The culturally contingent meaning of entrepreneurship: mixed embeddedness and co-ethnic ties

This study employs phenomenography to investigate the role of embeddedness in business venturing of migrant and ethnic entrepreneurs. By focusing on two culturally distinct groups, operating in the same micro-economic context, we show the ways in which embeddedness impacts the perceptions and subsequent enactment of business venturing. Our findings demonstrate that, despite physical proximity and similar socio-economic context, the investigated communities predominantly employ their co-ethnic norms, assumptions and frames of reference to makes sense of and act upon entrepreneurial opportunities. These findings expand the mixed embeddedness literature by exploring how co-ethnic sensemaking frames persist within culturally distinct communities, despite years of co-existence within the same socio-economic context. Moreover, our study reveals how co-ethnic structures can successfully substitute institutional arrangements traditionally provided by the host-country environment. By reflecting upon the practice of entrepreneuring and entrepreneurial sensemaking, our findings point towards the importance of language and interpretative methods for theory development.     

What,When, and with Whom? Investigating Expatriate Reentry Training with a Proximal Approach

While reentry transition has long been regarded as one of the most challenging phases of an expatriate assignment cycle, reentry training has received little scholarly attention. Using a qualitative research design based on interviews with 31 training providers, we bring the issue of reentry training into focus. Our findings shed light on three components of training design and execution: content, timing, and participant format. Our comparison of actual reentry training practice with an ideal, theory‐driven design revealed numerous inconsistencies. Further investigation of these inconsistencies led us to theorize how training practices may predominantly be shaped by contextual factors. Our findings accentuate the challenges of HRM practices more broadly, showing how practice design can be driven by logistical matters and organizational interests, rather than by evidence‐based precepts. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Cost of Rich (and Poor) Country Protection to Developing Countries

This study confirms that substantial barriers to market accesswill remain in both rich and poor countries following full implementationof the Uruguay Round agreement. The analysis finds that approximately40% of the costs of these barriers to developing countries arisefrom barriers to market access in industrial countries and 60%from barriers in developing countries themselves. The resultssuggest that there would be large gains to almost all regionsfrom a round of negotiations that increased market access inthe North and South. In Africa, the potential static gains frommultilateral reform appear to exceed those from preferentialliberalisation, without the well-known disadvantages of a preferentialapproach.     

Asia–Pacific food markets and trade in 2005: a global, economy–wide perspective

Rapid industrialization in East Asia, particularly China, is raising questions about who will feed the region in the next century and how Asia will be able to pay for its food imports. The paper first reviews existing food sector projections and then takes an economy–wide perspective using projections to 2005, based on the global CGE model known as GTAP. After showing the impact of implementing the Uruguay Round, the paper explores several alternative scenarios. A slowdown in farm productivity growth is shown to be costly to the world economy, as is slower economic growth in China. Failure to honour Uruguay Round obligations to open textile and clothing markets in OECD countries would reduce East Asia's industrialization and thereby slow its net imports of food. On the other hand, the trade reform that is likely to accompany China's (and hence Taiwan's) membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO) adds 30 per cent to estimated global gains from the Uruguay Round. Their WTO accession is projected to boost exports of manufactures and strengthen food import demand by not only China but also its densely populated neighbours with whom it trades intensively.     

Market Growth, Structural Change, and the Gains from the Uruguay Round

It is found that market growth and structural changes will affect the results of quantitative analyses of the Uruguay Round. Rapid economic growth in Asia, and relatively deeper cuts in protection in that region, result in larger proportionate welfare gains in the year 2005 than in the year 1992. It is also found that changing comparative advantage, and shifts in global demand, result in substantial changes in the restrictive effects of the bilateral quotas on textiles and apparel. Accounting for the factors associated with market growth and structural change adds 30% to the estimates of global welfare gains from the Uruguay Round.     

The Struggles of the Interculturalists: Professional Ethical Identity and Early Stages of Codes of Ethics Development

Ethicalisation processes that partake in the construction of a firm or a professional group’s ethical identity are often described as a relatively linear combination of several components, such as policies (starting with the development of a code of ethics), corporate practices, and leadership. Our study of a professional community dealing with the topics related to cultural diversity indicates a more reciprocal relationship between ethical identity and ethicalisation processes. We argue that a tangible form of ethical identity can pre-date the ethicalisation process of a professional group, and additionally, can impact this process at the start. We highlight that, despite the absence of official ethical statements in the community, a form of ethical professional identity is already present among the interculturalists of the international organisation Society for Intercultural Education Training and Research. Using critical discourse analysis, we identify the proclaimed humanist ethos in the discourses that interculturalists co-produce and diffuse during conferences, on on-line discussion forums, and in the mission of their professional organisations. This study contributes to the literature on ethical identity development by showing how a pre-existing form of ethical identity can influence the early stage of the development of a code of ethics. In addition, we indicate that, similar to organisational identity construction, ethical identity construction uses self-other identity talks, thus, defining an ethical other (or less ethical other) in its development.     

How will growth in China and India affect the world economy?

China and India are rapidly growing, labor-abundant economies with very different export mixes. China is more integrated into global production sharing for manufactures, while services exports are more important for India. Even assuming India integrates more comprehensively into global production chains, there will be opportunities for rapid growth in both countries. Improvement in the range and quality of their exports can create substantial welfare benefits for the world, and for China and India, and can offset the terms-of-trade losses otherwise associated with rapid export growth. Most countries will need to respond to increased competition in some sectors, and to greater opportunities in others.