Expatriate management: Comparison of MNCs across four parent countries

This article reports the results of a study of expatriate management and headquarters‐subsidiary relations in 29 American, British, German, and Japanese multinationals and a sample of 46 of their foreign subsidiaries based on face‐to‐face and telephone interviews with key international HR, subsidiary HR, and subsidiary managing directors. We found that earlier studies, heavily weighted with U.S. multinationals, cannot necessarily be applied to expatriate management experiences of other national industrial countries. Also, expatriate management is more similar for American and British MNCs, while both German and Japanese multinationals in our sample had fairly distinct systems of using expatriates in their foreign subsidiaries. Thus, we can discuss at least three fairly distinct models of expatriate management and corporate‐foreign‐subsidiary control. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Issue-Contingent Effects on Ethical Decision Making: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

This experiment examined the effects of three elements comprising Jones' (1991) moral intensity construct, (social consensus, personal proximity, and magnitude of consequences) in a cross-cultural comparison of ethical decision making within a human resource management (HRM) context. Results indicated social consensus had the most potent effect on judgments of moral concern and judgments of immorality. An analysis of American, Eastern European, and Indonesian responses also indicted socio-cultural differences were moderated by the type of HRM ethical issue. In addition, individual differences in personal ethical ideology (relativism and idealism) varied reliably with moral judgments after controlling for issue characteristics and socio-cultural background.     

Functional and contextual dimensions of INVs’ alliance partner selection

Prior research on the selection of international alliance partners calls for investigation of the potential specificity of selection criteria for evaluating partners for alliances with different objectives or functions. The present study responds to this need and contributes to the development of the field of international entrepreneurship by examining the relation between the alliance function and the criteria chosen. We studied three alliance functions: R&D, production, and marketing. Second, for each alliance function, we analyzed the criteria selected within two contexts: developing countries and those that consider emerging markets in their partner choice set. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 25 executives from international new ventures (INVs) in two major North American biotechnology clusters, representing 239 alliances; 65.7 % of these were signed with international partners. Results indicate that, aside from compatibility/complementarity of resources (R&D and production alliances), all criteria used within a single function are unique to that function. Furthermore, these criteria differ somewhat when the potential partners considered by a firm include those from both emerging and developed markets, compared with firms that limit potential partners to those in developed market contexts. Finally, the study reveals that respondent firms integrate country, industry, and market attractiveness factors with partner selection criteria for marketing alliances. This suggests that, for many firms, market choice and partner selection are not successive steps. The study’s originality lies in its focus on the relationship between alliance function and partner selection criteria used by INVs as well as within different contexts.     

The potato's contribution to population and urbanization: evidence from a historical experiment

We exploit regional variation in suitability for cultivating potatoes, together with time variation arising from their introduction to the Old World from the Americas, to estimate the impact of potatoes on Old World population and urbanization. Our results show that the introduction of the potato was responsible for a significant portion of the increase in population and urbanization observed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to our most conservative estimates, the introduction of the potato accounts for approximately one-quarter of the growth in Old World population and urbanization between 1700 and 1900. Additional evidence from within-country comparisons of city populations and adult heights also confirms the cross-country findings.     

Spillover Effects of Service Failures in Coalition Loyalty Programs: The Buffering Effect of Special Treatment Benefits

Coalition loyalty programs are on the rise, yet few studies investigate the impact of service failures in such programs. Using data from a retail context, the authors show that a program partner deemed responsible for a service failure suffers negative customer responses. However, customers’ perceptions of the benefits of the coalition loyalty program buffer these consequences. Perhaps most importantly, when customers perceive the program's special treatment benefits as low, direct and indirect spillover effects occur, such that a service failure by one program partner has a negative effect on customer loyalty toward the program itself.     

Job and organizational attitudes in relation to financial performance in Greek retail banking: an exploratory empirical investigation

In an attempt to contribute to satisfaction and commitment research, the current study explores the differential relationships that job attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction) and organizational attitudes (e.g. organizational satisfaction and organizational continuance commitment) may have with financial performance in Greek retail banking. A total of 331 employees completed the standardized questionnaires. Three sets of hypotheses were tested, investigating direct effects, mediation effects, and moderation effects. Findings suggest that financial performance yields increased levels of high-sacrifice continuance commitment, resulting in enhanced employee satisfaction – both with the job and the employing organization. Results are discussed, limitations are considered, and directions for future research are proposed.     

The structural,social, and strategic factors associated with successful business networks

Business networks, formal arrangements between independent businesses established to enhance member success, are generally accepted as an important strategy to help small businesses survive and prosper, and to promote regional economic development. However, knowledge about what contributes to the success of business networks themselves is less extensive and based primarily on case studies or reports of network directors. The purpose of this paper is to partially address this shortcoming. We consider the structural and social features identified in previous studies as likely correlates of business network success. Using a social constructionist definition of network success, we distinguish successful from less successful networks from among a sample of 29 industry and community business networks in the USA. Findings from interviews with 1122 members and 29 network leaders suggest that trust is central to understanding network success. Structural features have complex positive and negative indirect effects on success through trust and resource exchanges. The findings highlight the fact that business networks, while offering great potential as a way to enhance economic vitality of regions and industries, cannot be viewed as a simple remedy.