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Presents the kinematic calibration of an H4 parallel prototype robot using a vision‐based measuring device. Calibration is performed according to the inverse kinematic model method, using first the design model then a model developed for calibration purpose. To do so, the end‐effector pose (i.e. position and orientation) has to be measured with the utmost accuracy. Thus, first the practical accuracy of the low‐cost vision‐based measuring system is evaluated to have a precision in the order of magnitude of 10μ_it;m and 10^−3° for a 1,024×768 pixel CCD camera. Second, the prototype is calibrated using the easy‐to‐install vision system, yielding a final positioning accuracy of the end‐effector reduced from more than 1cm down to less than 0.5mm. Also provides a discussion on the use of such a method on commercial systems.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to highlight the heterogeneity of the organizational aims within the professional football teams in Ligue 1. Second, to understand why some teams swing from a win orientation towards a soft budget constraint from year to year, and vice versa.

Financial data from annual reports for the period 2005/2015 was collected for the 35 Ligue 1 clubs. To define the degree of compliance with the intended strategy for those clubs, an efficiency analysis was conducted thanks to the data envelopment analysis method. This measure of performance was supplemented with the identification of productivity and demand shocks to identify whether clubs suffered from such shock or changed their strategy. It enables to precise the nature of the evolution in the utility function, with regards to the gap between expectation and actual performance.

The paper suggests that a team can switch from one orientation to another from year to year due to the uncertain nature of the sports industry. The club director’s utility function could also be maximized under inter temporal budget function in order to adjust the weight between win and profit according to the opportunities in the environment.

The paper sheds new light on the win/profit maximization. The theoretical model provides an assessment of the weight between win and profit in Ligue 1 and then identifies a new explanation for persistent losses in the sports industry.

Women’s football has received increasing attention in the academic literature, partly due to its growing popularity worldwide. However, women’s football research remains scattered across numerous academic domains. Focusing on the social sciences, humanities and management disciplines, the purpose of this paper is to map and organise contributions, and to identify research directions for future studies within these disciplines.

Using the keywords “women”, “girls”, “female” and “football” or “soccer” to initially identify articles, an integrative approach was followed to evaluate and analyse relevant literature. In all, 117 academic journals were classified and subsequently divided into 26 themes according to the subject area, topic and level examined.

Results of this integrative review show an increasing trend of journal publications since 1998, with a large representation of studies related to historical and sociological research, where qualitative methods are dominant. Articles investigating economic, managerial and marketing areas appeared in more recent times. Women’s football has been researched from different perspectives (players, fans, sport organisations) and across various countries.

The restricted scope of this review (i.e. its focus on social sciences) and the manual classification of articles represent two limitations of this study. However, the synthesis of academic literature provided may assist scholars who are interested in women’s football and women’s sports research to fill identified research gaps and contribute to further advance academic investigations in this area.

This paper provides an overview of salient research avenues and represents the first attempt to critically appraise the direction of academic contributions in women’s football for the purpose of advancing scholarly inquiry in this sport.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on emerging multinationals by studying the internationalization strategies of two established companies in the Indian pharmaceutical industry: Ranbaxy and Wockhardt.

The study utilizes a longitudinal case‐study approach to capture Ranbaxy's and Wockhardt's dynamic internationalization patterns. An extensive literature review using recently published works, government documents, and organizational reports was employed to give a clearer description of the two case companies.

The internationalization patterns of Ranbaxy and Wockhardt suggest that the mainstream internationalization models are more effective in explaining exploitative learning in terms of utilizing the firm's existing knowledge stock in the early stages of internationalization, while the emerging internationalization models (e.g. the LLL framework and accelerated internationalization) are more effective in explaining exploratory learning in terms of seeking novel knowledge flows in firms' later stages of internationalization.

The empirical base is limited and the use of case studies has its shortcomings (e.g. in terms of sample size, generalizations, etc.). As such, the exploratory findings of this study must be further verified and extended at other sites, especially to firms operating in regulated industries in other emerging countries. Second, the author analyzed the decision to enter a foreign market, without studying subsequent performance and its effects on further entries. The accelerated international growth may have negative consequences for the two cases, as time compression diseconomies may emerge when the firm has a fast foreign expansion pace. Further research using data from other industries and countries, and taking into account entry mode and performance could shed more light into this controversial issue. Third, the author only compared an early‐mover and a latecomer in the comparative case analysis. One of critical topics for further study is to compare different three types of MNEs, e.g. latecomer, newcomer and early‐mover, from the same industry to understand how their geography of learning and knowledge acquisition are influenced by their internationalization and locational choices.

Overseas acquisition, as compared to greenfield investment (e.g. wholly owned subsidiaries), offers more benefits to Indian pharmaceutical firms. Overseas acquisition provides access to established marketing networks, augments Indian firms' ownership advantages with new products and other firm‐specific intangible assets and, offers economic gains from improved operational synergies.

The paper is one of the few which has dealt with an important aspect of firm internationalization, i.e. country selection, the sequence of internationalization across foreign markets and their modes of integration.

In 2017, the Chinese Super League (CSL), the first professional football division in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), became the highest-spending league in the international players’ transfer market, with a total spending of €377m. Moreover, the government of the PRC is backing the CSL with an ambitious football plan. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the governance of the CSL by questioning the organisational viability of the league.

In addition to the relevant international literature, this study is based on 14 recent scholarly articles published in Mandarin from 2013 to 2018 to reflect the national academic debate. Moreover, website research on all CSL clubs has been conducted. The institutional analysis follows the integrative change model of Cunningham (2002) complemented by agency and bureaucracy theory.

The CSL still faces substantial governance problems caused by the divergence of goal setting, organisational inefficiencies and compliance issues. The organisational change is notably constrained by internal competitive value commitments and external power dependency.

The institutional findings on the CSL provide a starting point for empirical studies. The approach contributes to the theory of sport governance processes.

The material and insights are informative for decision makers to evaluate the competitiveness of the CSL.

This paper is the first international in-depth analysis of the governance of the CSL using the body of knowledge published in Mandarin.

The main goal of this paper is to evaluate the players' contribution and economic value in the soccer industry. Media visibility records provide us with comparable metrics to identify talent and make hiring decisions – these records can jointly capture sport (on-field) skills and other attractive (off-field) abilities.

This paper presents a valuation method that applies media visibility appraisals to estimate “theoretical values” of the transfer fees paid for hiring soccer players. The estimations are performed by analysing the evolution over time of the media exposure of about 5,000 individuals of more than 200 clubs.

The study’s empirical results reveal that, along with sport performance, the players' media status also affects their economic valuation, which explains why the clubs – in search of greater economic returns – fiercely compete for the most popular players. The paper also identifies the main factors determining the players' economic value. In predicting the players' transfer fees, some variables are statistically significant: individual media visibility, media visibility share of the player within his team, contract duration, status of the hiring team, years of experience, player's age at the end of the contract and the domestic league of the hiring team.

Professional sports provide reliable measures on individuals' performance that may help in the hiring process of workers. This paper identifies gifted soccer players while taking into account their skills as media leaders and the economic implications. Insofar as players' talents determine their teams' sport and economic achievements, the transfer fees paid for players must then be seen as a crucial factor. Measuring individual talent and being able to translate this talent into productivity levels entail serious methodological and empirical challenges.