Belinda Rachael Williams, Simone Bingham and Sonia Shimeld
The purpose of this study is to understand how board composition and independent non-executive director (INED) disclosures have changed in light of the global financial crisis…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to understand how board composition and independent non-executive director (INED) disclosures have changed in light of the global financial crisis (GFC) from an accountability perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis techniques were undertaken on a random sample of 75 publicly listed companies across two time periods, 2005 and 2010.
Findings
The findings highlighted increased INED board membership and increased skill and experience disclosure across all board positions, with the most significant increase being the INED position. The results support the notion that firms are attempting to restore their accountability relationships post-GFC through more transparent mechanisms of governance. However, concerns are also raised in the way individual companies are meeting the ASX Corporate Governance independence requirements.
Research limitations/implications
The results raise questions as to whether firms have implemented these changes to ensure effective governance and accountability responsibilities, or simply to give the appearance of good governance.
Originality/value
Little attention has been given in the literature to the characteristics of INEDs and whether board changes have been made in the wake of corporate and financial crises. The findings from this study contribute to an understanding of board composition and disclosures pre- and post-GFC.
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Simone Guercini and Susan Maria Freeman
The paper addresses the following research question: how do decision-makers use heuristics in their international business (IB) environment? Whereas, the literature has focused on…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper addresses the following research question: how do decision-makers use heuristics in their international business (IB) environment? Whereas, the literature has focused on entrepreneurial companies, here contrasting approaches to learning and using heuristics in international marketing (IM) decisions are examined and discussed.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper aims to address a gap in the study of micro-foundations of internationalization, exploiting research from other disciplinary fields. It combines a multidisciplinary literature review and longitudinal case studies to illustrate different approaches in learning and using heuristics by international marketers.
Findings
International marketers can adopt “closed” heuristics that are consolidated and consistently followed, or “open” heuristics, which are constantly being adapted and learned. Established multinationals learn heuristics in international marketing decision-making, following both “closed” and “open” models.
Originality/value
This paper offers an original contribution by presenting different approaches not yet examined in the literature, focusing on how international marketers make decisions through learning and using heuristic rules. The focus is on established exporters, in contrast to the literature that has largely paid attention to the effectiveness of heuristics in new entrepreneurial firms.
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Simone Guercini and Matilde Milanesi
This paper aims to provide a wide picture of studies on heuristics for international decision-making with a focus on foreign market entry. This paper systematically reviews…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a wide picture of studies on heuristics for international decision-making with a focus on foreign market entry. This paper systematically reviews studies published in the international business and international marketing domain to examine heuristically based decisions for foreign market entry.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a systematic literature review and an in-depth analysis of 32 papers published between 1997 and 2021 dealing with foreign market entry and the use of heuristics for international decision-making.
Findings
Even if the marketing and management literature is in many ways permeable to the debate around heuristics developed in experimental psychology and cognitive science, international business and international marketing studies on the one hand recognize that international decision-making, especially when dealing with foreign market entry, is strongly characterized by uncertainty, on the other hand, there isn’t a developed and systematized literature about it. This paper shows key topics and areas fundamental to foreign market entry in which heuristics are applied by decision makers and their effectiveness.
Originality/value
A systematic review of the use of heuristics for foreign market entry decision-making can represent a useful step for a more organic development of knowledge about the more general use of heuristics for international decision-making. Understanding the decision-making process on the modes of entry in foreign markets is a key topic for international marketing and international business scholars and practitioners.
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Simone Guercini and Christian Lechner
The purpose of this guest editorial is to present an overview of the contributions in this special issue and proposes a positive approach to heuristics deriving from the growing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this guest editorial is to present an overview of the contributions in this special issue and proposes a positive approach to heuristics deriving from the growing interest in the decision-making topic with respect to the new challenges emerging in uncertain environments in management and marketing research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors explore the reasons for a positive view of business actors' judgments and choices based on heuristics, not only in terms of effectiveness in practice, but their fit with human cognition and behavior, and the potential distinctiveness in contexts where technological devices and algorithms are more widespread, but not necessarily more appropriate.
Findings
The authors present and discuss the emergence and evolution of heuristics as a topic in the management literature, and the themes and insights proposed in the papers published in this special issue contributing to research aimed at systemizing a managerial perspective of the concepts and tools that may be useful for practitioners and researchers in this field.
Originality/value
The paper discusses the positive role that heuristics can play, offering some propositions for future research by framing heuristics as a set of tools (toolbox) for business actors in uncertain contexts, without constituting a cognitive limitation for effective solutions.
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Julian N. Marewski, Konstantinos V. Katsikopoulos and Simone Guercini
Are there smart ways to find heuristics? What are the common principles behind heuristics? We propose an integrative definition of heuristics, based on insights that apply to all…
Abstract
Purpose
Are there smart ways to find heuristics? What are the common principles behind heuristics? We propose an integrative definition of heuristics, based on insights that apply to all heuristics, and put forward meta-heuristics for discovering heuristics.
Design/methodology/approach
We employ Herbert Simon’s metaphor that human behavior is shaped by the scissors of the mind and its environment. We present heuristics from different domains and multiple sources, including scholarly literature, practitioner-reports and ancient texts.
Findings
Heuristics are simple, actionable principles for behavior that can take different forms, including that of computational algorithms and qualitative rules-of-thumb, cast into proverbs or folk-wisdom. We introduce heuristics for tasks ranging from management to writing and warfare. We report 13 meta-heuristics for discovering new heuristics and identify four principles behind them and all other heuristics: Those principles concern the (1) plurality, (2) correspondence, (3) connectedness of heuristics and environments and (4) the interdisciplinary nature of the scissors’ blades with respect to research fields and methodology.
Originality/value
We take a fresh look at Simon’s scissors-metaphor and employ it to derive an integrative perspective that includes a study of meta-heuristics.
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This paper examines the relationship between marketing automation emergence and the marketers' use of heuristics in their decision-making processes. Heuristics play a role for the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the relationship between marketing automation emergence and the marketers' use of heuristics in their decision-making processes. Heuristics play a role for the integration of human decision-making models and automation in augmentation processes, particularly in marketing where automation is widespread.
Design/methodology/approach
This study analyzes qualitative data about the impact of marketing automation on the scope of heuristics in decision-making models, and it is based on evidence collected from interviews with twenty-two experienced marketers.
Findings
Marketers make extensive use of heuristics to manage their tasks. While the adoption of new automatic marketing tools modify the task environment and field of use of traditional decision-making models, the adoption of heuristics rules with a different scope is essential to defining inputs, interpreting/evaluating outputs and control the marketing automation system.
Originality/value
The paper makes a contribution to research on the relationship between marketing automation and decision-making models. In particular, it proposes the results of in-depth interviews with senior decision makers to assess the impact of marketing automation on the scope of heuristics as decision-making models adopted by marketers.
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Benedetta Nicolai, Salvatore Tallarico, Luisa Pellegrini, Luca Gastaldi, Giacomo Vella and Simone Lazzini
This paper aims to provide a helpful tool for those who plan to implement blockchain-based solutions for the governance of the electronic medical record (EMR) in health-care…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a helpful tool for those who plan to implement blockchain-based solutions for the governance of the electronic medical record (EMR) in health-care settings. The goals are to identify each type of stakeholders involved in these projects and to clarify the relevance, to achieve success, of their readiness, intended as availability and ability to adopt blockchain.
Design/methodology/approach
The chosen methodology is a multiple case study on three initiatives that used blockchain to manage EMRs. This study relied on multiple sources of evidence. The primary data consisted of two rounds of semi-structured interviews with different informants. This study followed a grounded theory approach and performed within- and cross-case analyses.
Findings
This study identified the types of stakeholders – nodes and not-nodes – of the network and how their readiness level affects the implementation of blockchain-based projects applied to EMR. The nodes (e.g. patients and doctors) are pivotal in making the network working once this has been constructed. Out of the four readiness dimensions suggested by literature, motivational readiness, has the higher impact. Not-nodes stakeholders play a pivotal role in the project’s pre-implementation phase. For them, structural readiness is the dimension with the higher relevance.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first time that a paper analyses the differences between nodes and not-nodes stakeholders of the blockchain network, in terms not only of type but also of readiness. Identifying the readiness level to implement successful projects is a fundamental step that has never been analysed in the health field.
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Alessandro Ancarani, Carmela Di Mauro and Simone Gitto
The study investigates the profitability of manufacturing firms backshoring (BS) to Europe. In particular, the article analyses the relation between BS drivers and post-relocation…
Abstract
Purpose
The study investigates the profitability of manufacturing firms backshoring (BS) to Europe. In particular, the article analyses the relation between BS drivers and post-relocation profitability and tests whether this relation is moderated by innovation policies that firms adopt in conjunction with BS.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical model links the post-relocation profitability to BS drivers, firms’ involvement in product innovation and/or adoption of new manufacturing technologies. Data concerning BS initiatives to Europe between 2012 and 2018 extracted from secondary sources have been matched to firms’ balance sheet data.
Findings
Results show that responsiveness-driven BS is associated with higher profitability when the relocation is coupled with product innovation. A second key finding is that the adoption of new manufacturing technologies has a positive impact on post-BS profitability.
Research limitations/implications
The restriction of the dataset to firms for which information on post- and pre-BS financial performance was available has led to a small sample size. Availability of longer time series of profitability data will allow estimating long-term impact, especially for innovation.
Practical implications
The study provides first evidence on the impact of BS on financial performance and throws light on the relevance of innovation as a lever supporting manufacturing relocation to high-cost countries.
Originality/value
The study advances empirical research on BS by offering evidence of its impact on profitability and by linking it to previous research on BS drivers. Further, the study throws light on the role of different drivers as “success factors” of BS and on how they interact with innovation efforts. The study also offers insights to business leaders who are evaluating the potential benefits on company profitability of a return to a high cost-environment and provides useful indications on the conditions under which BS pays off.
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Simone Cocciasecca, Giuseppe Grossi and Alessandro Sancino
The purpose of this paper is to review previous research on public appointments to systematize existing knowledge, identify gaps and discuss implications for future research in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review previous research on public appointments to systematize existing knowledge, identify gaps and discuss implications for future research in this field.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a systematic literature review, carried out using the Scopus database. We selected academic articles published in journals ranked in the 2018 CABS Academic Journal Guide plus public administration articles in journals classified by Google as falling within the areas of public policy and administration. The papers were analysed according to four categories: geographical area, theoretical framework, research method and organizational setting.
Findings
Results show the lack of research regarding areas like Latin America or East Asia; from a theoretical viewpoint, given the lack of explicit theoretical approaches, future research should have more formal and clear theoretical frameworks. Moreover, given the dominance of case study and review/reflection studies, alternative research methods, such as surveys or mixed methods are suggested for future works.
Research limitations/implications
We identify a new research agenda to revive the focus on public appointments as a tool for intra- and inter-organizational governance in the public sector. Specifically, we argue that how the process of public appointments is managed has huge democratic implications, and public managers have a key role to play in that respect by designing effective governance systems and organizational procedures. The selection of papers has been limited to articles published in peer- review journals ranked in the 2018 CABS Guide; no distinctions have been made regarding journals' positioning in the ranking. Moreover, this work takes a managerial and organizational approach, while the research on public appointments is clearly interdisciplinary, with previous contributions coming mainly from political scientists.
Originality/value
Despite the relevant body of literature on this topic, this study represents the first manuscript to summarize the state of the art of this theme, providing a research agenda on this very relevant but quite neglected issue in public governance.