Power and EDP departments: a case study

The productivity of white-collar workers in heavily computerized sectors of the economy has collapsed in recent years. This paper suggests that one reason for this involves inefficiencies generated by EDP departments, which have created systems of control enmeshing not only workers but senior management.     

Hard Times or Great Expectations? Dividend Omissions and Dividend Cuts by UK Firms*

This paper uncovers an increasing proportion of quoted UK companies omitting cash dividends. Using a large panel of quoted UK firms, we estimate panel data probit models for the incidence of dividend omissions and cuts as functions of financial characteristics including cash flow, leverage, investment opportunities, investment and company size. These variables account for most of the increase in omission since 1995. There is relatively little evidence to link this to the major tax reform of 1997 that abolished tax refunds on dividend income payable to tax‐exempt institutions. Significant persistence effects indicate companies are slow to adjust their balance sheets through their dividend.     

Asian Management Research: Status Today and Future Outlook

abstract    This paper reviews the existing management research on Asia. The findings highlight that Asian management research not only builds the understanding of Asia, but also makes a critical contribution to the broad domain of management studies. In particular, Asian-focused research allows researchers to extend and revise theories through the consideration of new contextual variables. This enables researchers to fine-tune theories by developing context-specific conditions and operationalization of key constructs, which in turn allows researchers to develop new theories and constructs which are generalizable to research in other contexts. This systematic examination will help to lay the foundation for the further expansion of the understanding of both Asia and of management research in general.     

Business Groups: An Integrated Model to Focus Future Research

abstract    Business groups are the primary form of managing large business organizations outside North America. This paper provides a systematic and integrative framework for understanding business groups. We argue that existing theoretical perspectives of business groups pay attention to four critical external contexts, each of which draws from a specific theoretical perspective: market conditions (transaction cost theory), social relationships (relational perspective), political factors (political economy perspective), and external monitoring mechanisms (agency theory). Business groups adapt to these external forces by deploying various internal mechanisms along two key dimensions: one focuses on the distinctive roles of the group affiliates (horizontal connectedness) and the other focuses on coupling and order between the parent firm and its affiliates (vertical linkages). Based on these two dimensions, a typology of business group forms is developed: network (N-form), club (C-form), holding (H-form), and multidivisional (M-form). Utilizing this model we provide research questions which facilitate an improved future research agenda.     

Unfolding the impact of leadership and management on sustainability performance: Green and lean practices and guanxi as the dual mediators

This study aims to empirically evaluate the predictors that influence sustainability performance among manufacturing firms. Leadership and management, green and lean practices, and guanxi were examined to determine whether these predictors are directly and/or indirectly affecting sustainability performance; 160 valid responses were collected and partial-least-squares-structural-equation-modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. The results showed that leadership and management positively influenced green and lean practices and green and lean practices positively influenced sustainability performance. Leadership and management also positively influenced guanxi. Interestingly, leadership and management and guanxi do not exert a significant direct influence on sustainability performance. The findings contributed to the development of the resource-based-view theory further by empirically exploring the significance of leadership and management coupled with green and lean practices as competencies and capability to drive sustainability performance. The testing of the dual mediators' effects further added value to this study.     

Religion and identity in India’s heritage tourism

The growing worth of heritage in the renegotiation and dissemination of identities has intensified conflicts over whose voice dominates heritage tourism representations. Therefore, this study compares the way India’s heritage is represented by the Indian government, by the domestic tourism trade media and by the popular tourism media. The findings reveal that India is consistently represented as an ethnically diverse nation in which Hinduism preceded and prevailed over all other ethnicities/religions; a portrayal that consolidates the state’s secular nationalist narrative. Furthermore, the trade and popular media emphasize nostalgic experiences of a sanitized colonial history while the government emphasizes accounts of resistance against colonial powers and of suffering due to Muslim atrocities.     

Editorial: Opportunities for Cross-Cultural Comparative Research on Leisure

Cross-cultural comparative research on leisure is extremely rare in both the anthropological and leisure literatures. The opportunities for conducting such research are excellent, however. Ethnographic data archives, such as the Human Relations Area Files, are widely available and contain a trove of information on leisure in societies, both past and present, from around the world. Methods for cross-cultural comparative research have improved greatly in the past two decades. The purpose of this editorial is to urge leisure researchers to make use of both cross-cultural comparative methods and existing sources of data.     

Cultural Consonance in Leisure,Leisure Satisfaction,Life Satisfaction,and Self-Rated Health in Urban Taiwan

The purpose of this study threefold: to determine whether a shared cultural model of the importance of a set of leisure activities to a good leisure life existed in urban Taiwan, the degree to which cultural consonance in leisure mediates the relationship between leisure constraints and leisure satisfaction, and the degree to which leisure satisfaction affects life satisfaction and self-rated health. Results indicate that a cultural model of the importance of leisure activities to a good leisure life existed among sample members. Second, higher levels of self-reported participation in leisure activities that are culturally agreed upon as more important for a good leisure life are more strongly associated with leisure satisfaction than are activities culturally agreed upon as less important. Finally, leisure satisfaction strongly predicts both life satisfaction and self-rated health.     

Venture capital in China: Past,present, and future

This article reviews the literature on venture capital in China and examines where China’s venture capital industry has been and where it is likely to go in the future. Since the 1980s, venture capital in China has grown steadily alongside the robust national economy. The future is likely to offer even greater opportunities, as entrepreneurs are encouraged and property rights improve. However, there will also be a period of transition as the market continues to mature and as new legal structures and commercial arrangements emerge. Venture capital in China has many interesting differences from that in Western countries. The venture capital industry is shaped by the institutional context and China is no exception to this. This article also examines some specific differences between the system in China and that of the United States. Future prospects for venture capital are also appraised as China continues its transition to a market economy.

Knowledge management in technology-focused firms in emerging economies: Caveats on capabilities,networks, and real options

In mature economies, technology-focused industries and the management of knowledge are widely viewed as critical to success. Increasingly, in emerging economies technology-focused industries and the management of knowledge are also viewed as important. To date, however, little is known about such activities in emerging economies. Particularly, it is not understood how knowledge management can impact efforts for corporate renewal in such environments. The literatures of the resource-based view of the firm, social capital/network theory, and real options theory are vital to providing insights for technology-focused industries and the management of knowledge in mature economies. In this paper we focus on the caveats when applying such theoretical foundations to emerging economies. To illustrate these issues we will draw on the largest emergent economy in the world, China.