Search results

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the differential impact of government promotional measures and government ownership on two internationalization variables: location and speed of internationalization of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs). Central to the authors’ study is the mediating role of strategic intents to internationalize. In particular, we study how government impacts the resource-seeking, market-seeking and technology-seeking motives to internationalize.

The empirical setting for the paper is Chinese companies that have internationalized via an equity based entry mode. The authors employ 672 firm responses collected by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

The empirical results demonstrate that different home government measures have differential impact on internationalization outcomes. Government promotional measures (such as direct incentives and bilateral agreements to support internationalization) have only an indirect effect on international location and speed through the effect they have on the strategic motives to internationalize; while government ownership in the company has a direct impact on international location.

The study highlights that home governments are shaping EMNEs strategic intent. Home government can influence EMNEs internationalization choices by providing resource flows through financial resources and state ownership or through asset-accumulation mechanisms via promotional measures.

Policy makers in emerging markets need to develop policies focused on the specific motivations that firms have when internationalizing. EMNEs are suggested to take advantage of government policies more intentionally.

The theoretical contribution centers on identifying important mediating mechanisms pointing to the interplay between government policies and international location and speed of firms. The authors contribute to the growing stream of research on internationalization of emerging market firms by building a sound theoretical model and examining empirically the role of home government in the internationalization of EMNEs.

Personality traits are assumed to influence cognitive processes as well as academic motivation and learning approaches of the students. Based on these assumptions, the present study investigates the association of HEXACO personality traits with academic motivation as well as influence of those traits on students' learning approaches in educational contexts.

Self-reported measures of personality orientation, academic motivation and learning approaches were obtained from 404 respondents in a classroom environment. The SPSS 20 software was used to conduct the correlations and the hierarchical regression analyses. The Eviews 10 software was used to develop the structural equation model to find the inter-relations among the study variables.

The findings reveal the influence of personality traits on academic motivation and learning approaches of the students. Among different personality traits, consciousness appeared to have highly positive impact on deep learning and intrinsic motivation of the studies. Neuroticism appeared to have most negative impact related to surface learning and amotivation of the learning contents.

The findings validates the existence of HEXACO personality traits among the students in central Asian context. It future reiterated individual differences in learning strategies and learning motivation among the learners. The results may help academics and policy makers take appropriate measures to increase academic motivation and select appropriate learning approaches.

This is one of the pioneer studies to investigate the relationship between HEXACO personality traits, learning strategies and academic motivation. Validation of the HEXACO framework will help to understand students' personality in a more detailed and elaborative way and will contribute to the existing literature on personality and learning outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the age diversity of the top management team (TMT) on firm performance and on the managerial ability of the TMT. Furthermore, this study investigates how the relationship between age diversity and firm performance is mediated by managerial ability and the contextual nature of the relationship.

This is an empirical study which uses regression analyses and mediation analyses to evaluate the hypotheses.

The authors observe a negative relationship between age diversity and firm performance and also between age diversity and managerial ability of the TMT. Further, the authors find that that the negative relationship between age diversity and firm performance is mediated by managerial ability. The authors also find that the relation between performance and age diversity is context specific – the negative relationship between age diversity and firm performance is ameliorated during times of financial crisis.

In an environment where diversity is beginning to be valued, insights into the impact of different types of diversity on performance become important. Age diversity is a critical component of diversity. Therefore, insights into the impact of age diversity on performance will be of interest to managers, academics and even regulators.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to evaluate the impact of age diversity on the market perception of firm performance of US firms using a large, comprehensive, multi-year data set. Furthermore, this is the only study to evaluate the impact of age diversity on managerial ability and show the mediating effect of managerial ability on the relationship between age diversity and firm performance.

This paper examines job satisfaction and participation in decision making in three home health aide facilities with different organizational structures (worker-owned for-profit, for-profit with no participation or ownership by workers, and nonprofit).

More than 600 surveys were completed by home health aides across the three facilities. The author also engaged in participant observation during training sessions and other meetings and conducted a small number of interviews with caregivers and agency management.

Home health aides at the worker-owned, participative decision making organization were significantly more satisfied with their jobs than those at the other agencies. Results for the other agencies were not significantly distinguishable from one another.

This study involved respondents from one of each type of business. A study across several of each type of organization would allow more focus on the effects of the structural characteristics of the organizations.

In the United States, the work that home health aides perform provides a valuable service to society. On behalf of caregivers and those for whom they provide care, conditions of the work need improvement. If participative democratic workplaces provide better outcomes, they should receive more attention from lawmakers, the business community, and researchers.

This research highlights the working conditions of the people (primarily women) who perform this work. The poor compensation received is a reminder of inequality in opportunity for some workers and of the value placed on this type of caring labor.

This research is unique in its focus on work environment and outcomes in home health care across nonprofit, for-profit, and worker-owned for-profit organizations. The findings of different job satisfaction outcomes from the others in the worker-owned organization and similar outcomes in the nonprofit and conventional for-profit organizations are also unique.

The purpose of this paper is to robustly establish whether firms are implementing Lean or Agile production in the automotive supply chain (SC) and, by drawing on contingency theory (CT) as our theoretical lens, independently determine whether Lean and Agile firms can be distinguished based upon contextual factors.

Primary quantitative data from 140 firms in the West Midlands (UK) automotive industry were obtained via a constructed survey. Analysis incorporated the use of logistic regressions to calculate the probability of Lean and Agile organisations belonging to different groups amongst the contextual factors investigated.

Lean and Agile firms co-exist in the automotive SC and Lean firms were found to be at higher tiers of the SC, while Agile firms were found to be at lower tiers.

The originality of this study lies within the novel methodological attempt used to distinguish Lean and Agile production, based upon the contextual factors investigated. Not only is the importance of CT theoretically approved, but “received wisdom” within SC management is also contested. Extant literature propagates that the automotive SC is comprised of organisations that predominantly adopt Lean production methods, and that in SCs comprised of both Lean and Agile organisations, the firms closer to the customer will adopt more flexible (Agile) practices, while those that operate upstream will adopt more efficient (Lean) practices. The findings from this study have implications for theory and practice, as Lean and Agile firms can be found in the automotive SC without any relationship to the value-adding process. To speculate as to why the findings contest existing views, resource dependence theory and, more specifically, a power perspective, was invoked. The authors provide readers with a new way of thinking concerning complicated SCs and urge that the discipline of SC management adopts a “fourth” SC model, depicting a new Lean and Agile SC configuration.

Based on integrating learning, resource-based and social network theories, the purpose of this paper is to shed fresh light on the association between export experience and export performance by seeking to better understand the links between them, and assessing the boundary conditions, moderators, mediators, and non-linear relationships in greater depth.

This paper mobilizes a quantitative research design using a survey of Brazil-based exporters. The authors test the hypotheses proposed in this study by employing moderated mediation regression models.

The authors find support for a J-shape relationship between export experience and export market performance. In particular, the authors find that innovation and international marketing resources mediate the effect of export experience on export market performance, and the authors unveil that this mediation effect is contingent on the strength of international business network ties.

This study advances the export marketing literature by explaining how export experience drives export success in two ways: first, by clarifying the ambiguity in extant theoretical explanations and previous empirical findings regarding the shape of the relationship between export experience and export performance. Second, this study reconciles the disagreement as to whether superior export performance results from exporters’ existing resources or from their learning by exporting. Thus, the paper is valuable for scholars and export managers or policymakers alike by providing recommendations on how less experienced firms can overcome the initial period of weak export performance.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the roles of trait affectivity and momentary moods in conflict frames and conflict management. This paper goes beyond affect induction and focuses on the affective – rather than rational – antecedents of the choice of conflict management strategy.

This paper adopts a within- and between-person approach and uses hierarchical linear modeling to test the hypotheses with group-mean centering. Over the course of 12 days within a three-week period, the authors collected participants’ momentary moods and how they thought about and would respond to conflict scenarios. Data were gathered from 1,545 observations, involving 180 individuals.

After controlling for anger raised from the conflict scenario, both positive trait affectivity and positive momentary moods were found to be positively related to a compromise frame. Surprisingly, neither negative trait affectivity nor momentary mood was related to the win frame. A compromise frame predicted a cooperative strategy, and a win frame predicted a competitive strategy. The relationships between trait and momentary affects and conflict management strategy were partially mediated by conflict frame, but only for positive affects.

If seeking a constructive resolution, choose the right person (i.e. an individual with positive trait affectivity) and the right moment (i.e. the individual is in a positive mood state) to communicate disagreements.

This paper sheds light on the prediction of conflict frame and conflict management behavior by testing trait affectivity and momentary mood simultaneously.

Over the past decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been considered as a significant corporate strategy and also has been documented as a main information dissemination mechanism of corporations to shareholders, creditors and other external stakeholders. This fact makes the CSR activities and CSR performance interconnected with the quality of firms’ financial reporting. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of CSR performance on the earnings management (EM) behaviour using a sample from 24 European Union (EU) countries summing up to 121,154 firm-year observations over the period 2003–2018.

The study uses a multi-country data set with various dimensions of CSR performance including indexes regarding workforce, community relations, product responsibility and human rights protection. The empirical analysis is conducted with panel data regressions.

Evidence supports the negative association between CSR and EM indicating that high CSR performing firms are associated with less income smoothing and discretionary accruals, thus with higher financial reporting quality.

Regulatory agencies in the EU could use the findings of the study for the improvement of the accounting framework via enhancing the use and publications of social and environmental responsibility information and reports.

Also, the current paper could be of interest not only to academic researchers but also to potential and existing investors in European corporations. The negative association between CSR performance and EM could be used by investors in assessing the risk of firms and the quality and reliability of their financial information.

This is the first study within the EU, which considers the multi-facet characteristics of CSR on the quality of accounting earnings and offers useful policy implications for regulators and investors.

This study aims to examine whether audit partners’ gender affects the year-to-year changes (year-to-year additions and drops) of key audit matters (KAMs) identified in the audit report. This study also examines whether female audit partners’ audit experiences, accounting education and narcissism reduce the difference in time variances of KAMs reporting between female and male audit partners. This study defines the year-to-year additions and drops of KAMs as the time variance of KAMs.

Data of this study includes the audit reports of Australian Securities Exchange 300 companies for the period from 2017 to 2021. This study also applies the theory of female auditors’ preference for anchoring and availability heuristics. This study uses multivariate regression with robust standard errors clustered by the firms. This study also uses several robustness tests.

The findings suggest that female audit partners disclose fewer time variant KAMs in that they have a lower tendency both to add new KAMs and to drop old KAMs. Further analysis suggests that the differences between female and male audit partners decrease as the female audit partners’ experience increases or if the female audit partner possesses a bachelor’s degree in accounting. Female audit partners’ narcissism also reduces the gender gap in the time variances of KAMs.

The fact that female audit partners report more stable KAMs implies that there are differences between female and male audit partners in the way audit risk assessments are conducted, audits are planned and professional judgement is applied by female and male audit partners.

The findings imply that female audit partners’ experience, accounting education and narcissistic personality can play a significant role in explaining the differences in audit outcomes produced by male and female audit partners.

This study is novel in showing that female audit partners report more stable and less time-variant KAMs. The findings of this study may inform audit firms and regulators that female audit partners’ experience, tertiary qualifications in accounting and narcissistic personality traits may be effective means of reducing the gender gap in auditing. The findings also imply that auditors’ observable and unobservable personality traits affect audit outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and define the concept of purchasing ambidexterity in terms of two dimensions: balance dimension and combined dimension. The study proceeds to empirically examine the multiple performance effects generated for the buying firm and its key suppliers.

Ambidexterity theory informs the authors’ conceptual model. To test the hypotheses, the authors collected survey data from 95 purchasing functions of medium and large European firms and applied various estimation techniques.

This research indicates that ambidexterity substantially varies across purchasing functions. Further, it discovers that a purchasing function’s ability to advance the combined magnitude of exploratory and exploitative activities represents an essential determinant of supplier efficiency, supplier product innovation, and buyer financial performance. Notably, this research also discovers that balancing the magnitudes of exploratory and exploitative activities on a relative basis produces negative effects on the innovativeness of the supply network.

Although ambidexterity theory has been applied to supply chain management, limited attention has been dedicated to purchasing ambidexterity. This gap led us to study how purchasing impacts the competitiveness of the buying firm and of its supply network by balancing and combining exploratory and exploitative activities. This research is the first to advance the notion of purchasing ambidexterity, unpack its underlying dimensions, and examine its multiple performance implications. Such a conceptual and empirical development presents new perspectives on how purchasing can help the buying firm and its supply network to strengthen their competitiveness.