From Family Business Management to Professional Management in a Time-Honored Brand: The Case of Fu Yuan Guan

This case describes the development process of Fu Yuan Guan, a Chinese time-honored brand. Through privatization, Fu Yuan Guan survived and rapidly captured its market. However, the family business management style proved to be a bottleneck during further expansion. There is a need to recruit qualified professional managers to improve the overall management of the firm but it seems there are challenges in doing so. This case describes the daily operationalization of this family firm together with the approach of top managers, with the purpose of exhibiting how its internal management is implemented.     

Religious belief and international business negotiations: Does faith influence negotiator behaviour?

Religious observance is widespread and continues to influence managerial behaviour in many parts of the world. However, its role in international business negotiations has not received much scholarly attention. This study explores some of the key ways in which religious belief shapes negotiation behaviour. Focusing specifically on the Islamic context, and drawing on interviews with 27 religiously observant Muslim managers in Malaysia, the study found that commitment to a common religion among negotiators positively influenced certain components of the negotiation process through, for example, the use of religious/emotional appeal, which emphasised their ‘spiritual camaraderie’. In some instances, however, we observed something of a paradox, whereby differing religious beliefs among negotiating counterparts were claimed to actually enhance, rather than hinder, negotiations.     

Managing business performance: The contrasting cases of two multiple retailers 1920 to 1939

Abstract

Business performance measurement and management (PMM) systems are often viewed as relatively recent phenomena, responding to the failure of historical practices which prioritised financial measures. But despite the considerable focus on these systems over the last 25 years, they have not lived up to their early promise. This article looks backwards to understand how practitioners managed their performance in the past. It focuses on two British multiple retailers between 1920 and 1939 and highlights not only the formal processes they adopted but also the role of the informal processes which shaped how they achieved their objectives.     

Interweaving threads of credit and debt: Trading (through) textiles in colonial Dar es Salaam

Tracing the modus operandi of textile traders in colonial Dar es Salaam, this article makes a case for viewing the availability and extension of credit in the form of textiles as a central aspect of traders’ lives. The versatility of textiles in the local context of Dar es Salaam not only contributed to their high demand, their use as the main medium of exchange and the basis on which credit was extended; it also shaped the local conceptualisation of entrepreneurship. For textile traders in colonial Dar es Salaam, it was of economic, social and cultural importance to always be both in debt and have others in debt to them.     

Managing the paradox of unwanted efficiency: The symbolic legitimation of the hypermarket format in Finland, 1960–1975

Abstract

Occasionally, organisations are forced to adopt new practices that are inconsistent with the expectations of their stakeholders. An immediate adoption of the practices would risk the organisation’s legitimacy, but as previous research has noted, the perceptions of organisational stakeholders can be managed through symbolic actions. In this article, I examine how actors from four retail organisations symbolically legitimated the adoption of the hypermarket format within their individual contexts by means of internal professional magazines. The analysis suggests that the organisations buttressed their legitimacy by reversing Meyer and Rowan’s idea of loose coupling – adopting the new practice but maintaining their formal appearances.     

Incorporating a Short-Term Study Abroad Service Trip for Educating International Entrepreneurship in the BOP Market

ABSTRACT

The bottom of the pyramid (BOP) market has gained importance in international entrepreneurship due to its large market potential. Drawing on the literature of international business education, as well as social entrepreneurship and international entrepreneurship education, we propose a course to educate students how to develop business intimacy with the BOP community. We employ the experiential-learning pedagogical framework and design elements including a short-term study abroad service trip, an entrepreneurship project, and structured reflections. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, we demonstrate that the course facilitates students’ learning in the key areas of international and social entrepreneurship, including the economic and social value of community embeddedness for BOP ventures, the emotional intelligence in interacting with BOP communities, and the attitude toward social entrepreneurship.     

Export intensity of foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises: The role of trade finance availability

We examine the relationship between the role of trade finance availability and the export intensity of foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs). In developing our hypotheses, we draw upon insights derived from “new” internalisation theory (international business literature) and international trade finance (international economics literature). We empirically test these hypotheses using survey data compiled from subsidiary managers in six ASEAN countries, supplemented with host-country level data. We conceptualise, empirically test, and establish that the subsidiary-level capability in combining and utilising internal and external debts is an important subsidiary-specific advantage to support export intensity. We find that subsidiaries employ intra-firm loans from MNE internal capital markets and, to some extent, bank loans from external financial institutions to boost their export intensity. Subsidiaries may have concerns about foreign exchange risks, but the use of appropriate foreign exchange risk management is positively associated with export intensity. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice.     

Adapting adaptation: Expanding adaptive strategy theory to account for the East Asian business context

This paper extends international business theory by providing insights into contextual boundaries of the dominant strategic adaptation model, based on assumptions of low power distance and a bottom-up management style. We challenge them by examining the context of Asian organizations with contrasting management style and ask how it is possible for them to adapt. We propose a supplementary “top-down” model of adaptation, supported by empirical data from East Asian organizations. The model involves low autonomy of lower- and middle-level managers, but fluid communication from bottom to top, enabling informed but authoritarian adaptive decision-making exclusively at the behest of top management.     

Readers of Macunaíma and Martin Fierro are like two ships passing in the night: Bad for business

This is an exploratory study about the knowledge of Brazilian managers about Argentina and vice versa. Expressing a deeper knowledge of the partner's culture corresponds to greater familiarity, which facilitates the construction of the confidence necessary to do business. We analyzed the academic literature on familiarity and trust, and suggest that the interrelationships of these countries' economies could be enhanced by encouraging greater familiarity among business actors in the countries. The empirical data comes from surveys of MBA students from both countries, carried out in 2008, 2014, and 2015. The results suggest a significant lack of knowledge of the other and a relative stability of expressions of distrust over time, in the case of Brazilians. We conclude that it is advisable to encourage a greater intercultural understanding among business executives of both nations because this could accelerate mutually beneficial business and empower the executives' careers in the region. We also suggest that the demand for this type of intercultural skills should arise at corporations because the demand by executives is not sufficiently informed as to garner the necessary change and because the pay‐as‐you‐go income model of business schools responds to clients' needs rather than to what should be done.     

Intertemporal production and intertemporal substitution in output supply and input demand

This article presents an intertemporal model of production with multiple inputs to investigate substitution opportunities facing firms over time. The firm’s intertemporal profit maximization problem is characterized with the familiar cost function, and various intertemporal substitution elasticities are delineated for output supply and input demand. The absence of intertemporal substitution in production can imply production smoothing, and allowance for intertemporal substitution in labour demand reinforces the prediction of the real business cycle model. For aggregate US manufacturing, we find substantial substitution in output supply and labour demand over time due to intertemporal changes in output price and wage rates.