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This study seeks to explicate how institutional disruptions impact multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiary control choices. It uses institutional theory to understand the influence of formal and informal institutions across countries on the type of control system employed in an MNC manufacturing subsidiary.

This study’s sample is based on a unique dataset from five trustworthy sources. We use multi-level models to account for the hierarchical nature of the sample of 1,630 multinational subsidiaries spread across 26 host countries by firms from 21 home countries.

The institutional distance between the host and the home country has a negative relationship with strategic control. In contrast, the home country’s power distance has a positive relationship with strategic control.

Study findings indicate the need to incorporate formal and informal institutional elements in the control system’s conceptual framing and design. This notion complements existing visualizations of optimizing MNC controls through extant articulations of minimizing governance costs through organizational design choices or strategic needs.

This article aims to explore the so-called illusion of explanatory depth (IOED) of managers regarding their understanding of digital technologies and examines the effect of knowledge visualization one’s current understanding and decision making. Its purpose is to show that managers think they know more than they do and that this affects decision making but can be reduced through knowledge visualization.

In two experiments with experienced managers, the authors investigate the size and impact of the IOED bias in decision making and examine if sketched self-explanations are as effective as written self-explanations to reduce the bias.

The findings show that experienced managers suffer from a significant illusion concerning their explanatory understanding of digital technologies and that sketching one’s current level of explanatory understanding of these technologies supports the accurate calibration of one’s knowledge. The findings indicate that sketching knowledge is a helpful modality for the detection and subsequent recalibration of biased knowledge in domain-dependent decision making.

This article is the first to explore the effect of sketched knowledge externalization on the calibration of explanatory knowledge of managers. It extends the literature on both, the IOED and on knowledge visualization as an instrument of knowledge calibration.

The role of chief executive officer (CEO) personal characteristics in shaping corporate policies has attracted increasing academic attention in the past two decades. In this review, the authors synthesize extant research on CEO attributes by reviewing 232 articles published in 29 journals from the accounting, finance and management literature. This review provides an overview of existing findings, highlights current trends and interdisciplinary differences in research approaches and identifies potential avenues for future research.

To review the literature on CEO attributes, the authors manually collected peer-reviewed articles in accounting, finance and management journals from 2000 to 2021. The authors conducted in-depth analysis of each paper and manually recorded the theories, data sources, country of study, study period, measures of CEO attributes and dependent variables. This procedure helped the authors group the selected articles into themes and sub-themes. The authors compared the findings in various disciplines and provided direction for future research.

The authors highlight the role of CEO personal attributes in influencing corporate decision-making and firm outcomes. The authors categorize studies of CEO traits into three main research themes: (1) demographic attributes and experience (including age, gender, culture, experience, education); (2) CEO interactions with others (social and political networks) and (3) underlying attributes (including personality, values and ideology). The evidence shows that CEO characteristics significantly affect a wide range of specific corporate policies that serve as mechanisms through which individual CEOs determine firm success and performance.

CEO selection is one of the most crucial decisions made by corporations. The study findings provide valuable insights to corporate executives, boards, investors and practitioners into how CEOs’ personal characteristics can impact future firm decisions and outcomes that can, in turn, inform the high-stake process of CEO recruitment and selection. The study findings have significant practical implications for corporations, such as contributing to executive training programs, to assist executives and directors attain a greater level of self-awareness.

Building on the theoretical foundation of upper echelons theory, the authors offer an integrated theoretical framework to consolidate existing empirical research on the impacts of CEO personal attributes on firm outcomes across accounting and finance (A&F) and management literature. The study findings provide a roadmap for scholars to bridge the interdisciplinary divide between A&F and management research. The authors advocate a more holistic and multifaceted approach to examining CEOs, each of whom embodies a myriad of personal characteristics that comprise their unique identity. The study findings encourage future researchers to expand the investigation of the boundary conditions that magnify or moderate the impacts of CEO idiosyncrasies.

Prior research has emphasised the importance of the early phases of construction projects, as well as the difficulties of procuring engineering services – especially due to the uncertainties. Despite that, studies on the public procurement of engineering services are scarce. Although scholars have shown that uncertainty may affect the choice of control modes, the level of uncertainty that characterises services is not addressed by the two task characteristics: knowledge of the transformation process and output measurability. The purpose is to investigate organisational control in public procurement of engineering services.

The existing control model was adjusted in this study by conceptually adding uncertainty as a third aspect to the two task characteristics. A single case study of the Swedish Transport Administration was used. The empirical data, comprising 14 interviews with managers from the client and engineering consulting companies, were analysed using flexible pattern matching and visual mapping approaches and then illustrated using the model.

The public client did not base its choice of control modes on uncertainty, but rather on the other two task characteristics. Consequently, the service providers argued that the chosen control modes reduced their creativity, increased their financial risks and caused unclear responsibilities. This study therefore shows that uncertainty is an important factor to consider in the choice of control modes, both from a theoretical perspective and from the service providers' point of view. The developed model may therefore be useful for researchers as well as practitioners.

This study is the first attempt to add uncertainty as a task characteristic when choosing control modes. The results contribute to the scarce control literature regarding the procurement of engineering services for construction projects and the procurement of other services with high uncertainty.

Taking a co-creation perspective and integrating knowledge-based and resource-based perspectives, the authors examine the role of customer participation in organizational performance and project success. The authors also investigate the mediating role of knowledge integration and the moderating role of requirement risk for these relationships in uncertain contexts.

The authors undertook two studies. The first study was carried out in 2018 in which the authors drew on survey data from 150 information technology (IT) sector employees and examined the mediating role of knowledge integration in the relationship of customer participation with organizational performance and project success. In the second study undertaken in 2020, the authors drew on data from 92 IT and telecom sector employees and examined the moderating role of requirement risk in the relationship between customer participation and knowledge integration. Study 2 was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic when employees were largely working from home and were more sensitive to risks and uncertainty about the scope and system requirements. Both studies were survey-based, and analysis was carried out using structural equation modeling.

The authors’ two-study examination indicated that knowledge integration positively mediates the relationship of customer participation with organizational performance and project success during the co-creation process. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that when requirement risks are high, customer participation relationship with knowledge integration is weaker.

The authors show that integrating customer knowledge is critical to project success and organizational performance. By identifying risk uncertainties and environmental contingencies, the authors highlight the constraints of customer participation for knowledge integration, organizational performance and project success. The authors provide some key study findings based on survey data obtained from project teams during two periods (normal and pandemic).

Electric motor heating during biomass recovery and its handling on conveyor is a serious concern for the motor performance. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to design and develop a hardware prototype of master–slave electric motors based biomass conveyor system to use the motors under normal operating conditions without overheating.

The hardware prototype of the system used master–slave electric motors for embedded controller operated robotic arm to automatically replace conveyor motors by one another. A mixed signal based embedded controller (C8051F226DK), fully compliant with IEEE 1149.1 specifications, was used to operate the entire system. A precise temperature measurement of motor with the help of negative temperature coefficient sensor was possible due to the utilization of industry standard temperature controller (N76E003AT20). Also, a pulse width modulation based speed control was achieved for master–slave motors of biomass conveyor.

As compared to conventional energy based mains supply, the system is self-sufficient to extract more energy from solar supply with an energy increase of 11.38%. With respect to conventional energy based \ of 47.31%, solar energy based higher energy saving of 52.69% was reported. Also, the work achieved higher temperature reduction of 34.26% of the motor as compared to previous cooling options.

The proposed technique is free from air, liquid and phase-changing material based cooling materials. As a consequence, the work prevents the wastage of these materials and does not cause the risk of health hazards. Also, the motors are used with their original dimensions without facing any leakage problems.

Failures in both followership and leadership become inevitable as mega construction projects are directed and controlled by toxic leaders. Consequently, team member's desire for knowledge hoarding silence is triggered and goal alignment between the leader and team members suddenly fades away to realize success in mega projects. Considering the growing importance of these rarely examined constructs and fragmented literature on toxic leadership (TL), team silence and mega project success (PS) in the global construction industry, the present study aimed to examine the effects of TL and project team member's silence (PTMS) on the success of mega construction projects. Moreover, the mediating influence of PTMS to link TL and mega construction PS has also been explored.

Drawing on survey data of 326 project professionals directly associated with mega construction projects worth US$62bn under the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the conceptual model was tested with covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) using Mplus program. Scales were adapted from previous research to measure TL (with its five-dimensions including abusive supervision, authoritarian leadership, self-promotion, narcissism and unpredictability), PS (with its three-dimensions including project management success, project ownership success and project investment success) and project team members' silence. Reflective–formative second order assessments were specifically applied to measure the multi-dimensional nature of TL and PS, respectively.

Mplus estimations revealed that TL negatively influences PS, besides forcing a culture of silence among project team members. Interestingly, the relationship between TL and PS is also negatively mediated by the PTMS.

The present study's findings are derived from data of project professionals (N = 326) to examine success in megaprojects under the CPEC. Hence, these findings may be re-validated through future studies on similar megaprojects (e.g. China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) worth US$8tn) that may also be predicated by TL tendencies, silent cultures and high-stakes involved to seize PS.

Policymakers, construction practitioners and other key stakeholders (e.g. departmental heads/supervisors) can take advantage of this new evidence to better interpret the success paradox in mega projects, and to reduce the spread and long-term damage of TL on team members and eventually create opportunities for PS.

The present study's novelty is manifested within this first empirical evidence on TL that breeds team silence in underperforming mega projects. Notably, present study offers alarming evidence on mega projects that can be easily derailed from success, as they continue to suffer from team silence and TL.

Literature on entrepreneurial finance has long overcome the view of an investor as a sole provider of financial capital. Entrepreneurs need to consider more aspects when deciding on an investor. Especially the depiction of corporate venture capital (CVC) investors has long highlighted advantages and disadvantages compared to independent VC (IVC) investors. The authors investigate what drives entrepreneurs' preferences for CVC relative to IVC and thereby focus on two key issues in the entrepreneur's consideration – the role of resource requirements and exit strategies.

The data were collected in an online survey that gathered information on several characteristics of entrepreneurs and their ventures. The resulting data set of 105 German entrepreneurs was analyzed using logistic regression and revealed important drivers for entrepreneurs' investor preferences.

The study’s findings confirm that the venture's resource needs, specifically the need for marketing resources and access to the corporate network, which play a significant role in the decision on whether a CVC or IVC investor is preferred. Moreover, the analysis debunks the hypothesis that entrepreneurs view a CVC investment as the first step toward acquisition. However, those entrepreneurs striving for an IPO are less likely to prefer CVC.

The study expands the literature on CVC attractiveness and specifically considers the entrepreneurs' intentions and needs. The results confirm but also debunk some widespread perceptions about why entrepreneurs choose to pursue financing from a CVC investor.

Escalation of commitment is one of the most influential decision-making biases in entrepreneurs which may incur substantial losses and result in failure by making entrepreneurs allocate an increasing amount of resources to failing plans. Not only is escalation one of the less-researched biases in entrepreneurship but also most of the existing studies have been either limited to specific contexts or exclusively limited to men entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents of escalation of commitment among a sample of Iranian women and men entrepreneurs to address these gaps.

By conducting a narrative inquiry, data were collected through semi-structured and in-depth interviews with nine women and 10 men Iranian entrepreneurs who were founder/owners of a small business and had introduced at least one product to the market.

According to the findings of this study, the fear of losing autonomy and fear of being blamed by one’s family were the main drivers of escalation of commitment among the women entrepreneurs, while overconfidence, sense of responsibility and hoping to gain more profits were the main antecedents of escalation among men entrepreneurs.

This study is a pioneer in studying the antecedents of the escalation of commitment among women and men entrepreneurs comparatively in the context of a developing country.

The formation of alliances between organisations is increasingly common, allowing firms to discover and ensure competitive advantages. This research paper aims to make a critical analysis of studies to understand the role of communication between partners in the process of strategic alliances.

A systematic literature review was carried out, using the Web of Science database to obtain data, associating the terms “communication” and “strategic alliances”, which resulted in 240 scientific articles (published between 1993 and March 2021). After data treatment using VOSviewer software and reading of the contents, the final sample consisted of 179 articles on the subject in question.

The conceptual limits, exploratory descriptive analysis of the data and content analysis of research methods are presented, with five clusters being identified. The results show growing academic interest in studying communication associated with strategic alliances, and authors’ main interest lies in understanding the critical success factors and the relation between communication and knowledge.

This study corroborates understanding of the future of alliances, assuming that learning is the main objective; trust is the factor determining success or failure; technology is the aggregating tool; culture affects the relation; and communication is not an end but a means to construct consolidated, long-lasting and high-performing strategic alliances.

This study is innovative in strategic alliances area. The research confirms that the main factor in forming alliances, in both emerging and international markets, is the learning intention. This fact reinforces the relevance of the learning made possible by this transfer of know-how through communication. In addition, this study gives critical understanding of how the process of communication between partners in an alliance must be distinct; i.e. it must be flexible enough to adjust to the stage in the alliance’s life cycle.