The relationship between brokers’ influence, strength of ties and NPD project outcomes in innovation-driven horizontal networks

This paper examines the impact of a broker's perceived use of power – position (i.e., coercive, reward and legitimate) and personal (i.e., expert, information and referent) – on strength of ties between network members and new product development (NPD) project outcomes. Our sample consists of 100 individuals drawn from 42 organizations that were involved in different innovation-driven horizontal networks. The results of structural equation modeling suggest that the perceived use of both personal power bases and position power bases by the broker are positively related to the strength of ties between members. Strength of ties, on the other hand, is positively related to NPD project outcomes of design performance and development time. Finally, results show that the relationships between a broker's use of different power bases and NPD project outcomes are fully mediated by the strength of ties between networks members. Implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed.     

Leadership and Innovation: Informal Power and Its Relationship to Innovative Culture

The current article sought to contribute to the literature on leadership and power by exploring two relatively new and less‐examined bases of social power: information power and connection power. Data from 160 employees were collected, and principal component analysis was used to examine the uniqueness of each power source. Support was found for expert, legitimate, reward, coercive, and the newly developed construct of connection power. Limited support was found for referent and information power. Furthermore, the association between information power, connection power, and informal power with innovative culture (operationally defined as adhocracy culture) was examined. For exploratory purposes, one item measuring horizontal structure was included. The findings suggested that informal sources of power, particularly when combined with a horizontal organizational structure, complemented and reinforced an innovative culture. Implications and future research directions were discussed.     

The influence of exchange hazards and power on opportunism in outsourcing relationships

Service provider opportunism is widely noted as a principal risk with outsourcing. Indeed, economic theory regarding the factors which influence the outsourcing decision, treats opportunism as a core behavioral assumption. It is assumed that if given the opportunity, outsourcing providers will act in a self-serving manner despite the potentially negative impact it may have on their customer. Other researchers have suggested that opportunism is not an unwavering human behavior, but rather can be substantively influenced by the management practices which define the relationship. Building on these arguments, this study investigates the validity of these divergent positions. Hierarchical linear regression is used to examine dyadic data on 102 information technology, logistics, and other business process outsourcing relationships. We test a model which hypothesizes that the buying firm's reliance on different bases of inter-firm power will have differing effects on the risk of opportunism (shirking and poaching). These hypotheses are evaluated while concurrently examining the influence of exchange hazards (relationship-specific investments and technological uncertainty) on provider shirking and poaching. The results offer strong evidence that buyer reliance on mediated forms of power (i.e. rewards, coercive, legal legitimate) enhance the risk of both provider shirking and poaching, while non-mediated power (i.e. expert, referent) is associated with a diminished level of opportunistic behavior. Interestingly, relationship-specific investments have a significant effect on some forms of opportunistic behavior but not on other forms of opportunistic behavior. Technological uncertainty did not have a significant impact on provider opportunism.     

The international business cycle and gold-price fluctuations

Drawing on recent empirical research, we study whether the international business cycle, as measured in terms of the output gaps of the G7 countries, has out-of-sample predictive power for gold-price fluctuations. To this end, we use a real-time forecasting approach that accounts for model uncertainty and model instability. We find some evidence that the international business cycle has predictive power for gold-price fluctuations. After accounting for transaction costs, a simple trading rule that builds on real-time out-of-sample forecasts does not lead to a superior performance relative to a buy-and-hold strategy. We also suggest a behavioral-finance approach to study the quality of out-of-sample forecasts from the perspective of forecasters with potentially asymmetric loss functions.     

Actions speak louder than words: how employees mind the implementation gap

Abstract

Integral to employees’ working lives are the HR policies and more importantly, the practices that follow those and their implementation, which employees experience directly. To date, research on HR implementation considers how HRM is ‘done to’ employees by management and therefore ignores the agency of individuals to shape how HRM is ‘done to them’. Taking the perspective of employees, in a qualitative study of female lawyers, this paper examines employees’ roles in shaping HR implementation, addressing a lack of understanding about the role of ‘others’ in the process. Drawing on the concept of social power, the article focuses on the implementation of agile working practices within UK-based law firms. It finds that despite lacking legitimate position power to influence processes, employees draw on a variety of other power sources (e.g. referent, information, coercive) and tactics (e.g. leveraging membership of professional networks) in order to influence their working environment with respect to HR policy and practice, particularly in response to perceived implementation gaps. The current study underlines that employees may be integral to bridging the gap between policy and practice and therefore to ensuring the link between HRM and organisational performance. It also proposes that behavioural responses to HR practices should be considered in future theorising of the HRM-performance relationship.     

Information technology and firm performance: the role of supply chain integration

This study analyzes the correlation among integrative information technology (IT), supply chain integration (SCI), and firm performance. The results show that integrative IT is positively associated with firm performance through SCI. However, the results of this study show that integrative IT does not have a positive correlation directly with firm performance. It is considered that in the relationship between integrative IT and firm performance, a new approach such as business process-oriented view arguing that performance is yielded through the primary influence of IT is necessary rather than a traditional view that sets up their direct correlations. The findings have the following implications. First, this study presents an endeavor to investigate the consequences of integrative supply chain strategy. Second, this study provides implications in decision making so that supply chain managers can use IT in an effective way.     

企业会选择与竞争对手共享审计师吗?——基于经营范围相似度的分析

在选择最适合自身需求的审计师方面,企业会关注竞争对手的选择,并在享受审计专家服务与保护专有信息外溢之间寻求平衡。以企业的收入排名和经营范围的相似度衡量竞争对手,检验竞争对手间的审计师共享行为。研究发现,当行业内经营范围高度相似的两个企业互为竞争对手时,共享审计师的可能性较低;行业竞争激烈程度会放大竞争对手共享审计师的负向关系;但当外部审计师为审计专家时,会改变同行竞争对手不愿共享审计师的倾向;从经济后果来看,聘用同一会计师事务所的同行企业会有相似的经济决策。从财务层面构建衡量竞争对手的方法,验证竞争对手间的共享审计师问题,发现审计师不仅是财务报表的鉴证者,也是知识与资源丰富的信息中介与来源。     

Customers cocreating value with the firm: implications for IHRM

The purpose of this article is to develop a theoretical framework for governing an organization's relationships with customers engaged as contributors to the organization's business processes (i.e. customers as quasi-employees). Based on our suggested framework, we explain how appropriate customer-centric HRM practices can support more cost-effective and accommodating adaptations in the organization's governance of its relationships with customers. We complement these propositions with practical examples illustrating how customers who take different cooperative roles will increasingly become valuable organizational assets. The collaborating customers not only provide the information necessary for the successful performance of the service exchange, but also contribute human and social capital in performing tasks that are a complement to or a substitute for employee tasks. In conclusion, we outline implications for international human resource management (IHRM), as well as future research directions for examining the relationships among customer governance, role configurations, and IHRM practices.     

Work‐To‐Life Conflict and Enrichment Among International Business Travelers: The Role of International Career Orientation

The present study examines the direct and moderating effects of an international career orientation in the relationship between frequency and duration of international business traveling and work‐to‐life conflict and enrichment. In addition, the effort‐reward imbalance that potentially features in the international business traveler's job was examined in relation to work‐to‐life conflict and enrichment. The study was conducted among 232 Finnish people in jobs requiring international business travel. A moderated hierarchical regression analysis shows that travel of considerable duration and a pronounced effort‐reward imbalance had direct links to work‐to‐life conflict. In contrast, low effort‐reward imbalance and a strong international career orientation had direct links to work‐to‐life enrichment. In addition, having a strong orientation to an international career decreases work‐to‐life conflict when a job requires very frequent traveling, but the moderation effect was not found in relation to duration of traveling. Our findings indicate that interventions aimed at reducing work‐to‐life conflict and increasing work‐to‐life enrichment among international business travelers should focus on fostering a balance between efforts and rewards at work. The extent of employees’ internationalism should also be considered when recruiting people into jobs involving international business travel. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Employee reactions to voice and choice in the workplace: the influence of culture

The present study investigated the effect of culture on a much-prescribed management practice, that of employee participation in decision making. A survey was conducted among employees from two countries culturally distinct in the dimensions of power distance and individualism, namely Canada and the Philippines. Given eight decision-making scenarios that varied in terms of whether voice and/or choice was given to the employee and in terms of the importance of the outcomes, the respondents were asked about their perceptions of fairness of the procedures and outcomes, satisfaction with the procedures and outcomes, and preference for the decision-making procedures. Results show a highly significant country decision-making mode outcome importance interaction effect, but not in the directions expected. Overall, the Philippine sample registered more positive reactions to participation in decision making, although the Philippines' higher rank in power distance and lower rank in individualism than Canada seem to indicate otherwise. The results, together with a previous study conducted in high power distance-low individualism Mexico, forcefully suggest that employee participation in decision making may be successfully transferred.     

Business conditions, shared resources and integrative practices in the supply chain

Integration is one of the important concepts in supply chain management. Both in theoretical and empirical contributions, it is shown that integrative practices improve supply chain performance. Our knowledge with respect to which integrative practices are appropriate under different circumstances is limited. This paper develops propositions regarding the influence of business conditions and the type of resources on integrative practices in links between buyers and suppliers. We will study nine business units and the relationship with their key buyers. For each unit, we will investigate the business conditions, the employment of resources for key buyers and the type and level of integrative practices. Higher complexity in business conditions requires higher levels of integration (specifically in the areas of planning and organisation), which are stimulated by buyer-focused resources and restricted by shared resources. In case of lower complexity, we find lower levels of integrative practices. Here, the influence of shared resources on integration is limited.     

The international business traveller: a neglected but strategic human resource

There has been considerable research over the past two decades into the various aspects of traditional expatriate assignments. However, this research has overlooked an important category of international operator: the international business traveller, also known popularly as globetrotter or frequent flier. In this paper, we report on the results of a study of ten Australian and Danish international business travellers (IBTs). The aim was to explore the roles and activities of IBTs and the factors, such as level of organizational support that may intervene in the performance of their roles. We conclude that IBTs often are a neglected resource, particularly in terms of skills and knowledge transfer.     

企业社会责任与商业信用模式——基于信任的视角

基于信任视角,以企业与供应商之间商业信用模式选择来间接衡量企业间的信任度,以是否披露社会责任报告及报告信息质量来衡量企业社会责任表现,对企业社会责任在提升企业信任度中所起的作用进行实证检验,研究结果显示：相对于没有披露社会责任报告的企业,披露社会责任报告企业的商业信用成本更低;社会责任报告质量越高越有利于降低商业信用成本;地区生产者合法权益保护水平与社会责任报告质量对商业信用成本的影响存在替代关系,即生产者合法权益保护水平越差的地区,企业社会责任报告质量对商业信用成本的负向影响越大。     

Improving the wisdom of crowds with analysis of variance of predictions of related outcomes

Decision-makers often collect and aggregate experts’ point predictions about continuous outcomes, such as stock returns or product sales. In this article, we model experts as Bayesian agents and show that means, including the (weighted) arithmetic mean, trimmed means, median, geometric mean, and essentially all other measures of central tendency, do not use all information in the predictions. Intuitively, they assume idiosyncratic differences to arise from error instead of private information and hence do not update the prior with all available information. Updating means in terms of unused information improves their expected accuracy but depends on the experts’ prior and information structure that cannot be estimated based on a single prediction per expert. In many applications, however, experts consider multiple stocks, products, or other related items at the same time. For such contexts, we introduce ANOVA updating – an unsupervised technique that updates means based on experts’ predictions of multiple outcomes from a common population. The technique is illustrated on several real-world datasets.     

现代电子商务给企业信息管理带来的机遇与挑战

物联网、移动互联网和云计算为现代电子商务的发展带来了不可多得的机遇。电子商务有助于企业在提高企业信息管理水平方面获得长足进步。而凭借全球最大的互联网和移动互联网网民数量,中国势必在不久的将来出现类似腾讯、百度的全球性互联网巨人。     

新型农村合作医疗管理的业务需求分析

以新型农村合作医疗管理信息系统应用项目的研发工作为基础,按照软件工程的要求,阐述了新型农村合作医疗管理信息系统的业务需求分析。     

The Governance of Accounting Academia: Issues for a Debate

Abstract

Philosophy and sociology of science have devoted significant attention to processes which define what counts as valid scientific knowledge thus making the producers of such knowledge legitimate academics at the expense of those who do not conform to the cliché. In accounting, too, a vibrant debate has augmented our understanding of the conditions which make certain kinds of accounting knowledge more acceptable than others. The debate included, but was not limited to, issues such as, the institutional arrangements of accounting academic associations and doctoral training regimes and how these shape journals' editorial boards and the selection of published articles. This introduction aims to reopen that debate on the two realms of institutions and practices. In terms of institutional arrangements, we note relevant changes in the forces which contribute to define the quality and relevance of accounting knowledge. We discuss the institutional space towards which accounting departments and scholars are increasingly migrating, that is, business schools. These are often separated from universities and operate under pressures which are sometimes only marginally academic in nature. In terms of practices, we observe changes in academic training regimes which favour the proliferation of opportunistic behaviours. These changes call for a debate on the governance of accounting academia, if academia is to be a knowledge and ethical, and not simply rather a business enterprise.     

The impact of opportunity connectedness on innovation in SMEs’ foreign-market relationships

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use of business networks has grown significantly during the last decades, partly due to increasingly complex innovation processes. This article investigates how different kinds of networks, depending on location, contextualize innovation in specific foreign market business relationships. Building on internationalization, network, and innovation research we develop a model that views opportunity connectedness in specific host-markets, home-markets, and other international markets as prerequisites to innovative collaboration and innovation outcomes in foreign business relationships. The results of our linear structural relations (LISREL) analysis of Swedish SMEs provide empirical evidence that the effect of opportunity connectedness on innovation outcomes in foreign business relationships is mediated by the level of innovative collaboration. These results indicate that SMEs need a relatively higher level of innovative collaboration in their partnerships with foreign market customers to convert opportunities conceived in home- and international- market networks into innovative outcomes in comparison to opportunities conceived in host-market networks. This finding implies that as opportunities become increasingly contextually remote, the importance of collaborative business relationships increases. By showing these results, the study contributes to research in the international small-business domain that seeks to identify important prerequisites of SME innovation.     

浅析商务英语谈判中“碳关税”对贸易的影响

在全球经济一体化的进程中,对外贸易谈判是最重要的沟通交流手段之一,谈判结果关系到国家和企业的切身利益。作为国际通用语言——商务英语是双方在谈判中沟通的媒介,国家及企业谈判代表必须熟练掌握并灵活运用商务英语的各种策略及技巧,以便实现谈判目标并且维护国家的正当利益。此文以"碳关税"对中国出口贸易的影响为例,聚焦了在发展经济中出现的温室气体排放问题。各国开始纷纷在碳关税问题上动作,国际上一些国家开始征收碳关税,此举既给中国出口贸易带来了机遇也给其带来了严峻的挑战。作为发展中国家,我们需要运用恰当有效的商务谈判技巧来最大限度的消除矛盾和平衡各方利益。     

Flexible global working arrangements: An integrative review and future research agenda

The topography of global mobility within multinational enterprises (MNEs) is evolving where we now have a portfolio of flexible global working arrangements (FGWAs) including: international business travellers, flexpatriates, short-term international assignees, international commuters, and rotational assignees. The need for more agile structures and more efficient mechanisms to transfer globally dispersed knowledge are two key enablers in this evolution. With increased interest, this paper offers the first systematic, integrative review of 100 articles on FGWAs. The review indicates that these forms of global work appear to be a somewhat overlooked double-edged sword in that they may confer significant but unrealised value for MNEs alongside hidden, adverse consequences for individuals. Notable was the lack of insight into the HR function's input or oversight at either a strategic or operational level. We find that there is a distinct lack of strategic linkages to global mobility and/or HR functions. We propose a research agenda that centres on better understanding the international HR function's role and responsibility in providing a more strategic and sustainable perspective of these increasingly common FGWAs alongside virtual work. The COVID-19 pandemic may offer a critical juncture point in which there is greater strategic consideration on the utilisation and support of such arrangements.