Judith Hollows and Stewart R. Clegg
This paper addresses the reasons why Chinese businesses have long been identified as subordinate to world‐class brand owners; why “global” own brand developments are considered to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper addresses the reasons why Chinese businesses have long been identified as subordinate to world‐class brand owners; why “global” own brand developments are considered to be beyond their competence.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, we use an institutional perspective to examine the difficulties faced by Chinese firms in own brand development, using empirical data derived from a research project into the business strategies of Hong Kong firms, and contrasting these with the case of what is one of China's most successful foreign ventures, Haier.
Findings
The familial form appears to be transforming, due to the employment of a growing stratum of professional middle managers and Chinese family business firms appear to be developing into fully functionally integrated hierarchies capable of product and market development of own branded products. Three institutional supports make this possible. First, the development of parts of the People's Republic of China (PRC) into a quasi‐market economy created a regionally close and large market. Second, technology transfers from leading overseas consumer product brand owners’ supported the development of more sophisticated products and firm capabilities. Third, a steady supply of skilled graduates from Hong Kong and the mainland enabled firms to move further up the value chain and exert more control over their manufacturing and related activities. To go truly global, however, more is required: social capital that connects the firm to the local and national party elites, something that mainland firms may find easier than those from Hong Kong.
Research limitations/implications
Gaining the data meant negotiating access through young professional managers now emerging from Hong Kong universities and was achieved through personal contacts; thus the sample is a small four‐case study. The counterfactual case of Haier is derived not from original research but from website material.
Practical implications
Successful original equipment manufacturing business that goes global will, in addition to the institutional supports identified in the Hong Kong cases, also require elite patronage, social capital and political support.
Originality/value
The paper is of value to managers and consultants interested in international business in China.
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Judith Harwin and Nicola Madge
This article examines the value of the concept of significant harm some 20 years after its introduction in the Children Act 1989. It introduces the concept of significant harm and…
Abstract
This article examines the value of the concept of significant harm some 20 years after its introduction in the Children Act 1989. It introduces the concept of significant harm and then discusses the profile of children and families in care proceedings, the decision‐making process, the interpretation of significant harm in case law, ‘panic’ and its impact on patterns of referrals for case proceedings, and the issue of resources. An alternative model of the problem‐solving court is outlined. It is suggested that ‘significant harm’ has largely stood the test of time. However, the absence of a clear operational definition is both its strength and its weakness. It allows necessary professional discretion but is vulnerable to external pressures affecting its interpretation. A more confident workforce and sufficient resources are required, but the future role of the court and compulsory care is more contentious. The problem‐solving court model may offer a helpful way forward for the scrutiny of significant harm.
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This paper focuses on Ponte City, a high rise residential tower within the inner city of Johannesburg, South Africa - the highest of its kind in the southern hemisphere. This…
Abstract
This paper focuses on Ponte City, a high rise residential tower within the inner city of Johannesburg, South Africa - the highest of its kind in the southern hemisphere. This equally visually and socially notorious cylindrical building has since its erection in the 1970's become an icon and simulacrum of Johannesburg city life. It is located on the border of the suburb of Hillbrow, a restless transcendental suburb, known for its well mixed population of locals and migrant non South Africans, especially from other African countries. The inner city suburbs of Hillbrow and surround is furthermore notorious for being overcrowded and dangerous, with crime and xenophobia reaching peak statistics within the country.
Famous for its peculiar shape and size, and somehow the epitome of what has and is happening in these areas, are Ponte City. It has become the first point of arrival for thousands of migrants from the rest of Africa and functions as a beehive of tangible and non-tangible systems and myths. Although it primarily provides a big concentration of homes for many, its purpose and influence has always been about something bigger - a reference to visual and structural feat, to social elitism, to African migration, and to urban legend of both horror and delight.
The paper investigates the significance of Ponte as built form within this milieu of fear and transition. The building is seen as an urban body that has moved beyond the borders of its physical existence. It is described how it functions and exercises influence in the collective imaginations of its users and spectators. It also looks into how it asserts traditional definition and the significance of volatility in such inner-city environments. Experimental theories of homelessness, concept cities and cities with people as infrastructure are investigated and utilized in order to grasp a new understanding of the building within this unique milieu.
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James B. Shein and Judith Crown
Atari, a maker of video games, went through several owners over the years winding up controlled by Infogrames, a French publisher of video games. Infogrames later sold Atari…
Abstract
Atari, a maker of video games, went through several owners over the years winding up controlled by Infogrames, a French publisher of video games. Infogrames later sold Atari shares in a secondary public offering, eventually reducing the parent’s share to 51.6 percent by September 2005 creating a complicated two-tier ownership structure. Two levels of management made it difficult to get things done. The financial structure was a problem for Infogrames because the French company had to consolidate 100 percent of Atari’s results even though it only owned 51 percent of the company. Atari was generating substantial losses, had defaulted on its debt, and was faced with the possibility of filing for bankruptcy without more working capital. The independent directors of Atari, when confronted with an unsolicited Infogrames buyout offer, had several options: (1) agree to the $1.68 offer (take the money and run); (2) pursue a white knight (a buyout from another investor of company that would be willing to pay a higher price and invest working capital); (3) file a lawsuit to stop the takeover to buy time or perhaps force Infogrames to increase its offer.
Communications in a turnaround How planning and executing a communications strategy is as important as other functional actions Dealing with an international ownership base with a U.S. turnaround of a legacy brand with no hard assets Fiduciary duty and governance issues arising from a takeover offer.
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Carol Camp Yeakey, Jeanita W. Richardson and Judith Brooks Buck
As the 21st century begins, the overwhelming majority of the people in the world who live in poverty are women and children. Humanity has seen stunning advances and has made…
Abstract
As the 21st century begins, the overwhelming majority of the people in the world who live in poverty are women and children. Humanity has seen stunning advances and has made enormous strides for children, many of them in the last decade, many others in just over the span of a generation. Children's lives have been saved and their suffering prevented (UNICEF, 2000). For example, polio, once a global epidemic, is on the verge of eradication in some countries, and deaths from two remorseless child killers, measles and neonatal tetanus, have been reduced over the past 10 years by 85% and more than 25%, respectively. Some 12 million children are now free from the risk of mental retardation due to iodine deficiency. Blindness from vitamin A deficiency has been significantly reduced. More children are in school today than at any previous time.
Susan Frelich Appleton and Susan Ekberg Stiritz
This paper explores four works of contemporary fiction to illuminate formal and informal regulation of sex. The paper’s co-authors frame analysis with the story of their creation…
Abstract
This paper explores four works of contemporary fiction to illuminate formal and informal regulation of sex. The paper’s co-authors frame analysis with the story of their creation of a transdisciplinary course, entitled “Regulating Sex: Historical and Cultural Encounters,” in which students mined literature for social critique, became immersed in the study of law and its limits, and developed increased sensitivity to power, its uses, and abuses. The paper demonstrates the value theoretically and pedagogically of third-wave feminisms, wild zones, and contact zones as analytic constructs and contends that including sex and sexualities in conversations transforms personal experience, education, society, and culture, including law.
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This paper aims to understand the dialectical relationship between place-making and identity formation of factory women in a free trade zone (FTZ) in the Global South.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand the dialectical relationship between place-making and identity formation of factory women in a free trade zone (FTZ) in the Global South.
Design/methodology/approach
Inspired by Judith Butler’s notions of performative acts and performativity, the paper uses poststructuralist discourse analysis to analyze data – oral and written texts – generated through a fieldwork study conducted in an FTZ in Sri Lanka.
Findings
Performative acts and the performativity of the occupants in the FTZ demarcate the boundary of the zone and articulate the identities of its occupants. Furthermore, the study shows that, in this process, such performativity and performative acts function as a form of “glue” to amalgamate the places of the zone space as kalape, a complex socio-geographical landscape in flux.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides a new insight into the relationships between discursive-performative acts, place-making and identity formation of (factory) women in the neoliberalized (zone) space(s) of the Global South.
Originality/value
By articulating the FTZ as a (neoliberalized) space in a perpetual present, the study provides new insight into the relationships between performative acts, place-making and identity formation (of factory women) in the zone space.
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Few would argue with the notion that innovation is an investment in the future. The complexity of innovation decisions can be squarely confronted with the use of the portfolio…
Abstract
Few would argue with the notion that innovation is an investment in the future. The complexity of innovation decisions can be squarely confronted with the use of the portfolio concept by general managers at the division level. When applied at this level, portfolio strategy can be instrumental in achieving broader objectives and economic wealth despite the drawbacks of uncertainty, expense, and inefficiency that are sometimes associated with innovation.
The competition reality television show Dragula (Boulet Brothers, 2016-present) features a parade of monsters from the horror canon. Each episode, queer drag artists present…
Abstract
The competition reality television show Dragula (Boulet Brothers, 2016-present) features a parade of monsters from the horror canon. Each episode, queer drag artists present outfits based on the show's aesthetic tenants: horror, filth and glamour. Nearly every outfit presented by the show's contestants, dubbed ‘drag monsters’, features some element of monstrosity and many pay specific homage to monsters from horror cinema. In drawing the monster figure into the world of gender performance, Dragula showcases the vast queer possibility of the monster figure. Like queerness itself, these drag monsters prove monstrosity is fluid and need not by associated to any one specific gender; the monster figure provides a canvas on which these artists can move between both human and non-human and male and female. This chapter traces the show's horror lineage – most notably the text from which it queers its name, Bram Stroker's Dracula (1987), and Stephen King's Carrie (1974) as well as the alternative precedent set by the drag legend Divine. Its analysis demonstrates Dragula's creative power in reimaging gender beyond the binary of man/woman by way of the monster figure.