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The main purpose of the study is to identify the differences and similarities in the communication between B2B participants in cross-cultural environments.

The research methods used in the study are two-fold: the literature analysis is complemented by primary qualitative research conducted in small- and medium-sized enterprises operating in Poland and doing business internationally. The research was focused on two culturally different markets: China and the United States. In the empirical research, the authors used one of the qualitative methods – Individual Depth Interview (IDI).

General findings showed that the strongest influence of culture was identified among older (+50 years old) business partners. The younger ones are eager to adapt and try to understand others' viewpoints. The research results may be used in creating business communication models in the countries researched for companies that plan to enter both American and Chinese markets.

The results of the study may have useful applied managerial value and be used in cooperation between SMEs' B2B business partners, not only from Poland but also from the whole region of Central and Eastern Europe and the United States and China.

The findings may help to understand and communicate with culturally different social groups such as co-workers, students, teachers, etc.

The research presented in the paper covers the gap in the literature because it relates to some new factors (like cultural heritage, age and type of industry) which determine the effectiveness of personal business communication between partners in the international marketplace.

This study aims to analyze the effect of institutional dimensions and corporate reputation (CR) on the performance of Latin American companies using a study framework built on institutional theory.

The authors used a panel data analysis of 45 companies from the 6 biggest economies in Latin America for 5 years.

The authors found a positive effect between institutional independence and transparency perception, certifications, social norms, chief executive officer (CEO) international experience, board of directors' networks and CR with international performance (IP) and a negative effect between property rights protection and the perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) with performance.

The uniqueness of this paper is based on the analysis of institutional and reputational variables on the IP of firms from emerging markets.

Este estudio busca analizar el efecto de las dimensiones institucionales y la reputación corporativa en el desempeño internacional de las compañías latinoamericanas, desde una perspectiva de la teoría institucional.

Los autores usan un análisis de datos de panel de cuarenta y cinco compañías provenientes de las seis economías más grandes de Latinoamérica, durante cinco años.

Se encontró un efecto positivo entre la interdependencia y la transparencia institucional, certificaciones internacionales, normas sociales, experiencia internacional del gerente, las redes de la junta directiva y la reputación corporativa con el desempeño internacional. Así mismo, se encontró un efecto negative entre la protección a la propiedad intelectual y la percepción de responsabilidad social con el desempeño.

La excepcionalidad de este artículo se basa en el análisis de variables institucional y reputacionales en el desempeño de compañías provenientes de mercados emergentes.

The purpose of this study is to compare the communication practices of Chinese and US companies on YouTube and explores the effectiveness of different communication strategies at the topic level.

The author selected 22 Chinese companies and 22 US firms and compared the content of their English language corporate YouTube channels through content analysis, sentiment analysis and cluster analysis.

The results revealed that the three communication strategies (information, response and involvement) in general were not significantly different regarding their engagement rates, but they generated different comment scores when communicating topics of corporate social responsibility. The results also showed that Chinese companies were more likely than American firms to display the speeches of corporate leaders, use collectivistic references and present human interest messages in YouTube videos.

This study sheds light on how national institutional environment shapes corporate communication on YouTube.

This study challenges the infatuation with the involvement strategy and offers some advice for practitioners on topic selection and user comment function management.

This study makes a novel contribution to the literature of corporate communication on YouTube by adopting a cross-national comparative approach. A conceptual framework of major factors influencing stakeholder responses on YouTube was presented.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-02-2023-0061

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated earnings management among publicly traded companies in Brazil and the USA.

The authors analyzed the above-mentioned effects based on 22,244 observations of Brazilian companies and 139,856 observations of American companies from 1998 to 2020. The proxy used to detect earnings management based on discretionary accruals (DAC) was obtained by using the Modified Jones Model (MJM) (Dechow et al., 1995), with adjustments suggested by Kothari et al. (2005). In accordance with previous studies (e.g. Brown et al., 2015; Enomoto et al., 2015; Galdi et al., 2020; Huang and Sun, 2017; Roychowdhury, 2006), the authors also employed a second proxy to detect earnings management through real activities associated with unusual losses for fixed assets (property, plant and equipment (PPE)).

The study’s findings indicate that the discretionary accruals of Brazilian companies varied in a more accentuated manner during the COVID-19 pandemic, making it possible to deduce that a recent history of economic depression may entail greater incentives for earnings management in an emerging economy. In addition, the authors verified that the effects of the current crisis on earnings management proxies denote a signal that is distinct from previous economic crises, which may be interpreted as an attempt to postpone the effects of the pandemic on financial statements, especially those of the Brazilian capital markets.

Unlike previous crises, this pandemic has led to direct restrictions on a wide variety of economic segments rather than indirect contagion due to anomalies in the financial markets, making it a phenomenon with the characteristics of a quasi-natural experiment for studies related to the quality of accounting information. Considering that both Brazil and the USA provide an opportune economic contrast, given their discrepancies in terms of economic growth over the past two decades, the researchers believe that there is an unusual opportunity to understand how earnings management can be an incentive for managers in environments where crises arose from natural causes.

This article analyzes the impact of the national culture, the dependence of the sector of activity on human capital, and the multinational character of the firm involved, on the degree of implementation of high performance work practices (HPWPs) in Ibero-American companies.

This quantitative study results from a survey of 614 Ibero-American firms, in 6 different countries. Multiple regressions were performed to test the hypothesis proposed.

HPWPs for employee recruitment and selection have been frequently implemented in Ibero-American countries. Three factors, i.e. national culture, degree of multinationality, and degree of dependence of the sector of activity on human capital, have a strong influence on the degree of implementation of HPWPs in general, at different degrees. For example, recruitment and selection practices are conditioned by the degree of multinationality, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance, while they are not influenced by masculinity and by the sector of activity.

HR managers must align the design and execution of HPWPs with the national culture, and with the characteristics of the sector of activity, they belong to. Domestic companies should also aspire to achieve the higher standards of multinational companies for specific HPWPs.

This study, to the authors’ best knowledge, is the first to provide insights into the influence of the three factors mentioned above on the degree of implementation of HPWPs in Ibero-American firms, using multiple regression analysis. The authors examine in this article a larger set of HPWPs than does most of the existing empirical literature.

Building on the institutional theory perspective on corporate governance change and based on interviews with investor relations (IR) managers in large Japanese companies, this study aims to examine Japanese IR managers’ perceptions of the influence of foreign shareholders on Japan’s corporate governance reform and stakeholder-based system. The paper examines tensions, conflicts and collaborations among different stakeholders involved in corporate governance changes in Japan, especially in the areas of firm ownership, employment relations and boards of directors. The paper explains why convergence does not happen in some large Japanese companies by investigating Japanese managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in multiple corporate contexts.

The author conducted in-depth interviews with ten IR managers at large, listed Japanese companies in Kyoto and Tokyo and two managers at foreign investment banks in Tokyo, between 2018 and 2021.

This paper explores five themes that emerged from my interviews: Chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) mixed perceptions of foreign investors, the effectiveness of CEO compensation and outside directors, managers’ reluctance to accept stock price-driven business strategies, foreign investors’ engagement vs investments in index funds and gender patterns, including the effectiveness of token female outside directors. The Japanese companies the author looked at incorporated foreign shareholders as consultants and adopted a few major shareholder-based customs, such as CEOs communicating with investors, having outside directors, increasing CEO compensation and slimming down unprofitable parts of the business via restructuring and downsizing. Simultaneously, they resisted a few major shareholder-based practices. Foreign shareholders’ pressure revealed tensions and contradictions between the Japanese stakeholder system and shareholder primacy-based customs.

This paper is one of the few qualitative studies that explores Japanese IR managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in corporate governance reform, with a particular focus on ownership, employment relations and board members. This paper provides examples of tension, conflict and cooperation between Japanese managers and foreign investors, as seen through the eyes of Japanese IR managers. Examining changes in Japan’s stakeholder-based system of corporate governance reform enables us to better understand the processes by which, with vigorous pressure from government and foreign shareholders, a non-western country like Japan may adopt shareholder-based customs and how such a change may also lead to institutional changes.

The case examines the development and launch of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on JUST Capital's socially responsible corporate ranking methodologies. The case provides a market overview of Environment, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) and socially responsible investing (SRI), what has driven growth in those areas worldwide, and several best-practice investment approaches. Following the overview, the case describes the founding and development of JUST Capital, explores JUST Capital's ranking methodologies, and presents the decision point faced by the CEO: requisite selection of one of three strategies in order for JUST Capital to generate “self-sustaining” revenue.

This study aims to assess how department store websites can add online retail brand equity. A quick, relatively easy and low-cost diagnostic tool for stakeholders (e.g. retailers, investors) is presented.

A content analysis of department store websites in the USA and Latin America was conducted.

The findings show that Latin American and US department store websites exhibit acceptable use of online retail brand equity dimensions related to emotional connection and trust. In contrast, compared to their US counterparts, Latin American department store websites show weak usage on some of the dimensions of responsive service nature, online experience and fulfillment. The results also show that higher online retail brand equity is positively associated with average daily time on site. This indicates the usefulness of this index for developing effective websites to creating online retail brand equity.

This study suggests that Latin American department stores should improve three dimensions of online retail brand equity: responsive service nature, online experience and fulfillment. The online retail brand equity index presented can serve as a diagnostic tool for department store managers to monitor the online retail brand equity they are building on their websites. It is also possible to analyze the websites of competing department stores and monitor the long-term impact of modifications made to their websites and those of competitors.

This paper proposes an easy-to-apply index to assess online retail brand equity through website design partially. In addition, this research is the first to evaluate how Latin American department store websites, compared to those in the USA, are building online retail brand equity.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of characteristics of capitalism on environmental performance.

The authors analyzed a sample of 6,257 companies, based in 55 countries and 8 typologies of capitalism. The independent variables are the characteristics of capitalism, measured through five indicators: cooperation between employees and employers, index of economic freedom, local competition between industries, human development index (HDI) and quality of the governance environment. To measure environmental performance, the authors created an index composed of 20 indicators. Data were analyzed using panel data regression and dynamic panel of the generalized method of moments.

The results indicate that the characteristics of capitalism can shape the environmental behavior of companies. The authors find that in countries with better cooperation between employees and employers, more economic freedom, and competition between firms, in addition to better HDI and national governance, companies have higher environmental performance. When they are in more developed countries, companies have a greater environmental performance.

Managers must consider the country's characteristics of capitalism when making their environmental decisions and strategies. The findings invite governments to incorporate into their regulations mechanisms to protect other interest groups, not just shareholders.

Few studies have examined environmental performance, which is less susceptible to greenwashing. The metric for environmental performance measures the company's concrete effort in relation to environmental issues and not just the disclosure of information. Additionally, the authors examine characteristics of capitalism supported by Varieties of Capitalism, an approach still little explored in the environmental management.