The influence of images on organizational attractiveness: comparing Chinese,Russian and US companies in Germany

In developed markets, Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises’ (EMNEs) organizational attractiveness may crucially depend on applicants’ country and corporate character images (CCIs). Applying image and signaling theory, this study compares the influence of these images on the organizational attractiveness of Chinese, Russian and US companies in Germany. Employing data from 287 German business students, findings show that applicants prefer US over Chinese and Russian companies as future employers, confirming the existence of the liability of emergingness. Moreover, findings indicate gender differences in applicants’ attraction toward EMNEs. In particular, female applicants are less attracted to EMNEs with a bad CCI than male applicants are.     

Crowdsourcing not all sourced by the crowd: An observation on the behavior of Wikipedia participants

This study investigates the behavioral patterns of Wikipedia participants to obtain a picture of internal dynamics of the world's largest crowdsourcing platform. It observes the responses of people when “other” people enter a crowd where internal and external controls are mostly absent. From the analysis of 342 Wikipedia articles, this study shows that the overall tone of Wikipedia articles is mostly decided by a dominant few rather than by a trivial many, and such domination worsens as the number of participant increases and the article matures. This result contradicts a common belief on crowdsourcing that Wikipedia would reflect the voices of a vast majority, obtain a balanced solution, and attain democracy on the Internet. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature by analyzing how effectively Wikipedia functions as a crowdsourcing platform within the context. It also implies that developing a proper crowdsourcing strategy such as effective management of a platform is necessary, especially when an organization has a specific goal to achieve throughout a project.     

冷战后俄罗斯地缘战略的研究

冷战后,俄罗斯面临内忧外患的国内外形势,采取了切实可行的地缘战略,为其重振大国地位起到了重要作用。在地缘战略概念和提法被国际社会普遍认同情况下,有必要从战略高度综合思考地缘政治、地缘经济、地缘军事和地缘文化等内容。对维护国家主权与领土完整统一,确保国家安全与发展,谋求和平稳定的周边环境,以及推动建立国际政治经济新秩序等具有重要意义。     

适应军工企业的ERP实施方略

ERP是现代企业进行资源管理的重要工具,三十三所内部的资源流程管理以及产品生产要求具有国有研究所的个性。作者从适应军工企业生产的ERP实施总体规化入手,重点介绍三十三所实施ERP的步骤,详细阐述了企业实施过程中遇到的问题和解决方法。     

企业竞争中战争策略借鉴

企业要想在市场中生存发展必须取得较好的市场地位,只有处于市场领先地位的企业,其利润率才能维持发展的需要。在有限的资源争夺中,企业的各种冲突在所难免,就如同战争的冲突一样,因此古老的进攻与防守战略在商业竞争中同样适用。     

Understanding the U.S.-China Trade War

ABSTRACT

Three major concerns drove the U.S. into initiating the trade war, and they are (a) the concern that China’s chronically large trade surplus was depressing job creation in the U.S. (b) the concern that China was using illegal and unfair methods to acquire U.S. technology at an effectively discounted price; and (c) the concern that China seeks to weaken U.S. national security and its international standing. On the dispute over China’s exchange rate and trade imbalance, the first conclusion is that it was marked by analytical confusion over the meaning of the term ‘equilibrium exchange rate’. The second conclusion is that China’s trade imbalance reflects the economic conditions in both China and U.S., and that the efficient and fair solution of the problem requires policy changes in both countries. On the industrial policy dispute, the first conclusion is that the issue of forced technology transfer is largely a dispute about China using its market power to benefit itself at the expense of its trade partners. The second conclusion is that China’s use of market power can last only until the other large countries could unite and retaliate as a group. The inevitability of retaliation means that China should replace the joint-venture (JV) mechanism for technological diffusion with other ways to strengthen its technological capability. On the U.S. concern about whether China trade weakens its national security, the first conclusion is that the notion of national security that is commonly adopted in the U.S. trade policy debate is ignorant about the primary determinants of U.S. capability in innovation. By focusing instead mainly on how to hold down China technologically, the long-run outcome will be a technologically weaker U.S. and hence, a more vulnerable U.S. The second conclusion is that the U.S. must identify a clear, short list of critical technologies and critical infrastructure for the recently reformed Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to cover, and update this list constantly. Otherwise, the broad and changing nature of notions about national security would allow the bureaucratically driven phenomenon of mission-creep to steadily expand the coverage of the CFIUS process, thereby steadily rendering CFIUS to be operationally capricious. Our principal policy suggestion to China is that, because China’s economy in 2018 is very different from that in 1978 (e.g. many parts of China now look like Singapore and China is Africa’s biggest donor), there should be more reciprocity in China’s trade and investment relations with the advanced economies despite China’s status as a developing economy under WTO rules. Our principal policy suggestion to President Trump is to stop equating strategic competition with economic competition. Strategic competition is normally a zero-sum game. While fair economic competition is usually a zero-sum game in the short run, it generally creates a win-win outcome in the long run.     

Global monitor

Until recently, theories of war in Africa and other underdeveloped social formations have foundered on notions of ‘poverty=war” and vice versa. Newer thinking, however, asks questions in line with classical Marxist perspectives veering away from dependencia, relating war in the ‘dark continent’ to issues of class formation and (“primitive”) accumulation. Christopher Cramer's Civil War is not a Stupid Thing in particular raises historically and comparatively grounded questions about the relationship between coercion and ‘development’ that challenge both dependency and liberal thinking. Yet, as assessments of contemporary writing on similar issues (including ‘post-conflict studies’) illustrate, the quality of this type of thinking in no way guarantees its intellectual hegemony.     

Adoption of network technologies in the presence of converters

In many high-tech industries, the emergence of new digital technologies allows companies to develop converters to overcome technology incompatibility. In this paper, we analyze the effects of converter introduction on the adoption process of competing, incompatible technologies in the presence of network externalities. Converter introduction may accelerate, extend or reverse the technology lock-in process. We determine which conversion options are profitable for weak as well as for dominant incumbents, depending on the timing of converter introduction and the degrees of conversion. We find that the optimal strategy for weak incumbents is to introduce full one-way converters early. For dominant incumbents, the optimal conversion option is to provide two-way converters with partial compatibility for the users of the competing network at a later introduction time. We illustrate our analytical results with numerical examples.     

Macroeconomic volatility and anti-refugee violence in developing countries: Evidence from commodity price shocks

I investigate the effect of macroeconomic (output) volatility on anti-refugee violence in developing countries. Opportunity cost, rapacity, and state capacity theories predict ambiguous effects. For causal inference I leverage output volatility caused by plausibly exogenous commodity price shocks. I find that adverse commodity price shocks increase both violence of natives against refugees and violence between refugees. My results suggest that anti-refugee violence increases during recessions and decreases during economic booms.     

The Ukraine/Russia conflict: Geopolitical and international business strategies

The Ukraine and Russian conflict is one of the most pressing current global business issues. It has become a political and social issue that is influencing business practices around the world. While the topic is popular in the mainstream business press, there has been relatively little academic work on the topic. To address this gap, this article discusses the impact of the conflict on international business in terms of the perception by society about Ukrainian or Russian business activities. This means highlighting how a conflict can involve direct military intervention but also social interaction. This article reveals that there are many effects on global business stemming from the Ukraine–Russian conflict many of which are currently known, but others will be known in the future. Managerial implications are stated in the article that highlights the cultural and social impact of the crisis as well as future research suggestions for international business researchers that stress the importance of the conflict.