Innovation Offshoring,Institutional Context and Innovation Performance: A Meta‐Analysis

Innovation offshoring (IO) has become a widespread management practice. Yet, evidence on the performance implications is inconsistent, and scattered across disciplines and contexts. We argue that the benefits firms can derive from IO depend on the institutional environment at home. Drawing on recent work on institutional theory in international business, we explore institutions that facilitate reverse knowledge transfer and/or institutional arbitrage with respect to innovation‐related activities. The results of our meta‐analysis that synthesizes evidence from 48 samples show that IO is related positively to innovation performance. As predicted, this relationship is moderated by differences in the institutional environments across countries. Specifically, when national innovation systems are weak at home, IO appears to enable institutional arbitrage strategy whereas Confucian cultures enable more effective reverse knowledge transfer. However, contrary to our expectations, the beneficial effects of IO appear to have diminished over time.     

The Impact of Institutional and Human Resource Distance on International Entry Strategies

'Distance' between organizational contexts has been a prime concern of scholarly research into international business strategies. We extend this research by exploring the complementary roles of institutional and human resource distances on foreign investors' entry strategies. Combining institutional and resource-based theories suggests that: (1) human resource differences complement institutional differences; (2) the effects of some aspects of distance are curvilinear; and (3) the impact of distance differs between first and subsequent entries. We find empirical support for these arguments on a unique dataset of foreign direct investment in six emerging economies that incorporates multiple host as well as multiple home countries.     

Flexible Working Practices In the Public,Not-For-Profit and Commercial Leisure Sectors In SCotland

Public sector leisure managers in the UK have been struggling, since the extension of compulsory competitive tendering to leisure management in 1989, to reconcile the conflicts between becoming more consumer led and satisfying the needs of the ‘recreationally deprived’. Rationalization has ensured that a fundamental priority for managers has been the introduction of more cost-effective working practices. This article examines the diversity in employment practices across the three sectors of the leisure industry, that is, the public, not-for-profit and private sectors. The case study evidence presented found clear differences between the sectors. Although managers in not-for-profit leisure facilities have more freedom to use greater flexibility in employment practices as compared with their public sector counterparts, they are still somewhat constrained by having to meet the social objectives set by their Board of Directors. Private sector managers were found to be providing the highest proportion of full-time jobs, although they offered lower conditions of employment. This was made possible by the funding certainties created by regular monthly/annual customer memberships.     

Towards Reducing the Harm: Workplace Bullying as Workplace Corruption—A Critical Review

Workplace bullying and workplace corruption are both disturbing workplace phenomena. However, despite considerable research into both, there remains insufficient understanding of either, including scant recognition that, at times, they may intersect. A critical review of what have been hitherto quite separate literatures is undertaken for the purpose of developing a research agenda that recognises the potential areas of overlap. Rather than isolating and distinguishing the two constructs, or attempting to link or explain their complex causes, secondary analysis of the respective literatures is critically undertaken to showcase the possible overlaps that can exist. What is presented is evidence from the literature that, sometimes, acts of workplace bullying are also acts of corruption, and have rarely been recognised as such previously. Recognising this overlap is intended to encourage the emergence of a new, and much needed, research agenda. Increased understanding of both these harmful workplace phenomena can then emerge to make our workplaces safer—for employees, employers, and the organisations that employ them.     

Beer and the Tie: Did Divestiture of Brewer-owned Public Houses Lead to Higher Beer Prices?

In 1989, the United Kingdom Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) recommended measures that eventually led brewers to divest themselves of 14,000 public houses. The MMC claimed that their recommendations would lower retail prices and increase consumer choice. Since that time, however, retail prices have risen. This paper contains an econometric analysis of the transition period. The analysis is based on a model of the relationship between retail price and retail-organisational form that emphasises how exclusive-dealing clauses and strategic factors interact     

Scaling the volatility of GDP growth rates

The distribution of shocks to GDP growth rates is found to be exponential rather than normal. Their standard deviation scales with GDP^β where β=−0.15±0.03. These macroeconomic results place restrictions on the microeconomic structure of interactions between agents.