A CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COMPARISON OF PRESCRIBED VERSUS PREFERRED PATTERNS OF MANAGERIAL STRUCTURE

Previous research indicates that effective operating systems adopt structural patterns appropriate to their environmental uncertainty. Production units have typically been found to require more structure than comparable research organizations. The current findings document a consistent mismatch between the relative structural levels desired by research and production managers and the structural levels currently recommended for their respective functions. Implications regarding this conflict between organizational efficiency and employee attitudes are presented.     

Framing adaptive capacity through a history–futures lens: Lessons from the South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative

This paper explores how the history–futures interface can inform a set of concrete adaptation options to climate change for stakeholders in South East Queensland, Australia. It is based on research undertaken as part of the Commonwealth funded South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative (SEQ-CARI) that profiled 33 historical case studies to identify common themes in the ways societies responded to stress. The case studies are intended to provide a context for thinking about adaptive capacity with stakeholders in the four areas of human settlement and health; energy; agriculture, forestry and fisheries; and ecosystems and biodiversity. The case studies demonstrate that adaptive capacity varies with context and is affected by the complexity, technology, leadership, institutions and imaginative resources inherent to the social system examined. To increase the possibilities for reflection by stakeholders, the case studies were used to create a set of historical scenarios that explore some of the key features of human responses to challenges such as climate change. This paper draws on this work to suggest a set of ‘practical’ lessons for those engaged with climate change today and into the future.     

Do Compensation Committee Members Perceive Changing CEO Incentive Performance Targets Mid-Cycle to be Fair?

Exploring the construct of social-responsibility orientation across three Asian and two Western societies (Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States), we show evidence that top-level executives in these societies hold fundamentally different beliefs about their responsibilities toward different stakeholders, with concomitant implications for their understanding and enactment of responsible leadership. We further find that these variations are more closely aligned with institutional factors than with cultural variables, suggesting a need to clarify the connection between culture and institutions on the one hand and culture and social-responsibility orientations on the other.     

ICT,Innovation and Firm Performance: The Transition Economies Context

The aim of this article is to investigate the impact of information communication technologies (ICT) and innovation activities on firm performance using the Business Environment Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) firm-level data in the three rounds: 2002, 2005, and 2008. The novelty of this research is based on the idea of studying the usage of ICT and innovation activities on firm performance by using dynamic approach so that we can estimate the adjustments that arise from the impact of ICT and innovation activities. The rapid technological development and the growing use of information technology (IT) in business organizations have become the center of attention in past few years. A bulk of literature has been published on the use of IT in different industries, different types of business organizations, and in different areas of business management. On the other hand, the probability of the firm to undertake innovation activities has shown to enhance firm performance. This study implements various estimations on BEEPS observations to test whether the change in the usage of ICT and other innovation determinants have increase the probability of firms to undertake innovation activities. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Claiming a family brand identity: The role of website storytelling

This study focuses on the creation of a family identity as a central communication objective in business storytelling. We contribute to the field of business website marketing by identifying, through textual analysis of US winery website narratives, how businesses communicate family brand identities. Results show that three claims that are critical for family brand identities—character, temporal continuity, and distinctiveness—do appear in the website texts. Our study provides beginning evidence that family identity does not require family ownership alone but can be built upon complementary narrative elements and tactics, including kinship references and heritage storytelling. Both content and linguistic style of narratives are useful in conveying a family brand identity to an external public for website design. Implications are discussed.     

Determinants and Effects of Cultural Context: A Review,Conceptual Model,and Propositions

Edward Hall's pioneering work on “Silent Languages” of time, space, material possessions, friendship patterns, and agreements and his conceptualization of cultures as low-context and high-context have inspired numerous research studies on international and cross-cultural marketing. Despite these widespread applications, there is no research to date that integrates the theoretical foundations and applications of Hall's work in a single study. In this context, the current research delivers on the following three goals: (a) an extensive literature review of Hall's work on cultural context is done; (b) a conceptual model is developed that depicts the determinants and effects of cultural context; and (c) 12 propositions are developed, contrasting the effect of low- versus high-context cultures on a variety of cultural themes, such as Hofstede's five cultural dimensions, mono-chronic or M-time versus polychronic or P-time orientation, and relationship building etc. International marketing implications of this research and directions for future research are discussed.     

International entrepreneurship in resource-rich landlocked African countries

Despite the increase in research about international entrepreneurship, relatively little is known about the process in Africa. This is due to the disparity between the actualization of business ventures and global perceptions of African entrepreneurs. As a result of the diversity of countries within the African continent, the nature of international entrepreneurship varies with cultural and historical context. To address this research gap, we discuss how international entrepreneurship in Africa differs to the more studied traditionally North American and European perspective. To do this we develop a number of research propositions for resource-rich landlocked African countries (Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) that have unique characteristics in terms of how they approach international entrepreneurship. The research propositions suggest that resource-rich landlocked African countries need to focus on informal networks and cultural attributes as a way to differentiate themselves in the international marketplace. Managerial implications and theoretical research suggestions for differentiating resource-rich landlocked African countries from the more resource scarce and coastal countries are stated.     

Consumption in the public eye: The influence of social presence on service experience

Continuous improvement in managing customer relationships is a necessity for companies wishing to remain competitive in today's global marketplace. The two studies presented herein respond to this need by developing and testing a new nomological net that features social presence and its moderators as antecedents to service satisfaction. Study 1 discovers that when service experiences are positive, social presence enhances service satisfaction. Study 2 examines the interaction between service experience valence, social presence type and self-construal prime. The results show that when an interdependent self-construal is primed, social presence (both in-group and out-group) increases service satisfaction (dissatisfaction) during a positive (negative) service encounter, whereas, when an independent self-construal is primed, social presence exerts little impact on service satisfaction. Managers can benefit from these findings by considering the impact of social presence as they design their servicescapes.     

贸易受益与汇率

多数教科书的相关理论都暗含着这样一个假设：汇率决定贸易受益的分配，而不是贸易受益的绝对水平。由于汇率不影响一国的相对价格，因此贸易结构和相应的贸易受益也不受影响。然而，汇率确实影响贸易条件和受益的分配，但相反却是中性的。本文将运用一个简单的两国、两种商品模型来说明贸易受益的分配（以国内货币计算）取决于发起贸易的国家。如果没有一个国家发起贸易，那么贸易受益则只意味着汇率。考虑到货币可兑换性，贸易结构将潜在地受到影响，货币的流动可能充当第三种“转移”商品的作用。由于外国货币都有一定的国内价值，在贸易框架内它就成为第三种商品，贸易受益就可能超过简单的两种商品、两个国家的情况。有趣的是，在货币可兑换的情况下，两种商品模型中的隐形汇率和双边贸易是不一致的。最后，本文认为文中建立的简单模型说明了汇率并不能平衡通货（或转移商品）的流动，同时仍然保留着可兑换性。     

Rural Amenity Values and Length of Residency

New residents of rural communities are often assumed to have preferences for development and conservation that differ from those of longer-term residents. However, the literature offers little to quantify presumed preference heterogeneity. This article assesses whether stated preferences differ according to length of residency. Results are based on a conjoint (choice experiment) survey of Rhode Island rural residents. Heterogeneity—according to length of town residency—is modeled using dummy variables, multiplicative interactions, and Lagrangian interpolation polynomials. Results are compared across the three models, and identify a range of attributes for which willingness to pay depends on length of residency.