Entrepreneurs and internationalization: A study of Western immigrants in an emerging market

Our interview-based study began as an investigation of Westerners residing in Vietnam. Our sample fell into three groups: local expatriates, expatriate entrepreneurs, and hybrids (those who worked for a multinational while owning a local company). Based on this finding, we re-examined the data to explore expatriates as employers. Two themes emerged. The first revealed expatriate entrepreneurs and hybrids as active market players who were competitors for local talent and/or potential local distributors or partners in Vietnam. The second theme indicated a parallel process: the internationalization of firms entering a foreign market and the internationalization of individuals entering that same market. Our contribution is the opening of the ‘homogeneous’ black box of Western immigrants and the expansion of the concept of the expatriate entrepreneur, thus reinserting the role of the individual in the process of firm internationalization.     

The role of mental health and addiction among high-cost patients: a population-based study

Aims: Previous work found that, among high-cost patients, those with a majority of mental health and addiction (MHA)-related costs (>50%) incur over 30% more costs than other high-cost patients. However, this work did not examine other high-cost patients in depth or whether they had any MHA-related costs. The objective of this analysis was to examine the role of MHA-related care among other high-cost patients.

Methods: Using administrative healthcare data from Ontario, Canada, this study selected all patients in the 90th percentile of the cost distribution in 2012. It focused primarily on two groups based on the percentage of MHA-related costs relative to total costs: (1) high-cost patients with some MHA-related costs (0%?>?and <50%) and (2) high-cost patients with no MHA-related costs (0%). We examined socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, utilization and costs for both groups, and modeled patient-level costs using appropriate regression techniques. We also compared these groups with high-cost patients with a majority of MHA-related costs (>50%).

Results: High-cost patients with some MHA-related costs incurred over 40% more costs than those without ($27,883 vs $19,702). Patients with some MHA-related costs were older, lived in poorer neighborhoods, and had higher levels of comorbidity compared to those without. After controlling for relevant variables, having any type of MHA-related utilization increased costs by $2,698. Having a diagnosis of psychosis had a large impact on costs.

Limitations: This study did not examine children and adolescents. We were only able to account for 91% of all costs incurred by the public third-party payer; addiction-related costs from community-based agencies were not available.

Conclusions: High-cost patients with MHA incur higher costs compared to those without. When considering interventions aimed at high-cost patients, policy-makers should consider their complex nature, specifically both their physical and MHA-related comorbidities.     

The making of women trade union leaders

A trade union's constitution is intended to produce its leaders in a democratic and even-handed manner, but the reality for women is one of inequality. They remain almost invisible in senior positions in British unions. The social processes by which women do or do not progress in a union's career structure are investigated through a case study of SOGAT ‘82.     

EXPLORING STRATEGY PERCEPTIONS IN CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS*

This article explores how a firm perceives its own strategy and that of its competitors. Findings from an exploratory, sociometric study covering both a period of ‘boom’ and a period of ‘bust’ demonstrated that firms and competitors differ greatly in their strategy perceptions. These perceptions were also found to differ from ‘objective’ evaluations made by the investigator. None of the firms studied was found to change their basic strategy in response to environmental jolts.     

Accounting Students and Communication Apprehension: A Study of Spanish and UK Students

ABSTRACT

Accounting is about measuring and communicating. Accounting bodies and employers have expressed opinions, which have been supported by research results, advocating that greater emphasis is placed on the development of communication skills throughout the education and training of accountants. Consequently, an increasing number of accounting programmes now include communication skills as educational objectives or learning outcomes, and have integrated activities into the curriculum specifically to develop these skills. It is important to recognise that certain factors can severely restrict the development of communication skills; a major factor is communication apprehension. Research suggests that the existence of high levels of communication apprehension will make efforts to improve communication skills ineffective. Previous research findings indicate that accounting students have high levels of communication apprehension. This paper compares and contrasts the levels and profiles of communication apprehension exhibited by accounting students at the (UK University) and those at the (ESP University). The levels of communication apprehension are also compared with those of students from other disciplines at the same institutions. The results confirm the high levels of communication apprehension in European accounting students. There are notable differences between the two countries however in certain underlying factors.     

Explore how Chinese consumers evaluate retail service quality and satisfaction

The present study explores how Chinese consumers evaluate retail service quality and satisfaction. A questionnaire including items from SERVQUAL and RSQS was developed and administrated to a random sample of 556 Chinese consumers based on a literature review of retail service quality. The results of confirmatory factor analyses showed that neither SERVQUAL nor RSQS was able to fit the collected data appropriately. Employing exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, a four-factor higher-order retail service quality model, ReServQual, in which interaction and trustworthiness, store environment, understanding the consumers, and policy were key dimensions, was identified. The current study contributes to the literature on service business research by reexamining and extending the existing service quality models in the Chinese context. Global and regional retailers should realize that consumers’ perceptions are country specific.     

Asset bubbles,monetary policy and bank lending in Japan: an empirical investigation

Asset prices rose rapidly in Japan during the latter half of the 1980s, and then declined as quickly in the early 1990s. Their behaviour is consistent with the existence of speculative ‘bubbles’ in these markets. This paper investigates the dynamic relationships among stock and land prices in Japan, output, and monetary and bank lending variables. The results of causality tests and variance decompositions are reported for two time periods, 1972#1501985 and 1986#1501991. The price bubbles affected each other in the first period, although the size of this impact is dependent on the choice of variables in the VARs. In the bubble period, there is strong evidence that the stock market bubble was determined by its own past and also influenced the land market bubble, accounting for a significant proportion of the variance of the land market bubble. However, neither output, the money supply nor the lending variables were significant in the causality tests or in explaining the variation of the two assset bubbles.