Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate perceptions of fairness of a standardized performance appraisal in a multinational enterprise. The paper looks at the first step in understanding fairness perceptions by examining whether national culture influences the view on standardization itself and by comparing China, Lithuania, and Norway.

An experiment using a scenario that outlined a performance appraisal tool in a multinational company is conducted. National culture and individual cultural values are the independent variables and the perception of fairness of the practice is the dependent variable. A sample of 80 management respondents from Lithuania, China, and Norway is taken.

The findings suggest that national culture influences perceptions of fairness of a standardized performance appraisal tool. Employees from countries undergoing profound economic and political change, that score low on the cultural dimension of self‐expression, tend to see the standardized tool as more fair than employees from a stable country high on self‐expression. Differences in fairness perception at the individual level are found, where respondents high on power distance had higher perceptions of fairness of a standardized tool. Both national and individual levels measures of culture affected perceptions.

The sample is small; however, the differences are strong and indicate that perceptions of fairness vary. The experimental design allows good control, although it can limit generalizability to the field.

Multinational companies must understand that before analysis and choice of specific human resource practices it is important that they are aware of national and individual cultural differences towards standardization itself. Cultural differences affect reactions not only to the specific human practice but also to the standardization. Companies can use dimensions such as power distance and the survival/self‐expression dimension to understand the response of their employees. Being aware of this challenge may lead multinationals to pursue more fine‐tuned ways of communicating and implementing a standardized practice.

Using experiments to understand the implementation of practices in multinational organizations it is identified that, before deciding whether a practice should be locally adapted or standardized, the first step is to find out how standardization itself is perceived.

This paper seeks to examine the efficacy of predicting turnover for employees and entrepreneurs from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania using attitudes towards benefits, pay satisfaction, pay, gender, and age across a four‐year time frame.

A survey that included information on attitudes towards benefits and pay satisfaction was used to collect data from 153 Estonian, 157 Latvian, and 146 Lithuanian employees and 243 Latvian, 103 Estonian, and 109 Lithuanian entrepreneurs. The turnover of the employees and business owners was then followed over a four‐year time period with assessments done each year allowing for an examination of temporal variations in the relationships over time. Actual salary/income data was also obtained from organizational records.

It was found that for the employee samples the classification rates increased slightly as compared to base rates over time (e.g. did better the longer the time period included), while for the employers the classification rates and R² values were relatively flat as compared to base rates. For the employee samples the R² values decreased over time. Attitudes towards benefits were generally significant predictors of turnover for employees and entrepreneurs over a four‐year time period while satisfaction with pay was typically significant for employees but not for entrepreneurs. It was also found that for the employees both equity and expectancy considerations were able to explain differences in turnover rates while for entrepreneurs expectancy theory considerations were more powerful than equity theory explanations.

The research is limited both by geography, job types, and the theoretical construct of turnover. Few studies have examined turnover among both employees and business owners, and few studies have explored the similarities and differences between the two.

Pay and benefits are important for employees. Pay seems to be important for attracting employees while benefits are important for retaining them.

This study examines turnover for both employees and entrepreneurs with a four‐year longitudinal design with data from three different countries – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Temporal variations in the relationships are also examined on a year by year basis. As employee retention has been an important factor in the Baltic region over the last two decades it is vital to understand how to retain employees.

The decision one makes to engage in entrepreneurial activity is affected by many different motivators. The paper aims to focus on one specific motivator for entrepreneurial activity which is the Need for Achievement. The prevailing methods of studying achievement motivation will also be discussed as shall constructs related to Need for Achievement. The paper also examines the dynamics of achievement motivation. The dynamic ability of individual traits is important, if it were not one's traits would be constant and not capable of being changed or developed. Some of the main factors that can influence achievement motivation are also examined in the paper.

Specifically, data from 249 entrepreneurs from the USA, 220 from China, and 173 from Latvia were used in order to examine the relationships between variables related to Need for Achievement.

Goal orientation, conscientiousness, cognitive complexity, age, and gender were found to be able to account for 29.4 percent of the variance in Need for Achievement among American entrepreneurs, 45.3 percent among Chinese entrepreneurs, and 33.5 percent among Latvian entrepreneurs. Differences are found between the countries with cognitive complexity being statistically significant in the USA and China, but not in Latvia. Gender was significant in the USA and China but not in Latvia. Age was not significantly related to Need for Achievement in any of the three countries, while goal orientation and conscientiousness were significantly related to Need for Achievement in all three countries. Finally, the implications of this research as well as areas that need to be considered for future research are discussed.

The paper is limited to entrepreneurs of small to medium‐sized enterprises in North America, Asia, and the Baltics. The implications of the research include that Need for Achievement is important for entrepreneurs across these three very diverse cultures and that variables related to Need for Achievement vary between the countries. As Need for Achievement is related to economic development, it is important to understand the factors which might be able to influence the Need for Achievement of entrepreneurs from around the world.

The development of entrepreneurs is important if economies desire to have sustainable growth. Little empirical research has examined these issues with data‐sets from three continents. Even less research has examined these issues among entrepreneurs. The paper addresses these areas.

In this chapter, we have presented four case studies of the firms which are operating in the medium complete adapting countries. The four cases are Arvidsson Textile Share Company in Estonia, Partec Rockwool in Lithuania, Accel Share Company in Lithuania and Ragn-Sells in Estonia. The case studies are prepared following the structure of the theoretical framework applied in this book. We have found out that the performance of Arvidsson Textile Share Company is successful as it matches the expectations if the partners and it has remained to be more or less the same since its establishment. The performance of Partec Rockwool was also successful from the very beginning until it was replaced by the fully owned firm. Accel Share Company's operations in Lithuania was successful from the very beginning as it found the right people with the right competence in the local market. In the case of Ragn-Sells in Estonia, the alliance was successful but not up to the full expectation.

The authors investigate empirically emigrants' intentions and motivations to work virtually for their country of origin. The study focuses on a country with substantial, persistent emigration and explores theories of diaspora investment motivation and virtual work characteristics.

An exploratory questionnaire survey on migrants' intentions and motivations to work virtually for their country of origin was conducted in late 2016 on 3,022 respondents, all emigrants from Lithuania.

Migrants are more likely to engage in virtual work for their country of origin when they experience negative career satisfaction, perceive the country of origin as their home country, belong to a recent wave of migration and possess occupational skills commonly employed in virtual work.

A major limitation of this study conducted on emigrants from one country is that it does not permit generalisation of the results to other countries and regions. It is limited, thus, to making general comparisons to what is known in the literature about migrants from other nations. However, the authors have identified some of the main factors which have theoretical and empirical import for future research, and the auhtors have argued that the results of our study possess only a few inherent geographic limitations. This research is a starting point for studies connecting diaspora motivation and their linkage to virtual work as a mean of human capital gain for the country of origin. The findings inform the conceptual model of virtual workplaces of Kumpikaite-Valiuniene et al. (2014) in relation to migrants and support Nielsen and Riddle's (2010) migrant diaspora investment motivation theory.

Understanding how and when organisations will work virtually with migrants from the country of origin as well as knowing more about their needs and expectations for migrants' knowledge, skills and work experience are necessary for future research on the attractiveness and potential of virtual work. As a first step in exploring diaspora motivation for virtual work, the authors recommend conducting qualitative research that would investigate more deeply the various motivations migrants can have for virtual work with their country or origin. This study revealed that females are more motivated to work virtually compared to males. However, gender issues have not been explored in this survey and constitute a future study direction.

Moreover, future research should examine what areas of human capital, commercial and cultural knowledge can be productively delivered by migrants working virtually for organisations in the country of origin, which will contribute to greater understanding of knowledge transfer and human capital issues (“brain gain”) in the migration literature. Further, specific forms of virtual work should be studied empirically for the extent that they provide opportunities for self-development and for satisfaction in personal lives and work careers. In addition, the potential business and societal benefits for the country of origin should be studied further through examining diverse dimensions of family, community, work and careers. These studies will expand knowledge of virtual work and related research phenomena and will contribute to this gap in the migration and human resource management (HRM) literature studies.

This research is a starting point for studies connecting diaspora motivation and their linkage to virtual work as a mean of human capital gain for the country of origin. The findings inform the proposed conceptual model of virtual workplaces by Kumpikaite-Valiuniene et al (2014) in relation to migrants and support Nielsen and Riddle (2010) migrant diaspora investment motivation theory. The authors have identified some of the main factors that have theoretical and empirical import for future study. This research topic and new related studies on diaspora have the potential to contribute to the fields of migration, HRM, work and career studies.

Norway is a small nation state on the northernmost coastline of Western Europe, integrated in the Western world economy. For centuries Norway's integration in the world economy had been based on exports of raw materials such as fish and timber, as well as shipping services. In the early 20th century, furnace-based metals (made possible by cheap hydropower) were added to this export basket. Just as the world economy entered an increasingly unstable phase in 1970s, another natural resource was discovered in Norway: petroleum – that is, oil and natural gas from the North Sea. This chapter analyses the challenges and possibilities inherent in the Norwegian strategy of developing an oil economy in a world economic situation influenced by new and stronger forms of international integration through the four decades between 1970 and 2010.

With the rise of geopolitical tensions among the leading state actors, the Chinese citizens and companies are increasingly targeted by the unilateral restrictive measures. These frequently include the so-called secondary sanctions, i.e. penalties imposed on third parties for failing to comply with the sanctions regime, the US practice being a prominent example. The purpose of this paper is to analyze China's legal instruments related to imposition of and protection from unilateral restrictive measures of third countries.

The present paper discusses China’s legal defenses counteracting the extraterritorial sanctions by comparison with the legislative and enforcement practices of the EU, which has accumulated substantial experience trying to shield its businesses from the US secondary sanctions. The paper identifies the differences between the two anti-sanctions regimes and highlights the key factors that will affect the future enforcement of blocking rules in China.

When designing its anti-foreign sanctions legislation, China has considered similar legislation adopted by other jurisdictions, most notably – the EU blocking statute. The comparative assessment of the two blocking regimes reveals substantial similarities in legislative and procedural standards with important differences in enforcement capabilities and institutional frameworks.

The paper represents one of the first attempts to anticipate the directions in enforcement of China's blocking legislation taking into account the EU experiences in this domain.

India's manufacturing exports are heavily tilted toward primary and resource-based products, while its Asian peers have a significant proportion of high and mid-tech products in their export baskets. An attempt is thus made to understand the hurdles faced by technology-intensive exports by India, using gravity panel estimates on its high, mid, and low-tech exports, using data across 130 countries from 2001 to 2019. In line with the Knowledge Theories of trade, which postulate that technical and scientific knowledge and innovation provide trade advantages, this chapter also tries to understand how India fares on this front. We use Principal Component Analysis to construct an index which provides a relative understanding of India's technical and scientific knowledge base.

We conclude that nontariff measures (NTMs) are a stringent hurdle faced by Indian exports, especially in the European Union. Tariffs have the most debilitating effect on its mid-tech exports and the least on high-tech exports. Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are most effective in creating trade for mid-tech exports and least in case of low-tech exports. The index for ascertaining India's relative knowledge base shows that while India ranked 6th in 2017, much higher than its Asian peers, its high and mid-tech exports lagged behind these countries. This puzzle is explained by the fact that scientific research in India has very little industry collaboration and thus is out of sync with market needs. Hence, the prevalent scientific and technical knowledge in India does not have the expected favorable impact on its technology-intensive exports.