Bargaining with Multinationals: Why State Capacity Matters

Dominant models of bargaining between states and multinational corporations (MNCs) have widely held that bargaining relations, especially in high-technology manufacturing, have changed from confrontational to cooperative. It is consequently argued that there is little formal entry bargaining among these actors. However, there are three primary weaknesses in this literature. First, the understanding of outcomes is limited to the terms of investment agreements. This static view ignores the dynamics of bargaining processes and decisions not to invest, which also deserve explanation. Second, it is MNC-centric, ignoring state's privileged role in relation to the governance of entry bargaining in domestic policy-making processes. Third, it views state as a monolithic entity, ignoring the bargaining that occurs inside states. To redress these issues, this article offers a state-centric bargaining model. It identifies administrative and institutional capacity as two critical components of state capacity. It chooses the entry bargaining from 2005, when Hyundai Motors Corporation considered establishing a USD1.5 billion car-manufacturing plant in Turkey. It shows that state capacity in the governance of a domestic policy-making process affects the outcome of entry bargaining: When state capacity is weak, an MNC's decision not to invest is a more likely outcome.     

Ethical judgments and intentions: a multinational study of marketing professionals

A multinational study of marketing professionals was conducted in the US, England, Spain and Turkey. Respondents from these countries were compared on various ethics-related constructs such as idealism, relativism, moral intensity and corporate ethical values. Analyses of variance indicated that moral intensity had a signi ?cant impact on both ethical judgments and behavioral intentions. However, corporate ethical values, an idealistic ethical perspective and a relativistic ethical perspective only partially impacted ethical judgments and intentions. Country differences showed that the US was highest in terms of corporate ethical values while being the lowest in terms of relativism and signi?cantly lower than Spain and Turkey in terms of idealism. Turkey was the highest in terms of both idealism and relativism yet lowest in terms of corporate ethical values. Country differences in terms of moral intensity tended to be situation-speci?c. One managerial implication, for ?rms in all four countries, is that a clear set of corporate policies concerning ethics can positively in?uence the behavioral intentions of employees. It is important that employees do not misinterpret the desires of top management where ethical issues are involved.     

Exponential Tilting with Weak Instruments: Estimation and Testing*

This article analyses exponential tilting estimator with weak instruments in a nonlinear framework. Our paper differs from the previous literature in the context of consistency proof. Tests that are robust to the identification problem are also analysed. These are Anderson–Rubin and Kleibergen types of test statistics. We also conduct a simulation study wherein we compare empirical likelihood and continuous updating‐based tests with exponential tilting (ET)‐based ones. The designs involve GARCH(1,1) and contaminated structural errors. We find that ET‐based Kleibergen test has the best size among these competitors.     

Corporate Sponsorships in Schools: Altruism and Ethical Judgments

Over the last several years corporate sponsorships have become prevalent within the U.S. K–12 school system. For corporations, sponsorships can be an effective method for targeting young consumers. For schools, corporate sponsorships are an opportunity to replace state funding that has been lost since the 2007 financial crisis. However, many people have voiced concerns about the ethicality of corporate involvement in schools. Accordingly, the purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine parents’ views of corporate-school sponsorships. Results indicate that altruism is a key factor; that is, sponsorships that provide direct benefits to students are viewed more favorably, and that parents who are critical of children's advertising tend to view corporate-school sponsorships less favorably.     

Inaudible Noise: Belgrade’s Academy Club: Legacy,Old Locals and New Spaces

Abstract

This text deals with the transformation of spaces for ‘underground’ forms of leisure in Belgrade, Serbia. In these spaces, different styles of non‐mainstream music are enjoyed by disparate social groups, referred to here as ‘the underground scene’. The spatial and stylistic transformation of venues for ‘creative leisure’ in Belgrade is read in this article as an articulation of discourse. Fragmentation of music consumption is arguably a global trend acknowledged in many treatises. Discourses within the multifaceted Belgrade underground music scene seem to correspond to such fragmentation. In this case it was found that the development of such identity practices depends on the articulation of concrete social factors and constraints. This paper focuses on the Academy nightclub, its transformations and long‐term impact on the Belgrade scene, including the emergence of other venues that have superseded, but have not fully surpassed, this seminal space.     

New product introductions below aspirations,slack and R&D alliances: A behavioral perspective

We develop hypotheses based on behavioral theory that explain how high technology firms' new product introduction (NPI) performance below aspiration levels impact the number of R&D alliances, and how slack moderates this relationship. Using panel data of U.S. biopharmaceutical firms, we find that as firms' NPI performance below historical aspiration levels increases the number of R&D alliances they form increases and slack intensifies this relationship. We contribute to alliance research by providing theory and empirical evidence that increases in the distance of NPI below aspirations serve as a motivation for increases in R&D alliances, and empirically to behavioral theory by revealing that NPI goals act similarly to financial performance goals in their impact on firms' actions and slack intensifies this relationship. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How national culture impacts teenage shopping behavior: Comparing French and American consumers

The global teen market has significant spending power and an important impact on the world economy. However, much remains unknown about the social motivations of teenage consumers and cross-national cultural differences in teenage shopping. This research studies teenage shopping motivations in two nations: the U.S., which is a highly individualistic national culture with low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance, and France, which is perhaps a somewhat more collectivist, more inter-dependent national culture with high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance. This research samples 570 teenage consumers. Susceptibility to peer influence (SPI) drives teenage consumer shopping in France, while both need for uniqueness (NFU) and SPI motivate teenage shopping in the U.S.