Formal and Informal Practices of Knowledge Sharing Between Project Teams and Enacted Cultural Characteristics

This article investigates the process of knowledge sharing between project teams and uses a case study approach. This is especially relevant, as organizations face both the needs for separating work into projects and integrating knowledge created in projects into the organization. The results provided by the analysis technique of GABEK^® indicate that, although projects create boundaries, employees and project team leaders use formal mechanisms and develop informal practices for knowledge sharing between project teams. Furthermore, the article identifies organizational cultural characteristics enacted in these practices that can stimulate the discussion in “knowledge culture research” regarding the relationship of organizational cultural characteristics and (specific) knowledge processes.     

Slotting Fees for Organic Retail Products: Evidence From a Survey of U.S. Food Retailers

Based on a survey of U.S. food retailers, our study finds that almost one third of U.S. food retailers charge slotting fees for certified organic food products, a retailing area where slotting fees had not previously been well documented. Econometric results from both ordered response and binary response models suggest that a number of firm-level attributes do influence the presence and/or relative size of organic slotting fees in a manner that is mostly consistent with an economic efficiency rationale and partly consistent with a market power/strategic behavior rationale for slotting fees.     

Book Reviews

While globalization has led to a well-documented increase in expatriation among managers and corporate executives, increased internationalization and expatriation have not been confined to business organizations alone. Educational institutions are becoming increasingly international with academics also experiencing growing levels of expatriation. However, despite their increasing international mobility, expatriate academics remain a group about which very little is known. Drawing on exploratory research carried out in Singapore and New Zealand, this essay presents several propositions about the experiences of expatriate academics as a hitherto under-researched group. In addition the essay moves towards adding another dimension to the existing expatriate management literature by considering the extent to which it can be used as a framework for understanding expatriate academics. In doing so the essay proposes some of the differences between expatriate academics and expatriate managers. The areas of focus are cross-culture training, expatriate adjustment and the expatriate family.     

Welfare-to-Work Outcomes: The Role of the Employer

This paper sets out to explore the role of the employer in successful welfare-to-work transitions. We demonstrate the uses of administrative records in identifying the types of firms that repeatedly hire welfare recipients. We also develop sets of criteria to identify “successful” outcomes. Our results suggest that there is substantial untapped potential for using administrative data to identify not simply which industries hire welfare recipients but those that are most likely to provide recipients with long-lasting jobs, or jobs accompanied by sustained removal from welfare dependency.     

Emotions in business-to-business service relationships

Emotion in business-to-business service relationships regarding cargo services is explored. The service relationship is characterised by mutual trust and cooperation. Contact is mainly via telephone or e-mail with some face-to-face interactions and participants providing a complex, multi-skilled seamless service. Experience rather than training plays a vital role with long-term service relationships built up and maintained. Emotional sensitivity is acquired partly by experience and a repeat customer base but mainly through a genuine desire to help and get to know others. In contrast to the view of emotional labour bringing managerial control or adverse affects to service staff, the emotion engendered by this work is authentic expression bringing personal satisfaction.     

Maidum's challenge,legal and governance issues in dealing with cross-border business enterprise group insolvencies

Maidum was an early Egyptian pyramid, the first attempt to build a true pyramid; but it suffered a spectacular collapse. In many jurisdictions, corporate structures are pyramidal in shape, with related enterprises conducting business in multiple jurisdictions. Where such structures financially collapse, creditors of different entities within a business enterprise group compete for limited assets that may or may not be located in the entity in which they have advanced credit and thus have claims. This article discusses the challenges posed by cross-border business enterprise group insolvency and the range of procedural mechanisms that may be available to protect creditors' claims, articulating broad principles that should be considered in such cases. The choice of cooperation and coordination mechanism is driven in part by whether the particular jurisdiction emphasizes liquidation or restructuring as the objective of the insolvency proceeding. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.