Alexandros Fakos and Maria Merino
The purpose of this paper is to document the extensive heterogeneity in institutions within countries and investigate which institutional factors are the most relevant for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to document the extensive heterogeneity in institutions within countries and investigate which institutional factors are the most relevant for international brands.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyzes the entry patterns of three global fast-food franchise networks in 78 Mexican cities using discrete outcome models and ordered probit in particular. To summarize the quantitative importance of the results, the analysis includes also log-linear regressions with Heckman correction for the city observations without franchise presence.
Findings
Institutional factors are critical for an international franchisor in the decision to enter a new market. The most important institutional quality proxy for franchise entry is the rate of formal employment. The more the informal employment in a city, the lower the number of franchised stores and the lower the probability of brand presence in the city.
Research limitations/implications
Only three fast-food franchises are included in the paper, which limits the generalization of the results beyond the sector and Mexico. Another limitation of the methodology of this paper is that the authors estimate the effect of institutions on multinational franchise entry conditioning on market size. The issue here is that if institutions increase gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, then the demand for multinational franchises also increases. Such an effect cannot be captured if we condition on market size in our econometric models. This is particularly important for policy-makers aiming to quantify costs and benefits of reforms but not an important consideration for practitioners who might take institutions as given and are mainly interested in entry strategies that maximize profitability.
Practical implications
Institutional variables, and not only market factors, are critical to understand the entry decision of global franchisors in Mexico. In particular, the extent of informality is relevant in explaining the store location. It is necessary to understand how managers value the quality of institutions and which dimensions are most important for multinationals. In addition, the analysis should be conducted both at the national and sub-national level, given that within-country heterogeneity is prevalent in emerging markets.
Social implications
Cities must reinforce and communicate their institutional quality to attract foreign investment by franchises in particular.
Originality/value
We test several dimensions of institutional quality at the urban level as determinants of multinationals? decision to enter a city in a foreign market. We use novel administrative data at the municipality level and we employ econometric model that takes into account the discreetness of entry data and the fact that there are cities with no franchise presence. We control for sample selection, which comes from the zero number of stores in some city observations in the regressions.
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Maria-Jose Manjon, Amparo Merino and Iain Cairns
The purpose of this paper is to present advances towards a social intrapreneurship department within energy corporations. By drawing on the literature on social intrapreneurship…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present advances towards a social intrapreneurship department within energy corporations. By drawing on the literature on social intrapreneurship and stakeholder theory, this paper provides a conceptual proposal for an organisational structure. This paper builds on the notion of bridging and boundary organisations, to suggest an organisational innovative structure as a social intrapreneurship endeavour focussing on the increasing salience of weak stakeholders in energy corporations from the energy justice approach.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on the literatures on social intrapreneurship and stakeholder theory, to provide arguments and an organisational proposal to alleviate energy poverty in energy corporations.
Findings
The results are presented in a conceptual process model for the development of Social Energy Department units within large energy companies, illustrating their embeddedness in both societal and company-level processes to facilitate social intrapreneurship initiatives that would alleviate energy poverty in the just transition.
Practical implications
The paper promises novel insights at the nexus of social enterprise and organisational change. The practical applicability is particularly promising, as it focusses on integrating novel units in energy companies and stimulates further research on models of social intrapreneurship to tackle energy poverty.
Originality/value
The paper offers both practical and theoretical contributions to the stakeholder theory field with insights from social intrapreneurship and organisational stakeholder theory in the context of a specific social problem – energy poverty, energy justice and the just energy transition.
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Aldo Alvarez-Risco, Alfredo Estrada-Merino, María de las Mercedes Anderson-Seminario, Sabina Mlodzianowska, Verónica García-Ibarra, Cesar Villagomez-Buele and Mauricio Carvache-Franco
This paper aims to explore university students' multitasking behavior in online classrooms and their influence on academic performance. Also, the study examined students' opinions.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore university students' multitasking behavior in online classrooms and their influence on academic performance. Also, the study examined students' opinions.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 302 university students fulfilled an online survey. Ten questions were focused on demographic information, five items evaluated online class behavior of students, 9 items evaluated self-efficacy and four items measured academic performance.
Findings
Multitasking behavior was found to negatively influence self-efficacy of −0.332, whereas self-efficacy showed a positive influence of 0.325 on academic performance. Cronbach's alpha and average variance extracted values were 0.780 and 0.527 (multitasking behavior), 0.875 and 0.503 (self-efficacy), 0.781 and 0.601 (academic performance). Outcomes of the bootstrapping test showed that the path coefficients are significant.
Originality/value
The research findings may help university managers understand undergraduates’ online and face-to-face behavior and strategies to improve the behavior to ensure the best academic outcomes. The novelty is based on using the partial least square structural equation modeling technique.
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David Blanco-Alcántara, José María Díez-Esteban and M. Elena Romero-Merino
The purpose of this paper is to use the dynamic capabilities framework to explain the effect of board networks, as a source of intellectual capital, on firm performance. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use the dynamic capabilities framework to explain the effect of board networks, as a source of intellectual capital, on firm performance. The authors propose that the influence of board interlocks depends on their ability to contribute to strategic decision making. As a result, their effect is subject to the business context in which they occur and the different role of the interconnected directors involved.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use social network analysis to make board connections and to calculate centrality measures. The authors also identify busy boards to analyze whether their effect differs from centrality. The authors estimate the theoretical model using the Generalized Method of Moments in order to take advantage of the panel database.
Findings
For a sample of Spanish firms from 1999 to 2015, the results show there is no direct significant effect of directors’ networks on firm performance. However, the authors find a positive and significant influence of intra-industry board connections, particularly when they are established among outsiders.
Research limitations/implications
The Spanish context of the study can limit the generalization of the papers’ results.
Practical implications
The results can be useful both for practitioners – since they can serve as a guide for companies to reformulate their boards in search of the optimal structure-, and when implementing good governance codes – establishing limits for director interlocking.
Originality/value
This study helps to offer a better understanding of how directors’ networks can add value to the firm depending on the kind of resources they provide (context) and the role of the director who is connected.
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María Isabel Roldán Bravo, Juan Manuel Maqueira-Marin and José Moyano-Fuentes
The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to provide a measurement instrument for supply chain 4.0 ambidexterity by applying the theoretical perspective of ambidexterity to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to provide a measurement instrument for supply chain 4.0 ambidexterity by applying the theoretical perspective of ambidexterity to advance Industry 4.0; secondly, to empirically analyse how supply chain 4.0 ambidexterity and lean supply chain management contribute to enhancing the focal firm’s operational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical results are obtained through analysis of survey data from a sample of 209 Spanish focal firms in industrial sectors in an intermediate position in the supply chain. Structural equation modelling was performed to test the three proposed hypotheses.
Findings
Drawing on resource orchestration theory and the relational resource-based view, this study empirically demonstrates the full mediating role of lean supply chain management in the relationship between supply chain 4.0 ambidexterity and the focal firm’s operational performance.
Originality/value
Although recent research has highlighted the pertinence of applying inter-organisational ambidexterity to foster Industry 4.0 (Hofmann et al., 2019), to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to apply this theoretical framework to explain the transition to supply chain 4.0. In addition, to date, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study exists that has developed a measurement scale and used this concept in an empirical analysis to advance theory development.
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Marco Bettiol, Maria Chiarvesio, Eleonora Di Maria, Cristina Di Stefano and Luciano Fratocchi
Manufacturing offshoring has received substantial attention within international business studies that have explored where activities are located and how they are governed…
Abstract
Manufacturing offshoring has received substantial attention within international business studies that have explored where activities are located and how they are governed. However, recent examples of manufacturing relocation to the home country/region have put the advantages of offshoring under scrutiny, since the location of production activities in high-cost countries may have positive impacts in terms of innovation and marketing opportunities. Despite the growing interest in offshoring and “relocations of second degree,” there is a lack of knowledge on the alternative strategies firms may implement after offshoring. This chapter aims to propose a comprehensive framework to summarize and classify the multiple alternatives firms may implement after the initial relocation abroad of manufacturing activities. Based on an extensive literature review and a comparative analysis of Italian case studies, the chapter suggests theoretical advancement in the theory of location of business activities, offering multiple post-offshoring strategic options that may be implemented individually or in combination. In so doing, the analysis also stresses the variety of strategic paths and the complexity of choices concerning manufacturing location, emphasizing reshoring as a nuanced phenomenon and exploring how domestic and foreign locations can complement each other and be mutually reinforcing.
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The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the profile of public administration concerning its capacity to authoritatively assign values to a society, and in particular to the…
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the profile of public administration concerning its capacity to authoritatively assign values to a society, and in particular to the political system in Mexico. Many of the recent transformations in the Mexican public administration have occurred in a context in which a democratic opening of the political system has been the main trait of public life. This is the main light under which these changes in Mexico's federal public administration in recent years should be read.
The article explores the structural features of both the government and the federal public administration in Mexico. In particular, the transformation of the administrative apparatus not only in quantitative but also in qualitative terms is explained as a result of a change in the balance between the public and private sectors in recent decades, as well as the experience of the Professional Career Service and its impact on public officials in Mexico. We examine the links of the bureaucracy with political parties and civil society, as well as the political relationships within the public administration itself. We also describe accountability within the federal public administration. We explore recent reform and change processes in Mexico's administrative apparatus. Finally, some considerations are given to the opportunities and challenges facing the contemporary Mexican public administration as a result of having huge problems and at the same time partial solutions.
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María-Alejandra Leiva-Martinez, María de las Mercedes Anderson-Seminario, Aldo Alvarez-Risco, Alfredo Estrada-Merino and Sabina Mlodzianowska
The following chapter aims to investigate the impact on the prices of inferior goods from COVID-19, a global pandemic with a spread never before seen, and in order to stipulate…
Abstract
The following chapter aims to investigate the impact on the prices of inferior goods from COVID-19, a global pandemic with a spread never before seen, and in order to stipulate the possible consequences, a contrast was made with past world crises in order to speculate the state in which the country and its citizens would be economically benefited. The chapter has been based on articles previously carried out by specialists, said essays, likewise, that have been contrasted by different authors; therefore, it could be stipulated that the methodology used throughout the trial was the one applied, since it was based on prior knowledge from great scholars on the subject. The results found indicate that, even though the country is in an uncertain outlook, the possibilities of economic recovery are high since previous economic crises denote large drops in money fluctuation with a high rate of recovery.