This paper aims to provide an explanation for foreign small‐ and‐medium‐sized enterprise' (SMEs) internationalization results in China based on human and social capital…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide an explanation for foreign small‐ and‐medium‐sized enterprise' (SMEs) internationalization results in China based on human and social capital interactions.
Design/methodology/approach
The results of a qualitative comparative case study drawing on primary (interviews, observations) and secondary data (reports) are reported.
Findings
The paper finds that human capital dimensions interact and influence social capital development for internationalization purposes. Different types of social capital can be developed (domestic or international) with different effects on internationalization. Similarities with Chinese guanxi practices are also established.
Research limitations/implications
The present paper provides a starting‐point for further research in SME internationalization and entrepreneurs' characteristics in China regardless of cultural traits typically invoked: quantitative analysis, extension to a different context of internationalization or use of different descriptors of human and social capital, etc.
Practical implications
The paper highlights the importance for internationalization agents (such as public agencies) to provide not only cultural training but also, above all, personal coaching to develop some international human capital traits (international orientation, international business skills, etc.) and sectoral connections.
Originality/value
The paper extends the traditional culture‐based guanxi paradigm of internationalization in China to a social capital based approach of emerging entrepreneurship.
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Francois Goxe and Nathalie Belhoste
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a critical approach of the identification and rejection strategies in discourses and practices of a “global elite” of business…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a critical approach of the identification and rejection strategies in discourses and practices of a “global elite” of business leaders and managers.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review of mainstream and more critical management and sociology literature on global or transnational elites and classes is presented. The identification and rejection discursive strategies of some (French) multinational corporations’ managers and internationalization agents are then empirically and qualitatively observed and analyzed.
Findings
The findings are interpreted under the following strategies: constructive strategies, reproductive and legitimizing strategies and exclusion strategies. Some members of the global elite deploy a cosmopolitan and welcoming discourse to not only identify legitimate members of that class but also turn this discourse into one of exclusion, that is, find ways through language, and practice, to exclude those they perceive as illegitimate.
Research limitations/implications
Management research on global elites needs more critical thinking and reflexivity to avoid acting as a mere vector of global managerial doxa. Studying values, practices and reactions of other less “prestigious” classes confronted with those elites (small- and medium-sized enterprises’ entrepreneurs, individuals from emerging countries, etc.) may contribute to such perspective.
Originality/value
The paper shows that the literature (in management) often speaks very highly of global elites. It identifies some dynamics of power between members of that/those classes and individuals who intend to join them and thus provides explanations about the elite’s unwritten codes of conduct, pre-requisites for consideration and inclusion and shows how global classes/elites discursively legitimize and exclude others.
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This introduction aims to set the scene for this special issue on innovation in Chinese firms.
Abstract
Purpose
This introduction aims to set the scene for this special issue on innovation in Chinese firms.
Design/methodology/approach
There is no research design and methodology for data collection and analysis as such.
Findings
This introduction sets the special issue in the context of the European Academy of Management (EURAM) track with the same theme. It also provides an outline for the special issue highlighting the main topics in terms of technology and innovation management in large and small firms in China; as well as lessons drawn from academic institutions involved in provision of management education both at research and taught – MBA‐level degree programs.
Research limitations/implications
This special issue is limited in the number of contributions that they are submitted to the EURAM Conference and track on “innovation in Chinese firms” in 2008 and 2009. The research implications for firm strategy and government policy draw on limited empirical evidence mainly from case studies and interviews with selected experts.
Originality/value
The originality of this special issue is that it brings together empirical findings from a broad range of large state owned companies, small and medium enterprises, and Chinese and foreign universities and business schools interested in management education in China.
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Maria Giuseppina Bruna, Jean-François Chanlat and Mathieu Chauvet
The sociological and demographic reality of recent decades has meant that western companies have seen an evolution towards greater diversification among their staff members. The…
Abstract
The sociological and demographic reality of recent decades has meant that western companies have seen an evolution towards greater diversification among their staff members. The implementing of a diversity policy in a company cannot be reduced to a managerial fashion or fad, to professional rhetoric or to a set of superficial or illusory initiatives, but it can aim at social transformation. That is why, in this chapter, the authors have chosen to portray the deployment of such an approach from the standpoint of an organisation-changing process, which can, at the same time, alter the language, the standards and the practices of the organisation and led them at the end to identify three managerial levers capable of transforming team diversity into performance enhancers.