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Successful technology adoption in an SME is often dependent on a concomitant upgrade in management skills. This report assesses the impact of various marketing, finance, human resources and production management techniques on performance among SMEs in Thailand. The findings have numerous implications for public policy makers and business educators attempting to design management training programs.

This paper investigates the perceptions of Taiwanese and Canadian managers on the importance of their activities and the adoption of selected organizational practices. Responses from 177 Canadian and 178 Taiwanese managers suggest that the latter consider what they do to be more important and inter‐related than their Canadian counterparts. In addition, the results show that Chinese managers express greater concern for their employees' job satisfaction, and are more favorable toward group pay‐for‐performance systems, and workplace rules and regulations.

This study seeks to examine how individual and organizational characteristics as well as attitudinal factors can affect the network composition of female managers. Another of its objectives is to examine the effect of cross‐gender network on the quit intention of female managers.

A survey questionnaire was administered, seeking information on the personal characteristics and attitudes of the 91 managers, the characteristics of the organization for which the respondent works, and the network characteristics of the respondents in Hong Kong.

The results show that positive attitudes towards women's leadership qualities and higher ratio of females in top management positions are associated with a lower cross‐gender instrumental network for females. Perceived discrimination or being married encourages female managers to seek a cross‐gender network. Cross‐gender networks reduce the quit intentions of female managers.

The study offers a better understanding of how networks change involves an examination of both the characteristics of the network holder and the larger context in which the network holder is located. It contributes to the scant evidence on the consequences of cross‐gender networking for female managers in the Chinese context.

This study aims at providing exploratory insights into the initiative and capabilities of Chinese SMEs to develop and utilize diverse networks to support internationalization. Such network development and utilization efforts are fundamental to the analysis and explanation of Chinese firms’ internationalization patterns and outcomes. Extending from the existing network studies in the Chinese context that generally put emphasis on strong‐tie and ethnic‐oriented networks, this paper investigates and explains explicitly the use and effects of both strong‐ and weak‐tie networks in the international development of Chinese SMEs. Indepth case studies on four rapidly internationalized Chinese SMEs are conducted. The case findings demonstrate that weak‐tie networks are essential to the firms’ business development in foreign markets; and were proactively developed and utilized in the course of the firms’ development. The cases also provide alternative perspectives to the beliefs and values underpinning strong‐tie networks presumed in existing literature. The findings draw attention to the changing business values and approaches of the Chinese firms aiming at developing internationally. Managerial implications concerning the significant influence of effective networking on internationalization are pinpointed.

This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end of year financial reports for thirty midsized US cities. The analysis focuses on whether and how quickly and how extensively revenue and spending directions from past years are altered by recessions. A seven year series of Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) data serves to explore whether citiesʼ revenues and spending, especially the traditional property tax and core functions such as public safety and infrastructure withstood the brief 2001 and the persistent 2007 recessions? The findings point to consumption (spending) over stability (revenue minus expense) for the recession of 2007, particularly in 2008 and 2009.