John Rankin Wood Riach and Martin R. Schneider
The purpose of this paper is to revisit the disastrous DaimlerChrysler AG takeover episode from 1998 to 2007 in order to arrive at a more comprehensive explanation of this and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to revisit the disastrous DaimlerChrysler AG takeover episode from 1998 to 2007 in order to arrive at a more comprehensive explanation of this and other merger and takeover failures based on institutional theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The case study is based on various secondary sources of information and on the insights that one of the authors gained from working for 14 years in various positions for Daimler-Benz and DaimlerChrysler.
Findings
DaimlerChrysler failed because top management made mistakes in trying to globalize the company. They were unable to realize possible synergies between the two companies, which brought complementary resources into the merger. Furthermore, they did not account for the institutional embeddedness of strategies when they adopted lean production globally, diffused the production system developed in Germany to other parts of the world and tried to implement a global stock enlisted in New York and Frankfurt. The underlying theoretical framework is relevant for other merger and acquisition cases. It features institutional embeddedness, path dependency and institutional arbitrage.
Originality/value
The paper develops an institutional perspective on DaimlerChrysler and on cross-border merger and acquisition failure more generally. The perspective is organized around the varieties-of-capitalism approach. This contribution is important because there is increasing dissatisfaction with the dominant explanation of cross-border merger and acquisition failure, which is based on the allegedly failed management of culture “clashes.”
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Ann Parkinson and Richard McBain
This chapter explores the nature of disengagement and the role played by emotions while disentangling the overlapping theories and definitions of both engagement and…
Abstract
This chapter explores the nature of disengagement and the role played by emotions while disentangling the overlapping theories and definitions of both engagement and disengagement. We carried out two related studies exploring engagement and disengagement in 10 large UK public and private sector organisations. Both studies used an interpretive approach involving 75 managers and employees. The chapter suggests that emotions play a mediating role in the process of disengagement and the emotional reaction involved provides a distinction to being ‘not engaged’. It highlights the confusion that different approaches bring to distinguishing engagement and disengagement from other job attitudes.
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Dana Yagil and Hana Medler-Liraz
This chapter explores the effect of service employees’ trait authenticity on customer satisfaction as mediated by work engagement, surface acting, and perceived authenticity. Data…
Abstract
This chapter explores the effect of service employees’ trait authenticity on customer satisfaction as mediated by work engagement, surface acting, and perceived authenticity. Data were collected from service employee–customer dyads. The results indicate that employees’ work engagement and surface acting mediate the effect of trait authenticity on customers’ satisfaction and perception of authenticity. Trait authenticity is positively related to work engagement and negatively related to surface acting. Evidence that authenticity is desirable in service roles suggests that organizations should consider this characteristic as a significant factor in selection and placement of service employees.
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Kyle Lundby, Wayne C. Lee and William H. Macey
Business leaders can face unique challenges in attracting, retaining, and developing an engaged workforce in today's global organizations. However, insights can be provided by…
Abstract
Business leaders can face unique challenges in attracting, retaining, and developing an engaged workforce in today's global organizations. However, insights can be provided by examining a firm's Employee Value Proposition (EVP) as seen by employees, as well as carefully exploring drivers of employee engagement to equip executives and managers to overcome these challenges. This chapter uses results from Valtera's Annual Global Employee Survey to highlight the potential for leveraging survey data, analyzed at the country level, to best align and tune their human capital strategy and programs to operations and labor markets around the world. Examples of unique EVP profiles and key drivers of engagement from six countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America are provided to illustrate important differences organizations need to consider in optimizing their approach to global human capital management.
Alyssa Birnbaum and M. Gloria González-Morales
There are often relational interactions in teams that lead to and drive the spread of work engagement. Despite the potential social impacts on work engagement, such as coworker…
Abstract
There are often relational interactions in teams that lead to and drive the spread of work engagement. Despite the potential social impacts on work engagement, such as coworker support and organizational citizenship behaviors within teams, they have rarely been studied from a social perspective using social network analysis (SNA). This review draws on the crossover model and conservation of resources theory to suggest that the effects of social diffusion and the exchange of resources can impact Well-Being, specifically work engagement, in teams and that SNA can help measure those social interactions. Linking several network concepts – closeness centrality, density, degree centrality, and tie strength – to work engagement propositions related to the spread of work engagement as well as the number and quality of network ties, this review elucidates the potential for integrating SNA methodology to the field of Well-Being for teams.
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This chapter addresses the question of what normatively binding claims can be associated with the principle of sustainability. It proposes a theoretical reading of justice that…
Abstract
This chapter addresses the question of what normatively binding claims can be associated with the principle of sustainability. It proposes a theoretical reading of justice that requires a new level of morality, namely a global (spatial), intergenerational (temporal) and ecological (material) extension of the scope of responsibility. This makes it plausible that responsibility for those who are distant in space and time, as well as for nature, becomes a matter of conscience. At the same time, it is shown how the binding claims resulting from the principle of sustainability can be internalised in the course of a conscience formation and how the gap between knowledge and action in questions of sustainable development can be closed by means of an emotional underpinning. Finally, it is proposed to transfer the question of conscience to spatial units and tourism through the model of ‘Destination Conscience’ and to institutionalise the idea of ‘inner commitment’ or self-commitment. One suggestion is the creation of committees that could be a collective ethical conscience for the future issues.
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Using semantic differential ratings of evaluation, potency and activity of American and German undergraduates, I will test the general hypothesis that if both cultures agree on…
Abstract
Using semantic differential ratings of evaluation, potency and activity of American and German undergraduates, I will test the general hypothesis that if both cultures agree on the sexual‐ erotic denotation of sentiments, sentiments will differ disproportional in their affective representations. It will be demonstrated that there is an interconnection of role‐identities and emotions. Affective representation between sexual role‐ identities differs in German and American culture. Emotions associated with sexual‐erotic role‐identities have a deviant and violent quality for Americans. The same role‐identities associate with emotions of impression and passion for German subjects.
Doris Warneke and Martin Schneider
Heterogeneous employee preferences may encumber employers' attempts to standardize expatriate compensation packages. The purpose of this paper is to outline an empirical approach…
Abstract
Purpose
Heterogeneous employee preferences may encumber employers' attempts to standardize expatriate compensation packages. The purpose of this paper is to outline an empirical approach that informs employers about their employees' preferences concerning an international assignment.
Design/methodology/approach
Utility theory and conjoint measurement techniques are applied. Employees, it is argued, derive utility from the multiple characteristics of the assignment in terms of working conditions, career prospects, and living conditions. Employees perceive that utility relative to their country‐specific status quo. Such preferences may be measured with conjoint analysis.
Findings
To illustrate the methodology, German and Spanish employees in one company were given the scenario of an assignment in the USA. Measured preferences, though partly heterogeneous, were systematically related to the home country's institutional and cultural environment (societal effect).
Research limitations/implications
More countries should be included in future studies. Studies of this kind may be related to the concepts of institutional and cultural distance.
Practical implications
Based on these findings, worldwide policies and procedures on expatriate compensation packages may be formulated to strike a better balance between standardization and the needs of a heterogeneous global workforce.
Originality/value
The paper presents a first systematic model of the preferences that guide the employee decision to accept or decline an international assignment, and it illustrates how these preferences can be measured.
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The development in the German-speaking countries of International Management (IM) as an academic discipline is analyzed both from a research-oriented and an institutional…
Abstract
The development in the German-speaking countries of International Management (IM) as an academic discipline is analyzed both from a research-oriented and an institutional standpoint. This development is characterized by a relatively long run-up after early beginnings in the 1920s and a steep jump during the past 15–20 years. Business Administration and Strategic Management rather than Economics have influenced the IM field which is now an established subject in its own right. The resulting discipline is well on its way to overcoming an alleged “black hole-image” of international isolation on the part of German-speaking countries’ scholars.
Martin E. Persson and Christopher J. Napier
The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges faced by an Australian accounting academic, R. J. Chambers, in the 1950s, in breaking into the accounting research…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges faced by an Australian accounting academic, R. J. Chambers, in the 1950s, in breaking into the accounting research community, at that time, almost entirely located in the USA and the UK. For academics outside the networks of accounting research publication in these countries, there were significant, but not insurmountable obstacles to conducting and publishing accounting research. We examine how these obstacles could be overcome, using the notion of “trials of strength” to trace the efforts of Chambers in wrestling with intellectual issues arising from post-war inflation, acquiring accounting literature from abroad and publishing his endeavours.
Design/methodology/approach
The article uses actor-network theory to provide an analytical structure for a “counter-narrative” history firmly grounded in the archives.
Findings
Documents from the R. J. Chambers Archive at the University of Sydney form the empirical basis for a narrative that portrays accounting research as a diverse process driven as much by circumstances – such as geographical location, access to accounting literature and personal connections – as the merits of the intellectual arguments.
Research limitations/implications
Although the historical details are specific to the case being studied, the article provides insights into the challenges faced by researchers on the outside of international research networks in achieving recognition and in participating in academic debates.
Practical implications
The findings of this article can provide guidance and inspiration to accounting researchers attempting to participate in wider academic communities.
Originality/value
The article uses documents from perhaps the most extensive archive relating to an individual accounting academic. It examines the process of academic research in accounting in terms of the material context in which such research takes place, whereas most discussions have focussed on the underlying ideas and concepts, abstracted from the context in which they emerge.