neglected. The same is true of the functional affiliation of sponsorship within the firms and sponsorship budgeting processes.     

Corruption in international business: A review and research agenda

We systematically reviewed the literature on corruption in international business (137 articles) for the last 17 years between 1992 and 2019. Additionally, we identified seven research streams in this growing literature: (1) the legislation against corruption, (2) the determinants of corruption, (3) combating corruption, 4) the effect of corruption on firms, (5) the political environment and corruption, (6) corruption as a challenge to existing theories of management, and (7) the effect of corruption on foreign direct investment and trade. Based on this review, we recommend that strong international laws are needed to minimize the negative impact of corruption on international business. Firms must also consider corruption when formulating strategies to increase operational efficiency and performance. Finally, corruption challenges some key assumptions of existing theories of management. Scholars need to test and expand these existing theories by considering corruption as an important issue in international business.