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This article compares the mobility experience of Austria, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom post-enlargement. In all four countries, migrant inflows from the new EU member states account for the bulk of contemporary labour mobility. At the same time, issues of wage dumping have arisen everywhere, raising questions about compliance and the ‘re-embedding’ of mobility flows. Hence the article examines the labour market impact of recent East-West migration as well as policy responses by the social partners and public authorities that are geared towards the re-regulation of employment standards. Some commonalities are identified, especially in relation to the broadening of national wage floors and the growing role of the state in enforcing labour standards. However, some differences remain, especially whether re-regulation happens on the basis of collective agreements or statutory minimum rights. In this regard, different bargaining traditions, the power resources of labour market actors and the capacity of unions to build political coalitions with the state and employers are identified as crucial factors in shaping national and sectoral response strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to validate a triple bottom line (TBL) construct, as well as to describe the TBL reasons for implementing sustainable business practices in companies and their business networks.

This study reports on the validation of a TBL construct, in a Spanish context, of a study originally conducted in Norway. In this validation study, 230 companies were selected for participation. A total of 89 usable questionnaires were returned, generating a response rate of 38.5 per cent.

The empirical findings indicate major similarities and minor differences between organizations in Spain and Norway across two studies. By extension, the empirical findings appear to be valid and reliable across contexts and through time.

This study explains the structural properties of the main reasons for business sustainability (economic, social and environmental) and business sustainability efforts in companies and the supply chains or business networks.

Business sustainability efforts need to be assessed in a systematic manner, and the validated TBL construct offers a foundation for doing this, though it needs to be complemented with other elements and details in connection with business sustainability.

Business sustainability efforts have been evolving over time and are increasingly seen to consider economic viability, as well as environmental sustainability and social responsibility. This study deals with how these elements of TBL are interrelated with respect to business sustainability.

Artifacts are rarely used today to visualize thoughts, insights, and ideas in strategy work. Rather, textual and verbal communication dominates. This is despite artifacts and visual representations holding many advantages as tools to create and make sense of strategy in teamwork. To advance our understanding of the benefits of visual aids in strategy work, I synthesize insights from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and management research. My analysis exposes distinct neurocognitive advantages concerning attention, emotion, learning, memory, intuition, and creativity from visual sense-building. These advantages increase when sense-building activities are playful and storytelling is used.

The purpose of this study is two-fold: to determine the extent to which companies’ efforts aimed at sustainable business practices consider stakeholders in their organisations and business networks, the marketplace and society; and to validate or refute a stakeholder framework of business sustainability efforts within focal companies, the marketplace, society and business networks.

The study is based on a questionnaire survey targeting large companies across industries and sectors in Spain. The sample consisted of 231 companies generating a useable response rate of 38.5 per cent. Exploratory factor analysis was performed on a cross-industry sample to test a five-dimensional framework.

This study reports on the validation of initial and refined factor solutions. The factor analysis confirmed five stakeholder dimensions related to business sustainability efforts of organisations, their business networks, marketplace and society. The validated results indicate satisfactory convergent, discriminant and nomological validity and reliability through time and across contexts.

The stakeholder framework in connection with business sustainability efforts in supply chains consisting of five factors was validated: the focal company, downstream stakeholders, societal stakeholders, market stakeholders and upstream stakeholders. Suggestion for further research is provided.

The validated framework of stakeholders allows an insight into the environment in which stakeholders operate and how they influence the focal company.

The manuscript contributes to the validation of a stakeholder framework of business sustainability efforts within focal companies, their business networks, the marketplace and society. The measurement properties provide support for acceptable validity and reliability across contexts and through time.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

This paper aims to investigate firm‐level interactions between productivity and exporting in Uganda's manufacturing sector.

The paper empirically tested two hypotheses that relate to the dynamic gains from trade and also have tended to dominate the literature; self‐selection and learning‐by‐exporting hypotheses. It employs proxies of self‐selection and learning‐by‐exporting obtained from indices of path dependence to fit maximum likelihood estimates of export behavior.

The results provide support for both hypotheses and it is also found that more experienced exporters reap more productivity gains from learning effects which is in line with the view that knowledge spillovers to exporting firms increase with the level of interaction in the global market place. Thus, learning‐by‐exporting is not a “short term” occurrence which takes place only in the first few years of entry in export markets after which it would fizzle out as a firm's exporting experience increases but rather, it is a cumulative process.

This paper generates a number of insights that can guide policy makers in designing policies to promote firm productivity growth that is an engine of growth in the private sector and by extension, would fuel up overall economic growth and poverty reduction.

Previous studies on exports and growth in Uganda have been basically focused on macro‐data analysis; yet, promoting rapid expansion of manufactured exports may require more than just a good macroeconomic policy environment. This study fills the research gap by relating firm‐level productivity performance to the microeconomic environment in which manufacturing firms operate.

Drawing on organizational learning and dynamic capabilities literature, this study aims to explore how suppliers from traditional emerging economies (STEE) can acquire, assimilate and use new knowledge essential for the development of production and marketing capabilities. These capabilities then facilitate suppliers in climbing the value chain from B-to-B to B-to-C.

The study adopted a longitudinal and multiple case study design to examine the practices of suppliers operating in a traditional emerging economy setting. This study selected Pakistan textile industry as an empirical setting, which is a predominantly supplier market for global buyers. Data sources entail semi-structured interviews with top executives and senior-level managers in four case firms and secondary data obtained from diverse sources.

The study identified transitionary phases of capabilities development that are facilitated by boundary-spanning knowledge acquisition and transformation in a dynamic manner. These capabilities are essential for a supplier’s entry into downstream international markets (i.e. launching its own products/brands in the end consumers’ market).

The findings could help managers in STEEs to understand the strategic importance of supply chain ties in their learning and capabilities development. It also provides strategic insights on what, how and why involved parties do engage over an extended period of time. Moreover, the findings of this study could help other firms to know and adopt the right type of technology(s) and systems that can help them reduce the technological gap in producing and marketing market-winning products.

This study advances the recent academic discussion that focusses on learning by supplying and the value-chain movement of suppliers (i.e. B-to-C) from their B-to-B engagements. The findings identified the vital and beneficial role of long-term relationships with global value chain partners in learning and capabilities development that led to value creation in the traditional emerging economy.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an enterprise venture focused on responsible tourism and its social responsibility using the “cycle of sustainable business” concept.

The study is based on a case study of a tourism business' project in development, tourism and sports in the town of Río Grande, Puerto Rico. Data were collected from unstructured interviews with the vice president of the company and the available documentation.

This sustainable business cycle can be divided into eight stages: compost treatment system, mangrove conservation, tree planting, plant sewage treatment, energy conservation, construction, hotel and consumers. All of these stages are important for the performance of the cycle.

The results indicate the importance of developing a responsible tourism industry that respects the natural environment, culture and socioeconomic surroundings.

The case illustrates the advantages enjoyed by a business that executes a cycle of sustainable business in a highly competitive market that is dominated by shareholders and developers of high value/capability.

Changing consumer behaviour and values that define a community may rely largely on political interventions that promote responsible tourism by implementing sustainable business cycles.

This article seeks to present a detailed case study of a sustainable tourism business. It highlights the areas in which this resort efficiently carries out sustainability. It also illustrates the challenge of creating consumer awareness of added value. In doing so, it demonstrates the concerns faced by tourism developers regarding sustainable development.

This study is based upon a longitudinal research project undertaken between 1994 and 1999 from one partnering case study. At the outset both parties did not anticipate the significance of the learning which would take place within and between the companies. The structure of the paper is as follows; first an overview of the companies involved provides the context of the study. A review of literature considers the resource‐based theory of strategy development, organizational learning and teamwork in the partnering context. Description of the methodology applied leads to discussion of the results in the light of the literature. Findings suggest that the inter‐organization project teams are the mechanisms by which knowledge is converted into new joint capabilities. Finally implications for theory and practitioners are considered as well as avenues for future research.