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Cultural friction (CF) was introduced by researchers to overcome the issues and challenges of cultural distance measurement in the context of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CBMAs). However, this construct has proved itself to be problematic to operationalize. To address this challenge, this paper aims to elaborate on a CF measurement instrument based on individual perceptions in CBMAs. This study used a microfoundation approach to measure CF, relying on managers’ interactions in CBMA settings.

To develop and validate a CF measurement in the context of CBMAs, this study followed a classical procedure including items development, lab tests and one field-study and an assessment of the construct validity.

The final instrument developed for measuring CF is composed of six critical incidents with three associated items each. The factor analysis revealed that the scale used in the field-test measures two factors of CF: internal and external. Reliability and discriminant validity are tested, demonstrating a good discriminant validity of “external” CF. The final measurement can be used as a valid and reliable scale in further studies to assess CF in the context of CBMAs.

This paper’s originality lies in developing and validating a CF measurement instrument that does not rely on cultural distance frameworks. The resulting scale shows the interest in considering micro-individual perceptions – the microfoundation level – for analyzing an organizational phenomenon as culture in CBMA contexts. Using a micro-founded approach, this study offers promising avenues for researchers who wish to study cultural interactions in international settings.

This paper comes in the context of the European International Business Academy (EIBA) History project, and the long period analysed was broken down in six time windows (1975–1981, 1982–1988, 1989–1995, 1996–2002, 2003–2012; and 2013–2020), in line with the periodisation followed in writing such history. The main purpose was to identify the key themes of the papers presented at EIBA conferences between 1975 and 2020.

The analysis was carried out drawing on topic modelling, a machine-learning statistical solution that is capable of processing large volumes of text data.

A set of 5,296 Competitive and Workshop papers was processed with the use of topic modelling. The method enabled to identify 24 underlying research topics. These were then grouped into nine higher-level categories. The results show a consistent growth in the number of papers presented, especially in the periods going from 1989–2012. This is a sign of an increasing attractiveness, openness and attendance in EIBA’s annual conferences. Overall, the topics with the highest probabilities were topic 22 (Measuring and Assessing IB performance), followed ex-aequo by topics 13 (Evolutionary Approaches, Matrix Structures and Managerial Challenges) and 20 (Comparative Management Education and Behaviour) and then by topic 4 (Born Globals and International New Ventures). A key finding was the change in methodological approaches over time, with a significant increase in the use of sound quantitative and qualitative methods, instead of broad narratives mostly based on descriptive statistics.

Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), as a quantitative approach to analyse text data, has some limitations. LDA, along with other distributional models, may identify degrees of semantic relations between words, but is not able by itself to specify the kind of relation, entailing a possible loss of contextual information which might have been able to further assist in the study. Another limitation stems from the use of very old paper proceedings, whose quality was sometimes low, making reading difficult.

This research provides a longitudinal perspective of the evolution of the key research topics in international business over about 45 years. Its findings are very important for all those who are interested on the evolution of the IB field.

The research provides an interesting perspective of the development of a scientific field as well as of a scientific community.

The main contributions of this research are fourfold. Firstly, to the best of the authors' knowledge, it provides the most complete longitudinal analysis about the evolution of IB research topics published so far. Secondly, it extracts relevant information about the evolution of the IB research issues addressed at EIBA’s annual conferences, enabling a 46-year longitudinal perspective on research interests as they emerged. Thirdly, it provides a successful application of topic modelling for the analysis of large volumes of textual data. Fourthly, it addresses the entirety of the text documents, as opposed to specific sections or keywords only, ensuring increased analytical depth.

This chapter delineates the competitive behavior among different categories of business schools, focusing on their pursuit and maintenance of prestige, which is a central mission for most academic institutions. Prestige is crucial in the business school context due to uncertainties about value differences between institutions. Theoretically, competition arises when business schools with conflicting objectives vie for favor from a governing third party. Practically, competition involves acquiring resources, attracting talent, securing funding, gaining accreditations, improving rankings, and achieving media visibility. This competitive behavior spans multiple levels and extends beyond tangible actions to include rhetoric and communication. Globalized institutional competition has shifted universities' focus from local contexts to achieving high ranks in the international hierarchy, transforming the nature and purpose of competition in academia.

Today, financial rationale inevitably dominates our existence to the point that we have forgotten the essential: the purpose of the economy and the company is to contribute to the common good, to social peace, and to a happy life in the city. At the same time, this rationale is presented as being difficult to understand and, therefore, abandoned by the experts. Decisions are taken only at the national or supranational level, and democratic dialogue, therefore, suffers. Deep down, we all need to contribute to the economic debate, not academically and abstractly, but in the initial and pragmatic sense of oikos nomos: the rules of good domestic administration. Participating in the economy thus regains its central role for a rich collective life, guaranteeing fulfilment for businesses and people, unlike what is caused by neoliberalism through frenetic individualism, excessive consumption, and destructive competition.

This paper aims to focus on exploring and understanding the practice of analyzing the determinants of the Moroccan Dirham by foreign exchange professionals in trading rooms in the context of transitioning to a more flexible regime initiated by Moroccan authorities. The objective of this study is to highlight how foreign exchange operators analyze the determinants of the Moroccan Dirham in the context of exchange rate liberalization, focusing primarily on qualitative data rather than quantitative data.

Therefore, this paper opted for a methodological approach using interview surveys to understand the underlying behavior of Moroccan foreign exchange operators, conducting a content analysis. This paper targeted six foreign exchange operators from nine Moroccan banks authorized as market makers by Bank Al-Maghrib.

The results indicate that the fluctuations of the Moroccan Dirham are closely linked to two main factors: the analysis of the EUR/USD exchange rate and market liquidity analysis. Furthermore, content analysis revealed five essential aspects regarding the practice of analyzing the determinants of the Dirham: “Dirham determinants,” “complementarity between technical analysis and fundamental analysis,” “trends and reversals,” “utility of macroeconomic models” and “psychological factors.”

Certainly, this methodology allows for exploring and understanding the underlying behavior of currency operators but inherently generates a certain degree of subjectivity that can affect the research validity. Indeed, the subjectivity can arise from the responses of the currency operators themselves. They may present the phenomenon coherently or selectively choose the elements they remember to respond to. On the other hand, the validity of this type of research relies on the researcher's ability to cultivate empathy throughout the knowledge creation process. The empathetic stance adopted in this study proved to be complex due to the uniqueness of operators and interaction, sometimes making it challenging to combine empathy, respect and critical thinking (Olivier De Sardan, 2004). Furthermore, the researcher is often faced with an interpretation bias, which can manifest not only during the coding of collected data but also during the analysis of the constructed content. To mitigate this interpretation bias, this paper subjected the collected data to a double coding procedure.

This study aims to narrow the gap in opinions between academics and practitioners by providing a practical overview for change novices.

This study is the pioneering inquiry exploring the process of determining the Moroccan dirham within the transition to a flexible exchange rate regime, using an exploratory methodological approach.

This chapter explores how virtual reality (VR) distinguishes itself in terms of immersion within the field of video games. Central to this inquiry is whether VR represents a revolutionary new gaming paradigm or merely the latest medium falling short of gamers’ expectations. The discussion begins by examining the concepts of immersion and presence, highlighting their overlapping properties and how VR's capability to merge perspective and interaction enhances these experiences. Immersion involves sensory stimulation, narrative attachment and player agency within virtual environments (VEs), while presence is defined as the sensation of inhabiting a virtual universe. The chapter addresses VEs, diegesis and fictional worlds, building on the narratology and ludology debate. It chapter assesses the roles of environmental storytelling and the world inhabiting effect in games, particularly open-world role-playing games set in fantasy and science fiction universes. These games offer players active participation in narrative construction, enhancing immersion. Furthermore, the analysis compares third-person and first-person points of view (POV) in flat-screen games with VR's unique integration of POV, point of action and point of interaction. VR's intuitive interface fosters a profound emotional response and a heightened sense of presence, breaking the fourth wall and blurring the line between gameworld and reality. This chapter concludes that while VR offers a distinct form of representation, it does not constitute a new gaming paradigm yet. However, advancements in the medium may soon bring VR closer to the immersive experiences envisioned by Janet Murray's holodeck.

This study aims to investigate the impact of temperature and fiber volume fraction on the mechanical properties of 3D-printed composites of continuous glass fiber reinforced onyx.

Continuous glass fiber reinforced onyx (carbon-filled nylon) 3D-Printed composites have been designed and tested at 40°C, 60°C and 80°C for fiber volume fractions ranging from 13%, 20%, 27%, 33% and 40%.

The results of three-point bending tests have shown that at higher temperatures, i.e. greater than the room temperature the 3D-Printed onyx loses its mechanical properties as obvious for thermoplastic composites. However, the inclusion of high temperature glass fibers has improved the mechanical properties of the onyx polymer and its resistance to deformation at higher temperatures. At all temperatures, the increase in fiber fraction increases the yield strength and decreases the elongation of the composite in the strain region below the yield point. At Vf >0.27 the elongation in samples seems less affected by the fiber content. The comparison of the specimen with different fiber volume fractions (Vf) shows that the elongation of the samples at Vf = 0.4, the samples’ response to the applied load has become independent of the temperature above 40°C.

The experimental and numerically calculated results are well matched, showing the accuracy in the methodology of designing the fiber reinforced onyx composites.

This study attempts to examine the relationship between the banking sector and stock market development in India.

To analyze the relationship between banks and stock market development, the ratio of stock market capitalization to GDP is proxied by stock market development. The determinants of the stock market development are used for analysis namely domestic credit to the private sector as a ratio of GDP is used as a proxy for the development of banks, saving rate, per capita real GDP, and inflation. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL)-Bounds testing approach is used for the analysis. The paper also used the unrestricted error correction model and CUSUM and CUSUM square test to check the stability of the model.

The ARDL bounds test found that there is a long-run relationship between stock market development and bank-centered financial development. The results also revealed that the stock market is positively influenced by the development of banks, savings, and per capita real GDP in the short-run as well as long-run.

This paper suggests that improvement of banking sector plays an important role to increase liquidity of the capital market development in India. This paper also suggests that the economic growth and savings rate have positive impact to induce the capital market growth in both short run and long run.

The study has investigated the empirical relationship between the banking sector and the stock market development in a different methodological approach by using an ARDL model which is appropriate for a small sample size. There are few studies related to bank-centered financial development and stock market development in the context of India.

Because of the nature of nurses’ daily jobs, their work passion is critical for their quality performance and well-being. However, more research must examine the antecedents of nurses' work passion. Against this backdrop, in the present study, we draw on the conservation of resources (COR) theory to hypothesize that the negative relationship between nurses’ depressed mood at work and work passion is moderated by their enactment such that a relatively high level of personal enactment weakens the negative effect of depressed mood at work on their work passion.

We examine our hypothesis using a three-wave time-lagged design involving 147 nurses (RN or LPN) working at a medium-sized healthcare facility in the rural Southern USA.

Results support our hypothesis that nurses’ personal enactment moderates the relationship between their depressed mood at work and work passion.

Nurses' depressed mood at work can be less harmful to their work passion, particularly when they demonstrate a relatively higher level of personal enactment.

This study demonstrates that personal enactment attenuates the adverse effects of depressed mood at work when nurses possess elevated work passion levels.