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Using munificence, real options and ambidexterity theories, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the differential between home and host market environmental conditions affects US international franchising expansion.

The authors used firm-level panel data for 151 US-based franchising firms, from Bond’s Guide for Franchise Opportunities, for the years 1994-2008 plus macroeconomic data on the environment, to explain the probability of franchising.

The paper finds that the differential in economic growth and economic uncertainty impacts franchisors’ desire to expand abroad on a continual basis.

Researchers in international franchising should not only focus on host market environmental variables (pull factors), but also on conditions in the home market (push factors).

The paper adds to environmental explanations of international franchising by focusing on the differential in munificence and uncertainty between home and host countries.

The motivation for conducting this research came from the current global economic crisis. One outcome of the crisis is the awareness of the need for a better understanding of what causes people to save. Low savings rates in Western countries in general and in the USA in particular are the roots of the crisis. Furthermore, saving is probably one of the most important economic variables that impact the local and global environment. The current economic literature neglects the crucial impact that culture has on saving as a consequence we do not fully understand the causes of different saving rates in different societies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the variable of cultural attitudes as an explanation for variations in national savings rates.

The phenomenon of diminishing personal savings cannot be explained simply by the variables studied in the current economic literature, such as interest rates, age of the population and wealth as expressed by GDP per capita. This paper explores the role that cultural attributes play in affecting the level of savings in different countries. The paper uses cross‐national data to determine the effect of cultural attributes on savings rates.

Cultural variables, particularly the level of uncertainty avoidance and collectivism, have a significant impact on the level of savings. As the level of uncertainty avoidance increases, the level of national savings increases. In addition, the more collectivist the society, the higher the savings rate.

Policy makers must realize that simply changing economic factors such as interest rates may not have the desired effect of raising savings rates. They must also take into account the cultural attributes of the country when making policy.

This paper aims to demonstrate how franchising firms can manage system expansion by weathering the economic effects of a location (i.e. country-level economic cycles) by shifting their resources.

The authors use a comprehensive database of 151 US hybrid franchising organizations, including observations for the years between 2001 and 2008. Data analysis is conducted with count model panel data with a Poisson distribution.

The model reveals a curvilinear U-shaped relationship between location (i.e. economic cycles) and franchising expansion.

This study contributes to competitiveness literature by showing how franchising firms respond to changing local conditions.

It is very important to understand the current (2007‐2009) economic crisis because it is the most severe since the Second World War and is having a tremendous impact on global and national economic environments. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explain the main factors (savings attributes and cultural factors) that created the crisis and better understand which nations will gain in the post‐crisis era.

The paper uses descriptive data to explore the global, Chinese and US economic environments prior to the economic crisis. In addition, the paper used an econometric model in order to evaluate the impact of cultural variables on savings behavior.

The data lead us to one main conclusion: the crisis was created by major changes in global saving rates during the last two decades.

The paper makes two major contributions: first it describes the opportunity that the current international crisis creates for China. The opportunity is an outcome of the high saving rates in China, as compared to the lower saving rates in the western countries. Second it points out the gap in the current academic literature regarding savings, primarily the lack of research on the relationship between savings and culture.

The banking system has a huge impact on a nation's economic environment. A concentrated banking system has a negative impact on the economy. Therefore, the research in this paper has two main goals: to explore the main factors that impact the level of concentration in the banking system; and to demonstrate how a reform in a banking system can reduce the negative impact of high levels of concentration.

A sample of 42 nations was used with various levels of concentration in their banking system to examine factors influencing bank concentration. Logit and OLS regressions were conducted to highlight the impact of the independent variables on the level of concentration in those nations. The latest Israeli reforms in the banking system were used to illustrate how reforms reduce concentration.

The empirical results concluded that economic freedom had a positive impact on the level of concentration. It was also found that cultural variables had an impact on the concentration level. Finally, analyzing the banking sector in Israel, it was found that the reform did decrease the level of concentration of the banking system.

The innovation of this paper is that it adds Hofstede's cultural variables as explanatory variables for the level of concentration in the banking system. It also highlights the role of public regulation for achieving efficiency in the banking sector by using the example of Israeli banking reforms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role played by culture, geography and infrastructure on European airline's decision to launch market‐specific websites.

Logistic regression analysis based on 440 observations of home‐target country dyads collected from websites of nine European airlines, and supplemented by additional sources of macro level indicators. The unit of analysis is the country dyad.

Cultural distance between home and target country, geographical distance between home and target country, website traffic volumes originating from target country, demand conditions in target country, and competition intensity in target country all influence the decision to launch local sites. The cultural dimensions of individualism, masculinity, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance, as well as the legal, commercial and IT infrastructures in target countries don't impact the same decision.

The study's findings are limited contextually to B2C e‐service models, the airline industry and the European origin. Other industries, business models or regional origin of firms may exhibit different patterns.

The study shifts the research focus from what constitutes website localization into what dictates localization efforts' implementation. Surprising findings suggest that counter to earlier suggestions, infrastructural conditions and cultural dimensions' levels in target markets do not predict the launch of local sites, and that geographical distance impact decisions related to the geography neutral medium of the internet.

The main goal of this paper is to analyze the effects of societal culture attributes on regional disparity.

This paper uses cross‐country data to identify the variables that determine the regional disparity and the gap between the richest and poorest regions in the economy.

The most interesting result of this study is that there exists a significant role played by societal cultural differences in the explanation of the regional disparity and the gap between rich and poor regions.

As far as we know, this paper makes the first attempt to explain inter‐regional disparity according to culture attributes. We estimate that cultural variables add about 5 percent to the explanation of the variation of the indices of inequality between regions.

The WTO dispute settlement process is an improvement to the original GATT dispute settlement mechanism. However, it fails to assure a timely implementation and enforcement of the dispute settlement body (DSB) recommendations. To this date, the issue of mandatory enforcement is still open to interpretation. The number of ‘matters’ that have been subject to WTO dispute settlement stands at 266 over the 1995–2006 period. The number of implementation disputes has increased since 1998 and stand at 34 as of January 1, 2007. This chapter reviews the process of dispute settlements and enforcements since 1995 and to argue for the interpretation of ‘WTO agreements’ as ‘binding contracts’ whose breach must be evaluated as either ‘efficient’ or ‘non-efficient’ when discussing enforcement. In this context the non-compliance issue may be viewed as an ‘efficient breach’ where the only efficient remedy is a ‘fine’ rather than the usual practice of ‘suspension of concessions or other obligations’ to the Respondent. What sets our approach apart from earlier discussion is that it does not view ‘suspension of concessions’ as a sufficiently burdensome and efficient sanction. A ‘fine’ on the other hand may serve as a ‘buy out’ of a Respondents WTO obligations, and can be transferred to the negatively affected domestic producers in the Complainant's market as compensation for losses.

The purpose of this paper is to advance cross‐cultural management during mergers and acquisitions (M&A), an issue that remains poorly understood despite a large body of literature accumulated over many years of study and experience.

Based on literature review and case studies of both successful and unsuccessful companies, this paper clarifies the concept, the assessment and the use of corporate culture and its dimensions during all mergers and acquisitions stages, and as such shows its role as an important and influential milestone in the international business environment exploration.

The paper arrives at the conclusion that the enduring paradox of the high rate of M&A failure vs the growing activity of M&A may be due to lack of synchronized activities of all merger stages.

The paper presents frameworks and managerial tools that can help researchers and practitioners conduct better corporate culture assessment during all stages of the M&A, including screening, planning, and negotiation, and enhance the effectiveness of interventions carried out during post‐merger integration process.

The paper offers insights into corporate culture and its impact during pre‐merger stage, negotiation, and the post‐merger integration process.