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This paper aims to examine how economic freedom impacts the initial choice of legal structure for startup firms. The authors do this by first exploring whether economic freedom is an essential determinant of the initial legal form of organization (LFO). The authors then explore the impact of economic freedom on firms' choice of changing their initial legal structure over time and how this change impacts their survival rate.

The authors employ a multinomial logistic regression model to measure the initial determinants of LFO by utilizing an eight-year panel data set of 4,928 startups in the USA through the Kauffman firm survey and merge it with the Economic Freedom in North American index from the Fraser Institute. The authors then employ a logistic regression model to examine the determinants facilitating a change in legal structure over time.

The results show that economic freedom is a significant determinant in the choice of legal structure. The findings also report that the majority of startups do not change their legal form, but of those that do change the legal structure show a higher survival rate.

Major limitations are the size of the data and the nature of somewhat limited economic freedom differences with the USA. More nuanced measures of economic freedom would be highly desirable.

Policymakers should take note that limited red tape, smoothly working labor markets and straightforward processes for changes of legal structures of organizations would improve survival and growth odds for entrepreneurs.

Drawing on the theory of institutions, the authors attempt to bridge a gap in the literature by explicitly analyzing the determinants of the legal structure in startups in light of economic freedom. Institutional factors do not work in isolation; therefore, the authors also employ traditional entrepreneur-specific variables that affect the choice of legal structure in addition to the institutional framework.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the literature on entrepreneurship and corruption by examining the link between productive and unproductive entrepreneurial activities as moderated by economic freedom. Specifically, the authors hypothesize that various aspects of economic freedom are contextual in their moderating effects, so that what matters in terms of economic freedom will depend on other factors such as levels of human capital.

The authors test these hypotheses by incorporating aggregated and disaggregated measures from the Economic Freedom of the World into a model of international entrepreneurial activity.

The results indicate that not only is economic freedom a major determinant of the level of entrepreneurial activity across countries, as previously verified, but that it also moderates the relationship between human capital, corruption, and productive entrepreneurship.

These findings resolve many of the ambiguities previously identified in the literature on the link between corruption, entrepreneurship, and growth.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the opportunities and challenges facing firms in this new digital era concerning their international marketing strategy and examine how international marketing practices can be revisited in the light of these developments. Consideration is given to a range of relevant issues involved in the design and deployment of effective international marketing strategies using internet-enabled technologies. Such factors relate to internal company requirements, the external environmental situation, foreign market selection and entry, international marketing mix programs, and strategy implementation and control aspects.

A conceptual paper identifies, structures and presents systematically factors influencing international marketing strategy, implementation and control using digital technologies.

The authors point to the relevance and potentially important role that the deployment of online organizational resources and capabilities play in influencing foreign market selection and entry decisions and international marketing strategy choices, implementation and control. The authors thus explain how the use of digital technologies can facilitate the firm’s foreign market choices and the adoption of effective marketing programs, and offer insights into the adoption of digital tools in more effectively implementing and controlling the firm’s international marketing strategy.

The originality and value of this conceptual study is reflected in the identification and discussion of factors comprising the organizing framework of an international marketing strategy using internet-enabled technologies and in the examination of fruitful avenues of future investigation as a result of the need to redesign international marketing strategies in a new digital era.

Purpose – To identify and systematically analyze empirical works in the emerging field of global online entrepreneurship.

Design/methodology/approach – A review of empirical articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals (1997–2008) focused on global online activities of entrepreneurial firms. The methodology purposefully compares a large number of recent studies on the main objective, type of research, theoretical framework, methodology, and main findings.

Findings – The systematic analysis of 45 articles reveals the most relevant publications in the field highlighting the collective contribution of this body of literature. The review offers insight into the state of the art of the field, discusses the implications for future development, and provides insights into the entrepreneurial aspects of e-commerce use.

Research limitations/implications – The review is limited to empirical articles published in academic journals and does not cover important conceptual contributions, book chapters, or conference publications.

Practical implications – The review highlights avenues for the future development of the field and provides guidelines for practitioners involved in global online business.

Originality/value – This paper provides a consolidation of an emerging field and offers practical advice to firms involved in global e-commerce.

This chapter aims to determine whether diversification benefits accrue from adding emerging market hedge funds (EMHFs) to an emerging market bond/equity portfolio, and subsequently whether the type of exposure hedge funds provide is justified by their fees. We use multivariate cointegration analysis to show that the advantages of adding hedge funds to balanced portfolios are limited for the three regions of Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, as well as for the entire global emerging market universe. In summary, we find that emerging market hedge funds are generally redundant for diversifying long-only emerging market investment portfolios with long-term investment horizons. This result also holds when we extend our sample by the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 and allow for structural breaks according to the Gregory-Hansen (1996) test. Hence, even during the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, when risk diversification was most needed, long-term comovements between hedge funds and traditional assets is, with the exception of the Eastern European region, not disrupted. Because EMHF returns are heavily influenced by the emerging market equity and bond markets, we conclude that the “alpha fees” charged by EMHFs may not always be appropriate for the three main regions under consideration. This also holds, however, to a lesser extent, for a global diversification among hedge funds and traditional assets in emerging markets.

The paper seeks to apply the theory of the democratic deficit to school‐based management with an emphasis on Australia. This theory was developed to examine managerial restructuring of the Australian Public Service in the 1990s. Given similarities between the use of managerial practices in the public service and government schools, the authors draw on recent literature about school‐based management in Australia and apply the democratic deficit theory to it.

This paper is conceptual in focus. The authors analyse literature in terms of the three components of the democratic deficit – i.e. the weakening of accountability, the denial of the roles and values of public employees, and the emergence of a “hollow state” – and in relation to the application of this theory to the Australian Public Service.

A trend towards the three components of the democratic deficit is evident in Australia although, to date, its emergence has not been as extensive as in the UK. The authors argue that the democratic principles on which public schooling in Australia was founded are being eroded by managerial and market practices.

These findings provide policy makers and practitioners with another way of examining managerial and market understandings of school‐based management and its impact on teachers and on students. It offers suggestions to reorient practices away from those that are exclusively managerial‐based towards those that are public‐sector based.

The value of this paper is that it applies the theory of the democratic deficit to current understandings of school‐based management.

While some may perceive technology as disruptive in higher education, this chapter makes a case that video technology can be used to increase collaboration and engagement in learning and teaching. It is argued that digital storytelling can be integrated as part of the assessment in graduate-level courses without compromising expectations related to academic rigor. Rather, digital storytelling advances multimedia literacy for the individual and supports the generation of bounded learning communities, specifically in online and blended programmes. Covering social presence, teaching presence and cognitive presence, the chapter draws on two examples of digital storytelling used in the MA in Conflict Analysis and Management and the MA in Global Leadership at Royal Roads University, Canada. Overall, the chapter makes a contribution to the conversation of how assessment formats can be updated to match the shift from traditional, lecture formats and brick-and-mortar institutions to applied, collaborative programmes that are often delivered in blended and online formats. Thus, as the field of higher education continues to evolve and adapt alongside technological innovations, the chapter suggests that digital storytelling can be one way to complement and update assessment formats to match the evolution of the twenty-first century.

Things seem to be going desperately wrong with the concept of the “brave new world” predicted by the starry‐eyed optimists after the Second World War finally came to an end. To those who listen only to what they want to hear, see everything, not as it is, but as they would like it to be, a new society could be initiated and the lusty infant would emerge as a paragon for all the world to follow. The new society in truth never really got off the ground the biggest mistake of all was to cushion millions of people against the results of their own folly; to shelter them from the blasts of the ensuing economic climate. The sheltered ones were not necessarily the ordinary mass of people; many in fact were the victims and suffered the consequences. And now that the state has reached a massive crescendo, many are suffering profoundly. The big nationalised industries and vast services, such as the national health service, education, where losses in the case of the first are met by Government millions, requests to trim the extravagant spending is akin to sacrilege in the latter, have removed such terms as thrift, careful spending, value for money from the vocabulary.