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This paper aims at advancing research on the identification and the first test of the primary steps companies follow to generate and maintain enablers of long-term marketing relationships in cross-cultural business. To achieve the objective, the authors first identify the communication difficulties in generating and maintaining long-term relationships in bi-cultural or multi-cultural settings. They then develop the building blocks, or enablers, that are needed to form and maintain enduring relationships. They finally illustrate the suggested process by describing the use of enablers in two contrasting cultures, the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin, using samples from the United States and Chile, respectively.

Institutions underpin the operation of national economies. These differ significantly between countries reflecting varying historical paths, policy choices and national cultures. Moreover, they need to be understood systemically as an ensemble of relations between their component parts: financial systems, corporate governance, industrial relations, patterns of state intervention, etc., have evolved together so that their operation and effects tend to reinforce each other. Different countries faced by common exogenous changes will tend to evolve along different lines rather than converge. National institutions matter: they significantly affect economic performance and distribution.

Over the last decade, international accounting harmonization and convergence and the increasing adoption of IFRS as national standards have become dominant topics in international accounting research (Alp & Ustundag, 2009; Ashbaugh & Pincus, 2001; Cairns, Massoudi, Taplin, & Tarca, 2011; Christensen et al., 2007; Daske, 2006; Daske & Gebhardt, 2006; Daske et al., 2008; Ding et al., 2007; Gastón, García, Jarne, & Laínez Gadea, 2010; Haverals, 2007; Hellmann, Perera, & Patel, 2010; Lantto & Sahlström, 2008; Othman & Zeghal, 2006; Peng & van der Laan Smith, 2010; Schleicher, Tahoun, & Walker, 2010; Tyrrall et al., 2007). In this move toward convergence, the politics associated with IAS setting by the IASB has become an important and controversial topic in international accounting research. Although previous studies have aimed to examine political issues and stakeholder's perception toward the standard-setting process of the IASB (Alali & Cao, 2010; Chiapello & Medjad, 2009; de Lange & Howieson, 2006), no study has critically examined the complexity of factors influencing attitudes and public opinion toward this standard-setting process. Given that attitudes are likely to guide behavior and lead stakeholders to either advance the work of the IASB or create obstacles, it is timely and relevant to analyze attitudes toward this issue. A recent study has provided evidence that stakeholders’ acceptance of IFRS and preparers’ overall perception of IFRS may influence compliance and the quality of financial reports (Navarro-García & Bastida, 2010). As such, it is the objective of this chapter to provide insights into determinants of attitudes toward the IASB's standard setting and critically examine the influence of power structures and perceived legitimacy on individual attitudes and public opinion.¹ Specifically, this study examines German attitudes toward the promotion of professional judgment by the IASB since the adoption of IFRS in the EU in 2005.

In this study, various acts including regulations of public financial management, fiscal responsibility, and state budget in the selected six countries were subjected to different readability tests, and an international comparison was made. The fiscal responsibility act of six countries – Turkey, the UK, India, Australia, Canada, and Pakistan – were included in the study and analyzed. Each country was analyzed under its official language. Since English is an official language of all of the countries except for Turkey, the authors have evaluated the fiscal responsibility acts of these countries using the following readability tests: Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning-Fog, and Dale-Chall. Additionally, Public Financial Management and Control Law No. 5018 approved in Turkey was analyzed by the Ateşman Readability Test which was uniquely designed for Turkish grammar rules. The acts discussed in the study were analyzed not only as a whole but also in parts and subsections. According to the results of the study, the levels of readability of the existing laws in most of the selected countries are very difficult to understand for a university graduate. However, when the readability level of the British Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act tested as parts and subsections and a whole, it was rated at a level a university student could understand. This study analyses the readability and intelligibility of acts related to fiscal responsibility and the state budget in six selected countries, adopting Anglo-Saxon public administration model and making an inter-country evaluation. Since it is important that citizens have enough information about legislation for a citizen-oriented understanding, a legislation system that is understood by the larger part of the society is essential.

Purpose – The concept of equality of opportunity (EOp) goes back to Roemer (1993, 1998) who argues that a society should guarantee its members equal access to advantage regardless of their circumstances, while holding them responsible for turning that access into actual advantage by the application of effort. First, this chapter investigates how family background influences income acquisition in 17 European countries. Second, it particularly scrutinizes how governments affect EOp through redistributive policies.

Methodology – We apply two different methods in order to measure EOp: the Gini opportunity index defined by Lefranc et al. (2008) and a parametric estimation method. Effective redistribution is measured via income concepts at different stages of the tax-and-transfer schemes.

Findings – We find clear country clustering in terms of EOp for Nordic, Continental European, and Anglo-Saxon countries. For Eastern Europe our results are less definitive. By examining the impact of redistributive policies in the countries under analysis, it can be concluded that both taxes and transfers reduce inequality of opportunity (IOp), with social benefits typically playing a key role. Furthermore, the equalizing impacts of the tax-benefit system on IOp differ substantially from the ones observed in the traditional notion of inequality of outcomes.

Originality – We systematically compare two approaches used to identify the extent of EOp. Our results reveal that both methods yield rather robust country rankings for various circumstance sets. Furthermore, the impact of tax-benefit policies on EOp is rarely addressed in the existing literature. We contribute by focusing on effective redistribution directly related to different income concepts.

The theoretical approach of the five clusters relies on the distinction of the three welfare state regimes proposed by Esping-Andersen (1990, 1999) (Esping-Andersen, Gallie, Hemerijck, & Myles, 2003). Indeed, Europe as a whole provides the highest level of social protection and the widest “decommodification” of this social protection. Therefore, the bulk of nonprofit organizations – not only those providing education, health, and social services – cannot be understood without a reference to the kind of welfare state that shaped the whole modern society. The change or crisis of the welfare state over time gives indeed new opportunities to the third sector. We refer also to the social origins theory (Salamon et al., 2004), more global and complex, and try to make this theory more specific in the European Union. Empirical data are numerous because 16 countries over 27 were included in the second phase of the Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Sector Comparative project (CNP2; Salamon et al., 2004). Exchanges among European researchers complete more qualitatively these figures (Salamon et al., 1997).

Purpose – The “governance” term has gained ground both in the academic debate and in the political rhetoric. A growing use of the term is perceived to go hand-to-hand with a loss of conceptual accuracy. A theoretical reference able to provide a context for the development of empirical governance research is needed. The research aims at systemizing the literature developed around the governance term, identifying its building blocks; this would allow the term to become a reference point in the theory and practice of public administration.Design/methodology/approach – The chapter is of a theoretical nature and based on literature review, both exploratory and synoptic, covering substantive and methodological material.Findings – Different public governance research clusters have been compared: Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, and Italian. Important differences, with reference to contents or related to research approaches in use, are found to exist between and within these clusters. Nonetheless, some common elements are included in the “public governance” concept.Research limitations/implications – Linguistic barriers make different literatures accessible at different degrees to the researcher, resulting in different depth of analysis. This limitation has in part been dealt with research assistance kindly provided by native language colleagues.Practical implications – The clarification of the different meanings of governance facilitates a more precise use in the policy and public management discourse. Having identified interdependencies between the different levels enables a better design of public management reforms.Originality/value – Original features of this chapter are the international comparison of different administrative traditions and the analysis of different disciplinary approaches.

Duncan Bell’s project to restore late-Victorian and Edwardian debates on federative empire or a Greater Britain to international theory emphasizes the “political language” of civilization, race, and character available to fin-de-siècle thinkers on empire. In the process, Bell leaves out the contribution to these debates made by a key figure in the newly emerging discipline of economics: Alfred Marshall. Most recent writings on 19th-century empire similarly ignore the work of late-Victorian economists, as do recent efforts to map the terrain of international theory more broadly. Marshall’s writings on federative empire are not referenced by the advocates of Greater Britain that Bell carefully documents, but it is clear that Marshall followed those debates closely. And though he imagined his contribution as distinctly economic, his work unfolded in a similar language of civilization, race, and character, informed particularly by social evolutionary thought. In conclusion, I stress the dangerous temptation to sort the relevance of thinkers according to contemporary disciplinary boundaries so that more recent economists and the components of earlier political economic work that might be classed as economics are sifted out of our narratives of political thought. Instead, I see the debates on empire that Bell explores as unfolding in a language that, since the 17th and 18th centuries, has engaged issues of commerce and trade, social change, moral virtue, and the nature of political rule: political economy.