National Culture,Economic Development,Population Growth and Environmental Performance: The Mediating Role of Education

Literature on ethical behavior has paid little attention to the mechanism between macro-environmental variables and environmental performance. This study aims at constructing a model to examine the␣relationships which link cultural values, population growth, economic development, and environmental performance by incorporating the mediating role of education. The multiple linear regression model was employed to test the hypotheses on a 3-year-pooled sample of 51 countries. Empirical results conclude that national culture, economic development, and population growth would significantly influence environmental performance directly. In addition, through the mediating effect of education, population growth and national culture would significantly affect environmental performance indirectly. These findings provide theoretical and managerial implications for constructing the mechanism of cultural values and ethical behavior in general and environmental management in particular.     

Die Erwartungen der Wirtschaft für 2018

The German economy experiences a boom period. The leading economic research institutes upgrade their economic balance for 2017 to a growth rate exceeding two per cent and their forecasts for 2018 are equally positive. This optimism is widespread despite the UK’s exit from the EU, the protectionist tendencies and the difficult coalition-building in Germany. Technological innovations look ahead: manufacturing industry and trade sector have to react to digital transformation — i.e. electro-mobility, autonomous driving, the use of artificial intelligence and the spread of online trading.     

Quality signaling through ex-ante voluntary information disclosure in entrepreneurial networks: evidence from franchising

This paper examines antecedents of ex-ante voluntary information disclosures for standardized contracts in entrepreneurial networks. Entrepreneurs (e.g., franchisors) may make such disclosures to prospective business partners in order to signal profitability of partnering, attract financial and managerial resources, and develop their entrepreneurial networks. In practice, only a fraction of franchisors make financial performance representations (FPRs), an ex-ante voluntary information disclosure to prospective franchisees. We address gaps in the signaling, voluntary information disclosure, franchising, entrepreneurship, and small- and medium-enterprise (SME) literatures. We draw on signaling theory to develop a theoretical framework and investigate factors that influence a franchisor’s disclosure decision. We evaluate hypotheses from our theoretical framework through econometric analyses of multi-sector panel data for the US franchising industry. We estimate a logit model and use lagged independent variables to address our dichotomous independent variable and potential endogeneity, respectively. Our results support the view that firms signal their quality through FPRs to attract potential business partners and expand their entrepreneurial networks. Beyond the extant literature, we find that rigorous partner qualification is another driver of voluntary information disclosure in franchising. Our findings also provide empirical support for the complementary role played by multiple quality signaling mechanisms used by franchisors and yield public policy implications for franchising.     

Internationalisation at home: The internationalisation of location-bound service SMEs

This study explores how location-bound service small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)—such as tourism companies—internationalise. We suggest that key dimensions in the internationalisation of these firms are the available resource base, the company network and its embeddedness and entrepreneurial capabilities, particularly entrepreneur’s language skills, global mindset and cultural awareness. We propose an internationalisation framework model supported by three illustrative case examples from Finland. The framework differentiates between passive developers, emerging developers and international entrepreneurs. The study makes several contributions. First, it provides an advanced view on the internationalisation of service firms and challenges in previously applied theories in a novel context. Second, it highlights the significance of location-bound resources in the process. Third, the findings indicate that the interplay between the resource base, company network and entrepreneurial capabilities is decisive for internationalisation. We also suggest managerial implications for both the industry and policymakers, supporting the internationalisation of location-bound service firms.Diese Studie untersucht, wie ortsgebundene Dienstleister, wie zum Beispiel KMUs in der Touristikbranche, international expandieren. Wir schlagen vor, daβ die verfügbaren Ressourcen, das unternehmerische Netzwerk, die Sprachkenntnisse des Unternehmers, die unternehmerischen Fähigkeiten, eine globale Denkweise und kulturelles Bewusstsein zu den wichtigsten Dimensionen der Internationalisierung gehören. Durch drei anschauliche Fallbeispiele aus Finnland entwickeln wir ein Internationalisierungsmodell, welches wir vorschlagen. Das Rahmenmodell, welches zwischen passiven und aufstrebenden Entwicklern, sowie internationalen Unternehmern unterscheidet, macht eine Reihe von Kontributionen. Erstens, es erweitert unser Verstehen der Internationalisierung von Dienstleistern und fordert etablierte Theorien durch einen neuen Kontext heraus. Zweitens, es hebt die Bedeutung der ortsgebundenen Ressourcen hervor, die zum Internationalisierungsprozess beitragen. Auβerdem zeigen unsere Ergebnisse, daβ das Zusammenspiel von Ressource-Basis, Firmennetzwerken und unternehmerischen Fähigkeiten von entscheidender Bedeutung für die Internationalisierung sind, Ergebnisse, die uns veranlassen, praktische Implikationen für Unternehmen, wie für Gesetzgeber vorzuschlagen, damit die Internationalisierung ortsgebundener KMUs im Dienstleistungssektor unterstützt wird.     

Born internationals: Market expansion and business operation mode strategies in the digital media field

This paper examines leading Swedish and Finnish Internet consultancies operating in the digital media service field. These are ‘born international’ firms that internationalise their business at an exceptionally rapid pace. The paper focuses on why and to what extent the market expansion and business operation mode strategies of these companies deviate from the traditional pattern depicted by the Scandinavian process school. The empirical data consisted of interviews with the founder and senior management and secondary data from company and public archives. The research findings show that in fact both the international new venture research and the Scandinavian internationalisation model appear to be valid. The former model was evidenced by the fact that the born internationals indeed deviated from the behaviour of the traditional firms. The latter was exemplified by the fact that the final internationalisation profile, after the withdrawals of firms from unsuccessful markets, was close to what the Scandinavian internationalisation model would call ‘rational’ expansion. Hence, if the investigation period is long enough to account for unsuccessful endeavours and withdrawals, we may then find empirical support for the traditional model as well. To be reliable, the investigation period should cover at least one economic slow down.     

Professional Accountants’ Identity Formation: An Integrative Framework

Previous studies in Western contexts have examined the relationships between various board characteristics and CSR, yet the relationships need to be re-examined in non-Western contexts given differential theoretical premises across contexts. We specifically propose that the effects of board characteristics on CSR in Korea should be patterned distinctively from Western-based existing literature, focusing on three important board characteristics, such as a board’s independence, social ties, and diversity. Using a panel dataset from large Korean firms, we found that various relationships between board characteristics and CSR were non-linear, whereas most of the previous research on Western contexts found that the same relationships were linear. Specifically, curvilinear relationships were found between CSR and board independence (i.e., exponentially growing shape), CEO-outside director social ties (i.e., inverted U-shape), and educational diversity (i.e., U-shape). Our findings suggest that there is no universal feature of CSR-supportive board characteristics due to the unique characteristics of various institutional contexts.