Islam,entrepreneurship, and embeddedness

This study centers on the premise that entrepreneurship is an embedded process. Although “the entrepreneur” is inherently an “individual,” entrepreneurship can never be fully disembedded from the more general social settings within which any business venture is situated. An Islamic‐based economic discursive framework should be cognizant of the different forms of sociality, spatiality, and community as well as the various norms, codes, and symbols that define society more generally. The work of Karl Polanyi on embeddedness is engaged and juxtaposed with Islam's understanding of the ideal mode of economic discursive practices. Islamic economic models and Polanyi are both critical of the corrosive effects of unbridled capitalism and individualism that ultimately lead to reification and exploitation. The conclusion recommends more small‐N case studies by researchers and entrepreneurial educational materials that emphasize the importance of networks and local embeddedness.     

Rethinking corporate social responsibility under contemporary capitalism: Five ways to reinvent CSR

Skepticism toward CSR is increasing. Management research on CSR tends to focus on positive outcomes from the practice of CSR, such as enhanced financial performance and best practice business cases. Less attention is devoted to why CSR is under siege. This paper argues that CSR is intimately connected with the way that capitalism is practiced, and that poor CSR outcomes are often the result of five “shortcomings” of contemporary capitalism: runaway self-interest, quarterly focus, elite orientation, volume orientation, and one-pattern capitalism. To evidence this, I employ a two-stage approach: a “diagnostic” stage that investigates current challenges facing capitalism and how they affect CSR, and a “clinical” stage that identifies potential solutions based on a qualitative data set collected in Asian business contexts. The proposed solutions suggest ways that researchers, practitioners, and policymakers can conceptualize, design, and implement CSR programs that better fulfill CSR’s promise to business and society. Based on these results, I conclude with ideas on how CSR research can be strengthened by exploring the under-researched linkages among CSR, modern capitalism, and global institutional contexts.     

Entrepreneurs: The world needs you

The way we see the role of business is changing dramatically. What have we learned from the recent and ongoing crises? Where does one look for guidance on the “right thing to do” now? In a world where we live on one globe, it is time to shift our energy to real responsibility and sustainability. This requires a new paradigm. As Albert Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” We are not separated from our environment, nature, and society; we are actually a part of it. Therefore, let us unleash entrepreneurship and the power of business in a way to serve us more holistically. This new type of thinking, this expanding consciousness, is giving birth to all the new concepts of social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, corporate sustainability, inclusive business, conscious capitalism, and sustainable development. On the global level, there are increasing numbers of business‐oriented initiatives aimed at steering the power of business toward the public good such as the UN Global Compact and the Business Call to Action. Where to look for inspiration at the individual level? Within yourself. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “You have to be the change you want to see in the world.” © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Waqf,perpetual charity,in a general system theory of tawhidi metascience

This article is premised on the intercausal socioeconomic embedded model of ethical design of perpetual charity in Islam called waqf. Such a model is formalized according to the theory of unity of knowledge in the light of the Primal Ontology of Divine Oneness called Tawhid in the Qur'an. Tawhid is argued to be the only foundational Law of Islam respecting “everything.” The implications of such an epistemic treatment in respect of waqf as an example of the whole class of charities in Islam is shown to be unlike the dissociative and human opinionated nature of what has now come to be known as “shari'ah‐compliance.” The Islamic shortfall of “shari'ah‐compliance” and its segmentation as opposed to organically unified synergy between the socioeconomic and moral/ethical variables of the objective criterion called the Well‐being Function have deprived the entire study of the present days' Islamic economics, finance, and banking from its true epistemological core of Tawhid as Law. To restore this true foundation in Islamic thought, a theory of metascience of Tawhid is presented. Waqf in Malaysia is studied as an example from the perspective of Tawhidi unity of knowledge, contrary to its existing dissociative presence in the ethically exogenous socioeconomic treatment under “shari'ah‐compliance.”     

Modernity/art and Marketing/aesthetics—a Note on the Social Aesthetics of Georg Simmel

This paper interrogates and contrasts representations of work and Utopia in two examples of popular culture. The examples are a sample of contemporary popular management books and a sample of work-related themes in the popular music of Bruce Springsteen. In comparing the two the paper examines how they both use utopian representations as a key element of their claims, yet do so in markedly different ways. It is argued that Springsteen uses a “voice from within” to explore the ambiguities and paradoxes that emerge from the gap between real experience and utopian desire. Conversely, popular management books tend to speak from a “voice from above” that actively suppress ambiguity and ignore power in order to reproduce the dominant ethos of contemporary capitalism. Thus while popular management provides uncritical support for its imaginary Utopia, Springsteen provides a compelling critique of the promises of economic freedom through capitalism—promises which management writers are so often complicit in (re)producing.     

Green governance? Local politics and ethical businesses in Great Britain

One of the least understood aspects of the world‐wide “greening of markets” is the emergence of local “ethical marketplaces” and the subset of alternative business models described as “ethical businesses.” But previous research has demonstrated the ability of local politicians to encourage their regions toward more ethical marketplaces. This paper explores the impact radical centrist third party representation has on the emergence of ethical businesses across Great Britain. To understand this relationship, we utilize a novel data set of organizations with membership in Ethical Junction, the United Kingdom's largest network for ethical businesses. We use a zero‐inflated Poisson regression to model the connection, and find a meaningful relationship, between third‐party political representation on British local councils and the presence of ethical businesses within local authorities. This presents an example of the way in which radical political change may be part of a wider social movement toward greening markets.     

Global production sharing: Exploring Australia's competitive edge

Cross‐border dispersion of production processes within vertically integrated global industries (“global production sharing”) has been an increasingly important structural feature of economic globalisation in the recent decades. This paper examines patterns and determinants of global production sharing with an emphasis on how Australian manufacturing fits into global production networks (GPNs). Though Australia is a minor player in GPNs, there is evidence that Australian manufacturing has a distinct competitive edge in specialised, skill‐intensive tasks in several industries such as aircraft, medical devices, machine tools, measuring and scientific equipment and photographic equipment. Specialisation in high‐value‐to‐weight components and final goods within GPNs, which are suitable for air transport, helps Australian manufacturing to overcome the “tyranny of distance” in world trade. Being predominantly “relationship specific,” Australian GPN exports are not significantly susceptible to real exchange rate appreciation.     

Saving,Selling, Earning,and Negotiating: How Adolescents Acquire Monetary Lump Sums and Who Considers Saving

This study examines the importance of saving during adolescence as one way of obtaining larger sums of money, and investigates differences between adolescents who choose to save and those who do not. To this end, the strategies “saving,” “negotiating,” “selling,” and “earning” are taken into account in designing a questionnaire. Two measures of saving behaviors are used: “general tendency to save” and “saving by adjusting expenditure” when faced with an income constraint. The sample consists of 470 British school students from age 11 to 18. Results show that up to age 15, the strategies “saving” and “negotiating” are equally important and more important than “selling” or “earning.” When 15 or older, adolescents prefer “saving” above “negotiating.” Regression analyses reveal that adolescents who favor “saving” when confronted with a short‐term income constraint report a general tendency to save. Findings demonstrate the importance of developing positive financial habits early in life.     

Competitive Marketing Strategies: A Survey of Japanese Manufacturing Firms' Competitive Performance in the British Market

The role of Japanese corporations in world markets has become so crucial that an understanding of the rules of competition employed by the Japanese is essential for all those involved in international business. The aim of this survey was to gain an insight into the role marketing plays in affecting the competitive position of Japanese firms in the British market. In particular the researcher focused on the overall approach of Japanese companies to the marketplace and the process by which they identify and bring products to the market.

The broad findings emerging from this study present few surprises, Japanese companies do not seem to suffer from a “sales orientation”, a “production orientation” or “finance orientation” as opposed to a “marketing orientation”. The in‐roads being made into the British market are based by and large on a strategy aimed at satisfying customer needs and wants. Japanese companies saw their strengths in placing emphasis on research and engineering and bringing the right product to the market quickly and decisively.     

Measuring market orientation: A multi‐factor,multi‐item approach

The marketing literature reflects remarkable inconsistency in defining two of its most frequently used terms, “the marketing concept” and “market orientation”. Through a critical review of the marketing literature and an empirical analysis of data collected from 248 Canadian firms, the authors established a four‐component measure of “market orientation”. The resulting multi‐factor, multi‐item instrument provides a foundation for future studies.     

Trends in international business,thought, and literature: The past and future of political analysis for international business

The literature on political risks (and opportunities) in international business has expanded far beyond its initial preoccupation with expropriation and instability in “third world,” developing countries. The literature has thus become more concerned with other types of government policies and with political conditions in “first world” and “second world” countries as well. In those respects, the literature has developed analytically and become of more widespread relevance to managerial issues in international business. This article reviews the topical coverage of the political risk literature of international business, and in addition it considers key analytical issues concerning the levels of analysis, theoretical content, and analytical methods that have been evident, as well as those that have been neglected. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Collaboration,motivation, and the size of organizations

We present an analytical model of an organization that offers operational drivers of limits on team size. The model trades off benefits from collaborative problem solving against the disadvantages of diminishing motivation when groups get large. Collaboration is represented as parallel employee activity combined with frequent sharing of partial information, with a resulting superlinear performance increase over team size. Motivation is modeled by team members periodically setting an effort level either to contribute to the best of their ability or to “cruise”; at the minimum level not recognizable as shirking. Each individual decision is limited by bounded rationality based on team rewards, the time horizon of team interaction, and individual expectations about colleagues’ behavior. The decision collapses to a simple “barrier rule”;. Work hard when a certain “barrier percentage”; of team members work hard, and otherwise shirk. The influence of team size on this barrier percentage depends on the extent of benefits from collaboration: As long as performance increases quadratically with team size, the increased benefits resulting from collaboration exactly balance the temptation to shirk, with the barrier percentage approaching a fixed limit for large team sizes. As soon as the performance increase slows to anything less than quadratic, shirking eventually sets in and limits the possible size of the team. This implies that cooperation is sustainable in large organizational units, provided the problem‐solving processes used are powerful enough to ensure sufficient performance increases. Thus, effective problem‐solving methods are of double value, improving direct productivity and mitigating the social dilemma from team production. A manager should enlarge his or her organization up to the minimum of the limit set by the cooperation barrier and the exogenous performance limit.     

Chinese cross‐border mergers and acquisitions in the developing world: Is Africa unique?

China has emerged as an important partner for Africa. Not surprisingly, Chinese business and investment relations with Africa have been growing. This article contends that Africa offers a different proposition to Chinese business interests in non‐African developing economies. In this optic, it takes a “comparative” institution‐based view treating factors that determine Chinese multinationals' cross‐border merger and acquisition (CBMA) decisions as comparatively different for Africa to the rest of the developing world. From a panel data estimation of the number of Chinese CBMAs from 2007 to 2016, we find among market size, natural resources, strategic assets, labor productivity, and institutional governance, only natural resources and market size have a distinctive effect, with Chinese investors being more attracted to African natural resources than the African market. The drive for natural resources provides impetus for Chinese MNEs to choose CBMAs over greenfield investment, and through majority ownership to exercise control. Our inference is that Africa is “significantly” different from other developing regions, in terms of CBMAs, as Chinese multinationals have a strong motive to control access to natural resources.     

Four visions of e‐commerce in Latin America in the year 2010

Excitement is growing around the world about the Internet's potential to enable a global electronic commerce. The reality, however, differs a great deal depending on what part of the world we consider. In Latin America, the e‐commerce theme is often found in the popular press portraying it as a solution for multiple national problems and as a catalyst to propel the region to a stronger position in the world economy. Unfortunately, many of the “new” capabilities required to harness the economic benefit of e‐commerce, which emphasize value‐adding steps performed through and with information, are very scarce in the region. This article raises questions about Latin America's ability to exploit the Internet, and to implement and capitalize on e‐commerce applications. It underscores the region's need to engage in a future planning discourse about the adoption of e‐commerce within organizations, communities, and across traditional boundaries of competition and national borders. To start the dialogue, four scenarios are presented as “future snapshots” written from the vantage point of the year 2010. Each scenario considers issues regarding technological adoption and potential social responses, and discusses some of the critical assumptions about patterns observed in the region today and their implications for the future. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

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.     

Making the ‘handmade’ bike and trying to make a living: market objects,field-configuring events and some limits to market making

In line with growing interest in craft and maker economies, I examine the resurgence of handmade bicycle fabricators (“framebuilders”) in the U.S. since the early 2000s. I provide an account of one of the driving elements of this framebuilding renaissance, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, considered as a “field-configuring event” through – and around – which forms of market-making and market object stabilization processes were achieved. I focus in particular on the way in which the “handmade bike” as a market object was stabilized and defined. Expanding on the “markets as practice” literature, I take up a larger concern with how these market-making and field-configuring dynamics connect to the material position of those within the field and their pursuit of livelihood. I find that, paradoxically, the particular successful stabilization of the “handmade” bicycle achieved around the show was difficult to sustain as a business model for many framebuilders.     

A new model with old problems?

The stabilization of export earnings from primary commodities within the framework of the Convention of Lomé was eulogized as a “historic event”, “a gleam of common sense in this world” and an approach to a general solution. How is this agreement to be judged?     

Consumer Brand Hate: Steam rolling whatever I see

This study aims to investigate negative consumer‐brand relationships by developing a “Brand Hate” concept. A hierarchical Brand Hate model is theoretically discussed in light of the psychology and consumer behavior literatures. In Study‐I the Brand Hate concept was tested with two different types of consumer brand haters, true haters, and regular haters. The study found that in the study's proposed multidimensional Brand Hate hierarchy true haters display “Boiling Brand Hate” while regular haters reveal “Seething Brand Hate.” Two additional studies were developed to examine the relationship between consumer personality traits and Brand Hate, exploring which types of consumers are more prone to feel hatred toward targeted brands. Study‐II's findings revealed a relationship between consumers who are high in personality traits of “conscientiousness” and those who Brand Hate. Study‐III's findings indicated that “self‐confident” and “competitive” consumers might also be more prone to feel hatred toward those brands that perform poorly and unethically.     

Industrial Specialization,Catching‐up and Labour Market Dynamics

This paper presents a dynamic model as a heuristic tool to discuss some issues of changing industrial specialization which arise in the context of catching‐up processes of (technologically) less advanced economies and the impact which various scenarios of such catching‐up processes might have on the labour market dynamics both in the advanced and in the catching‐up economies. In analysing the evolution of international specialization, we demonstrate the twin pressures exerted upon the industrial structures of “northern” economies: competition from “type‐A southern” economies, which maintain a comparative competitive strength in labour‐intensive and less skill‐intensive branches, and competition from “type‐B catching‐up” economies, whose catching‐up increasingly focuses upon branches in which the initial productivity gaps and hence the scope for catching‐up are the highest. The contrast between these two catching‐up scenarios allows the explicit analysis of the implications of “comparative advantage switchovers” between northern and southern (type B) economies for labour market dynamics.