Search results
1 – 10 of 21International business as a field values perspectives from various contexts, but scholars from emerging markets face a number of often-unseen challenges preventing them from fully…
Abstract
Purpose
International business as a field values perspectives from various contexts, but scholars from emerging markets face a number of often-unseen challenges preventing them from fully contributing to the field. This study aims to explain those challenges and what the author has done to manage them.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a Reflexive piece in which the author makes sense of her own experience as a scholar not only of but also in an emerging market, as well as the experiences at her school in seeking to develop a high-quality doctoral program.
Findings
When leading scholars interact, whether in writing or in person, they tend to be in academically and otherwise well-resourced locations. This is true even for the leading international business scholars of emerging markets, and it imposes time and financial costs on scholars located in emerging markets wanting to participate in such conversations. Having experienced such challenges, the author worked with colleagues to design a doctoral program that could nurture rich scholarly conversations at the school. However, there remains a clear and pervasive tension between the inclusive aspirations of the field and the tendency for cutting-edge academic conversations to be concentrated in the developed world.
Originality/value
The experiences of emerging market scholars remain underrepresented in the field. By drawing on her own experience, both as a scholar and the head of the doctoral program at her school, the author provides suggestions for how to think about and develop a more inclusive scholarly conversation.
Details
Keywords
Albert Wöcke and Helena Barnard
The South African government actively intervenes in the labor market in the pursuit of redress of social injustice. These interventions are complicated by economics and have a…
Abstract
The South African government actively intervenes in the labor market in the pursuit of redress of social injustice. These interventions are complicated by economics and have a direct effect on intentions to turnover. In addition, South Africa has a dual labor market, with a high unemployment rate among lesser skilled workers, and a skills shortage at the top of the labor market.
There are four clear eras in the labor market of post-Apartheid South Africa. The first era was after democratic elections in 1994, when the government focused on nation-building with the introduction of indigenization programs. The second era was characterized by economic prosperity and an intensification of indigenization programs. The third era was characterized by rampant state corruption and increased regulatory uncertainty. During this period, the economy stagnated and unemployment increased. Firms restructured and lower-level workers were retrenched and higher-level skilled workers left the country. In 2018, a new president undertook to grow the South African economy and attract foreign direct investment. Despite these efforts, there was a spike in South Africans emigrating, increasing the turnover of highly skilled South Africans of all races.
Economics and politics create both push and pull factors and many unintended consequences, and the dual labor market reacts differently to labor markets than in developed economies. The lower-skilled employees lose their jobs as the economy contracts, while highly skilled jobs remain difficult to fill. However, skilled professionals nonetheless feel increasingly uncertain about their future employability.
Details
Keywords
The literature on global value chains and global production networks suggests limited entrepreneurial opportunities for small firms from developing countries. However, in networks…
Abstract
The literature on global value chains and global production networks suggests limited entrepreneurial opportunities for small firms from developing countries. However, in networks power can accrue not only to central players (such as lead firms), but also to “marginal” players that can play a brokering role. Brokers get their power from connecting parties that would otherwise not be connected and firms that can bridge structural holes may well have impact beyond what would be suggested by their size. This chapter theorizes and provides evidence for global entrepreneurship through brokerage; when entrepreneurs recognize business opportunities in one context, can identify resources from another context, and can connect the two. Global entrepreneurship through brokerage can take place any time when entrepreneurs see opportunities that can be brokered between any two countries, but it takes a specific form in developing countries. A global entrepreneur can earn rents by bridging the gap between the resources of developed countries and the opportunities in emerging markets. This study examines a South African company providing low-cost housing with funds from socially responsible institutional investors, mainly from North America. The very different institutional conditions of the two contexts facilitate an understanding of how this type of entrepreneurship takes place.
Details
Keywords
Howard Thomas, Michelle Lee, Lynne Thomas and Alexander Wilson
Peter Gammeltoft, Jaya Prakash Pradhan and Andrea Goldstein
The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for analyzing home and host country determinants and outcomes of emerging multinationals (EMNCs).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for analyzing home and host country determinants and outcomes of emerging multinationals (EMNCs).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper applies a conceptual approach combined with analyses of statistics and secondary material.
Findings
The paper identifies changing trends and features of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from emerging economies and identifies in particular differences between outflows from Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC).
Originality/value
The paper puts forward a framework for analyzing determinants and outcomes of structures and strategies of multinational companies from emerging economies and surveys contemporary trends and features of outward FDI from these economies.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of customer share of wallet (SoW) based on research in customer characteristics and the retail service quality model…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of customer share of wallet (SoW) based on research in customer characteristics and the retail service quality model. Specifically, this study adopts an asymmetrical modelling approach to provide insights into the necessary and sufficient conditions leading to increased customer SoW in the context of neighbourhood shops in Southern Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to analyse survey data collected from 523 current customers of the shops.
Findings
This study reveals that large household size and low income are necessary conditions for increased SoW. It also reveals five unique customer profiles, or casual recipes, associated with increased customer SoW. More generally, this study demonstrates that service quality constituents (personal interaction, reliability, policy and physical aspects of the shop) and customer characteristics, namely, relationship duration, household size, gender and income-level act in combination to lead to customer SoW.
Originality/value
This study illustrates how service quality constituents and customer characteristics compete and/or complement each other in relation to increased customer SoW. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to provide evidence on the necessary conditions for increased SoW, especially in the neighbourhood shop context of a developing economy. Value-wise, this paper provides a more nuanced perspective to understanding how unique customer profiles are associated with increased SoW.
Details