The purpose of this paper is to address the question how multinational corporations (MNCs) can respond to different domains of formal voids associated with informal institutions…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the question how multinational corporations (MNCs) can respond to different domains of formal voids associated with informal institutions in emergent markets.
Design/methodology/approach
The author advances the institution-based view of international business strategy by developing a framework and six propositions. The theoretical distinction of informal institutions as an additional aspect when disrupting formal institutional voids are instrumental in developing a refined understanding of how MNCs can respond to institutional voids.
Findings
By emphasizing the notion of informal institutions that are associated with formal institutional voids, the author moves away from a unidimensional toward a multidimensional view of substituting formal voids. The presented response variety includes a variety of substitutes.
Research limitations/implications
Further research can apply qualitative research to further examine where, when and why social innovations can be used efficiently to address institutional weaknesses or absences. The author suggests further research opportunities in the implication section.
Social implications
Constituting substitutive formal institutions with complementary informal institutions can help strategic managers navigate business activities in emerging markets. Institutional weaknesses can be used as opportunities to create legitimacy and serve social needs. To help facilitate such impacts public policies need to be developed accordingly.
Originality/value
The paper provides a new and critical perspective on how MNCs can use institutional voids as opportunities. The author’s key contribution is to highlight specific substitutive actions from MNCs to institutional voids when different cultural-cognitive and normative circumstances apply in emerging markets.
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To describe how the teaching and learning approach of a new MBA distance learning program helps to produce promoters and ecopreneurs of sustainable development and…
Abstract
Purpose
To describe how the teaching and learning approach of a new MBA distance learning program helps to produce promoters and ecopreneurs of sustainable development and entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
The chosen MBA program is analyzed based on the principles of time flexibility, promotion of initiative, team capability, staff development and transfer to practice.
Findings
Provides information about how a study program can bring the team capability and initiative of future ecopreneurs as well as staff learning forward. Recognises the need to consider using links to industry and government to transfer sustainable ideas to practice.
Research limitations/implications
The article illustrates concentrated knowledge on a case study and does not compare different distance‐learning programs or other educational programs in these areas.
Practical implications
A very useful source of information for target groups of MBA studies, like graduate students or employed people, as well as designers of courses of study implying sustainability management and entrepreneurship. This teaching and learning approach can be adapted to other educational settings at a postgraduate level to train sustainable leaders for the future.
Originality/value
This paper fills the gap to survey further education programs which generate and transmit knowledge to future ecopreneurs.
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Keywords
Development of intellectual capital, in conjunction with collaborative capabilities, is particularly important to continuously generating innovation. In the literature to date…
Abstract
Development of intellectual capital, in conjunction with collaborative capabilities, is particularly important to continuously generating innovation. In the literature to date, the link between collaborative and intellectual capital, although key assets in knowledge-intensive industries, has rarely been investigated. This chapter introduces a model illustrating the interaction between human, intellectual, and structural capital, and their interplay. Several propositions are also derived in view of the need for companies to harness these three types of capital which are integral to implicit knowledge generation and leveraging the dynamic capabilities of the organization. As a consequence, team-based organizational forms are considered to be the most appropriate collaborative pattern for knowledge-intensive industries. This suggests that companies must increasingly focus on building valuable collaborative capital using flexible forms of organization in order to perpetuate successful product innovations.
Madeleine Rauch and Shahzad (Shaz) Ansari
We illustrate the potential of diaries for advancing scholarship on organization studies and grand challenges. Writing personal diaries is a time-honored and culturally sanctioned…
Abstract
We illustrate the potential of diaries for advancing scholarship on organization studies and grand challenges. Writing personal diaries is a time-honored and culturally sanctioned way of animating innermost thoughts and feelings, and embodying experiences through self-talk with famous examples, such as the diaries written by Anne Frank, Andy Warhol, or Thomas Mann. However, the use of diaries has long been neglected in organization studies, despite their historical and societal importance. We illustrate how different forms of analyzing diaries enable a “deep analysis of individuals’ internal processes and practices” (Radcliffe, 2018) which cannot be gleaned from other sources of data such as interviews and observations. Diaries exist in different forms, such as “unsolicited diaries” and “solicited diaries” and have different purposes. We evaluate how analyzing diaries can be a valuable source to illuminate the innermost thoughts and feelings of people at the forefront of grand challenges. To exemplify our arguments, we draw on diaries written by medical professionals working for Doctors Without Borders as part of our empirical research project conducted in extreme contexts. We show the value of unsolicited diaries in revealing people’s thought world that is not apprehensible from other modes of communication, and offer a set of practical guidelines on working with data from diaries. Diaries serve to enrich our methodological toolkit by capturing what people think and feel behind the scenes but may not express nor display in public.
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Thomas Lopdrup-Hjorth and Anne Roelsgaard Obling
In this chapter, we contextualise an ethical codex introduced in the Danish Central Administration. As a management tool, the codex is intended to curb a mounting distrust induced…
Abstract
In this chapter, we contextualise an ethical codex introduced in the Danish Central Administration. As a management tool, the codex is intended to curb a mounting distrust induced by a number of political-administrative scandals. This is attempted via a revitalisation of classical bureaucratic duties. At the same time, the codex’s attempt at restoring trust is challenged by a number of obstacles. Launching our exploration from an ethos of office-perspective, we contextualise the codex in three dimensions: an organisational dimension, a semantic dimension and a training dimension. From this three-pronged analysis, we show how a number of historical and contemporary obstacles work counter to the codex’s stated attempt to revitalise the ethos of the civil servants. Building on these analyses, we discuss the tensions between official and private selves in particular ethical training exercises as well as the implications the codex brings with it, including a possible obscuring of political-administrative responsibility.
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Anne Klitgaard and Stefan Christoffer Gottlieb
The study aims to investigate the concept of strategy-as-practice in construction management literature has been investigated. The focus is on the link between strategizing…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to investigate the concept of strategy-as-practice in construction management literature has been investigated. The focus is on the link between strategizing practices and project management.
Design/Methodology/Approach
An exploratory literature review is carried out based on fifteen journal articles on strategizing practices in the construction industry.
Findings
The analysis shows how strategy-as-practice questions and contradicts project management practices as depicted in the dominant deterministic perspective. Strategy-as-practice has a focus on reacting and adapting to a chaotic and changing environment, while project management is concerned with creating and maintaining a stable working environment. The findings point to the necessity of considering the organizational and institutional context of project management practices, and hence the values the strategy-as-practice lens, when considering new avenues for improving the industry.
Research Limitations/Implications
As the study is based on an exploratory literature review of only 15 articles, generalizations should be made with caution. The identified literature is restricted by search words and choice of database.
Practical Implications
The differences between strategizing and project management practices are very clear, and a focus on both may offer insights into how the construction industry could improve its productivity by developing more robust management practices.
Originality/Value
The paper illustrates the benefit of applying a strategizing perspective, which hitherto has been under-investigated in construction management research.
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Keywords
Anne E. Zald and Cathy Seitz Whitaker
Despite the title of this bibliography, there was not a truly underground press in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. The phrase is amisnomer, reputedly coined on the…
Abstract
Despite the title of this bibliography, there was not a truly underground press in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. The phrase is amisnomer, reputedly coined on the spur of the moment in 1966 by Thomas Forcade when asked to describe the newly established news service, Underground Press Syndicate, of which he was an active member. The papers mentioned in this bibliography, except for the publications of the Weather Underground, were not published by secretive, covert organizations. Freedom of the press and of expression is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, although often only symbolically as the experience of the undergrounds will show, and most of the publications that fall into the “underground” described herein maintained public offices, contracted with commercial printers, and often used the U.S. Postal Service to distribute their publications.
J. Cairns, N. Jennett and P.J. Sloane
Since the appearance of Simon Rottenberg's seminal paper on the baseball players' labour market in the Journal of Political Economy (1956), the literature on the economics of…
Abstract
Since the appearance of Simon Rottenberg's seminal paper on the baseball players' labour market in the Journal of Political Economy (1956), the literature on the economics of professional team sports has increased rapidly, fuelled by major changes in the restrictive rules which had pervaded these sports, themselves a consequence of battles in the courts and the collective bargaining arena. These changes have not been limited to North America, to which most of the literature relates, but also apply to Western Europe and Australia in particular. This monograph surveys this literature covering those various parts of the world in order to draw out both theoretical and empirical aspects. However, to argue that the existence of what is now an extensive literature “justifies” such a survey on professional team sports clearly begs a number of questions. Justification can be found in at least two major aspects.
IN presenting our readers with an illustration of the bust of this distinguished philanthropist, we may recall a few particulars of his life.