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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the content of mission statements of India’s Super 50 companies, selected from Forbes India magazine, on multiple aspects such as components, stakeholders’ inclusion, content readability and strategic orientation.

A total sample of 29 companies was chosen for the study, whose mission statement details were available on their official websites. These firms’ mission statement was rated on the basis of nine selected components of what constitutes a “good mission statement.” Further, industry-level analysis was also carried out to measure significant differences between manufacturing and service industries. Data were analyzed using frequency analysis, average and t-statistics. Gunning Fog index was also calculated to measure content readability.

The results show that Indian firms largely focus on their customers as major stakeholders while defining their mission and emphasize upon values and philosophy, products or services offered, and integration of technology in production or processes. There is no statistically significant difference identified between the average mean value of components for sample manufacturing and service firms.

The study is cross-sectional in nature; however, a few firms redesign their mission according to need; therefore, a detailed longitudinal study of a few firms could open up new paradigms. The findings are based on sample firms selected from Forbes India, so generalization needs to be done with complete caution.

The study looks ahead of the most popular of David’s (1989) nine crucial components of mission statements, taking into account major shifts in the business environment. It also attempts to fill a contextual research gap by analyzing the mission statements of top Indian firms. Three crucial elements – “strategic decision,” “stakeholder concerns” and “critical success factors” – have been identified for Indian firms that define their mission statement.

Presents an exploratory study of how a Japanese organization in Hong Kong attempts to enhance employees′ learning capacity through spiritual education. Illustrates the sort of spiritual education being conducted in the training programme and the extent to which the Japanese organization has achieved its target in enhancing employees′ learning capacity. Sees the implications of spiritual education for other Western and Hong Kong organizations as being that it may be an effective means of decreasing a company′s turnover rate.

Seeks to better understand the implications of Japanese management methods in non‐Japanese and non‐Western contexts. Utilizes a framework proposed by Young to assess the implementation of Japanese management practices in Singapore. Based on comparative case studies of five Japanese multinational companies in Singapore, explores their ability to use or adapt practices employed in Japan. Concludes that, on the whole, the companies successfully sought to modify features of the Singaporean environment to suit Japanese manufacturing methods, though they were forced to make some concessions to local conditions. Supports Young’s call for further research, where the ability to compare directly the experience of both Japanese subsidiaries and non‐Japanese companies seeking to adopt Japanese manufacturing techniques would be a distinct advantage.

The essential steps of “hoshin kanri”, or policy management, in Japanese companies are described. They are annual policy and medium‐ to long‐term policy, basic company philosophy and quality policy, converting methodological policy into objective policy, the composition of policy, two deployment styles of target ‐ top‐down and bottom‐up, target deployment and “catch‐ball”, and top management internal quality control audit

Notes a broad agreement that small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) fulfil a critical role in modern economies, and therefore their ability to survive, remain competitive and produce high quality outputs is of utmost importance at both micro and macro levels. Focuses on total quality management (TQM), a new management paradigm, which is successfully competing with the well‐established paradigms such as scientific management. Argues that implementation of TQM principles can potentially help SMEs to enhance their robustness, as well as improve the quality of their final output. However, observes that, by comparison with the large organizations, SMEs have been slow in implementing TQM. Examines the differences between the characteristics of SMEs and large organizations; the relationship between the size of organization and inherent characteristics of TQM; and the effect of organization size on the implementation of TQM using deductive research. Using the case data, develops a ten‐step methodology for the implementation of TQM in SMEs.

This case‐study research aims to examine best CSR practices in four Thai companies that were given CSR awards. The purpose is to report on best practices in CSR in Thailand.

Four Thai companies that received the best CSR awards from the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) in 2006 were selected. The data were collected through a questionnaire, interviews, and company documents and web sites.

CSR activities in the top Thai companies were based on moral or altruistic motivations with a focus on both production‐process and philanthropic outcomes. The driving forces behind CSR activities in these companies were CEO leadership, company performance, and stakeholders' expectations. Their CSR framework followed the stakeholders' model and issues management which arranged CSR activities into five main categories: education, arts and culture, sports, environment, and public welfare. Critical issues in managing CSR activities were selection of appropriate CSR activity, participation by people in communities affected by the CSR activity, gaining shareholders' support and understanding, and appropriate CSR evaluation methods.

The research studied only four companies in Thailand. This may limit generalizations and may provide only a foundation for further research rather than definitive conclusions.

The findings of the research may be useful for: companies in Thailand or in other countries which are considering adopting CSR activities appropriate to their environment; researchers who might utilize the findings for furthering their CSR work; and indicating the contribution and the valuable role of both local and international CSR institutes and networks.

Discusses how, by incorporating the principles of TQM from the outset, State Farm Insurance has achieved a leadership position in its industry. Examines State Farm′s “good neighbour” approach to service. Asserts that the company′s management philosophy is simple:total commitment to the policyholder. Contends that agents are the key. Concludes by describing how the trainee agents become independent contractors working with other agents and the agency manager.

Senior managers seek to align managerial endeavors with the organization’s objectives. Traditionally, alignment has focused on monitoring and rewarding the achievement of assigned targets. However, there is evidence to suggest that organizations may also seek to align managerial “values” with those of the organization. These attempts to influence managerial mindsets through management control systems raise non-trivial questions regarding the systems involved, the reasons behind them, and the possible consequences of such attempts. These questions form the basis of this research, and this chapter reports on two case studies of Mexican organizations that claim to have a values-based philosophy. This study contributes to the management literature by presenting empirical evidence related to certain philosophical ideas on the development of human potential and senior managers’ attempts to influence their employees’ will. In detailing the implementation process of two specific value systems, this chapter fills a gap identified in the management control literature.

The unprecedented economic development and increase in the number of global corporations in the Greater China region, comprising the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, have led to more emphasis on corporate leader-stakeholder communication. Bilingual web-based messages posted on corporate websites, which aim to strategically cultivate positive relationships between leaders and stakeholders, have emerged as a primary mode of communication for Chinese corporations. However, a research study investigating the prominent themes and underlying cultural values depicted in leaders’ messages intended for different groups of stakeholders is lacking. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the themes and cultural values expressed through corporate leaders’ web-based messages in a non-western context.

Using an inductive approach, open coding and a categorization system, this study analyzed the web-based messages of leading corporations with WordSmith 6.0.

Six prominent themes in leaders’ communication were identified. These themes included, in order of importance: company development, operating philosophy, company profile, business environment, performance, and products and services. It was found that leaders strategically selected certain themes such as focusing on progress and the business environment but omitted others depending on how they wanted to strategically influence their stakeholders’ attitudes. Differences between the cultural values depicted in Chinese and the corresponding English messages could be attributed to leaders’ cultural adaptation of the messages intended for non-domestic stakeholders.

Since this study provides insights into the major themes preferred by leaders of corporations operating in Greater China, it will enable existing stakeholders to understand the main business focus of leaders and offer leaders more information about commonly accepted themes. These possibilities for enhanced knowledge on the part of stakeholders and business leaders, in turn, may potentially increase academic appreciation of the complexities involved in corporate communication. It also informs stakeholders about the variations in the values reflected in the English and Chinese messages of leaders, and, therefore, has a potential to offer value to academics and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the drivers that influence subsidiaries of international companies in the automobile industry in Thailand and how automobile companies pursue localization in response to these drivers.

Using case research method, examined seven leading automobile manufacturers – Toyota Motor (Thailand); Hino Motors (Thailand); Honda Automobile (Thailand); Isuzu Motors (Thailand); BMW (Thailand); DaimlerChrysler (Thailand); and Auto Alliance (Thailand) – as well as 14 of their dealers and suppliers in Thailand. In total 120 Thai and expatriate managers were interviewed.

Extending the knowledge body from existing research, this study found that there are four drivers for automobile manufacturers to adopt localization strategies. Those are host country characteristics, industry characteristics, company characteristics, and market characteristics. The results show that automobile manufacturers react to drivers by localization of their decision making, building and exploiting knowledge pool of local suppliers and distributors, increasing numbers of Thais at the management level while decreasing the number of expatriates, increasing R&D activities locally, localizing products, increasing usage of local suppliers, adapting manufacturer processes, reinvesting at subsidiary, and localizing corporate image. However, these vary in degree from company to company. Localization strategies produce benefits that go beyond allowing automobile manufactures to compete within the local situation, also enabling them to overcome challenges and use their successes to transform the parent company and other subsidiaries and eventually contribute to the parent company's globalization strategy.

Managers in subsidiaries may first implement localization strategies to cope with driver factors to mitigate risks and uncertainty. By adopting localization, managers should not focus only on short term benefits to gain local advantages in host countries, but these advantages at the subsidiary should be transmitted to the parent company and other subsidiaries to build a competitive international strategy.

CEOs of subsidiaries in emerging markets can learn what drivers influence localization strategies and how to cope and create local advantages for global competitiveness by implementing wide range of localization strategies.