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Existing literature shows that marketing capabilities of new ventures are critical success factors affecting venture capital funding, startup performance and business failure. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether venture capitalists reward extensive marketing strategies in their startup valuation and whether the marketing mix planning and early strategies on customer orientation predict long-term development of startups.

To address these gaps, this study investigate 107 business plans of new ventures which received venture capital based on these planning documents. The authors use computer-aided text analysis and regression analyses.

This study’s findings show that customer orientation has positive effects on new venture performance and intensive marketing mix planning increases the likelihood of survival. However, venture capitalists decrease their startup valuation when they read too much about customer orientation and operative marketing mix planning.

This study relies on unique internal documents and therefore provides valuable and new insights for research and practice. Further, this study investigate various short- and long-term effects from marketing and customer orientation for a startups’ development.

This paper explores the subpolitical role and main characteristics of a specific accounting technique, sustainability reporting boundaries. Its focus is on how the sett2ing of sustainability reporting boundaries affects the definition and distribution of social risks along the supply chain, particularly the risks related to working condition and human rights.

The paper draws on Beck's (1986) exploration of the ways in which techno-economic spheres offer opportunities for the politicisation of new areas. It is argued that the sphere of sustainability reporting offers that opportunity for the politicisation of supply chains. Using the case of Inditex, the historical context of initiatives relating to the ready-made garment (RMG) industry at global, European and industry level as well as media coverage on the entity are analysed; this is correlated with the analysis of boundary setting in relation to sustainability reports, focusing specifically on working conditions.

The analysis suggests that accounting technologies that set contested boundaries are subpolitical, that is, defined outside traditional political processes. The paper finds that the way social risks are framed along the supply chain renders them invisible and impersonal and that the framing of these risks becomes endless as they are contested by different groups of experts. Setting sustainability reporting boundaries has subpolitical properties in producing and framing those risks, whilst is simultaneously limited by the inherent politicisation of such an exercise. The questionable legitimacy of sustainability reporting boundaries calls for the construction not only of discursive justifications but also of new possibilities for political participation.

The analysis is limited to working conditions along one organisation's supply chain.

The contribution of this paper is threefold: (1) It studies in-depth how working conditions in global supply chains are portrayed in sustainability reports. (2) It answers the call to study accounting technologies themselves, in this case sustainability reporting boundaries. (3) It extends Beck's work on global ecological dangers to working conditions in global supply chains to explore how sustainability reporting boundaries are subpolitically involved in the definition and distribution of social risks along the supply chain.

Recognizing the need to build global-minded citizens, higher education institutions are increasingly trying to find ways to leverage their international programs to develop students’ intercultural competence. The MA in global leadership at Royal Roads University, Canada, created an international partnership in Ecuador that serves to go beyond the traditional student study abroad or service learning focus and instead focuses on developing competencies of global mindedness and strategic relationships. In this chapter, we present an analysis of how an international student group engaged in building dynamic partnerships within a Global South country to create change for sustainable development initiatives of mutual concern. Through a case example, we describe how these partnerships evolved and adapted in ways that enhanced the learning needs of the students while simultaneously supporting the development of new educational opportunities for Ecuadorians. To illustrate, this chapter delineates the activities that members of the program undertook to connect and develop a mutuality of relationship across diverse stakeholders in Ecuador. The authors analyze this network-building process from the perspective of cultural context, building trust and influence, and responding to social development needs of host communities.

This paper seeks to examine the views of executives working in an American based multinational company (MNC) about knowledge sharing, barriers to knowledge sharing, and strategies to promote knowledge sharing

This study was carried out in phases. In the first phase, a topology of organizational mechanisms for knowledge sharing was developed. A review of academic and practitioner literature provided the basis for this topology. In the next phase, a detailed field‐base case study of the knowledge sharing conceptualization in a large MNC was performed based on a sample of 81 employees.

The results show that most of the respondents agreed that there is a knowledge sharing strategy and there is a growing awareness of the benefit of knowledge sharing in the organization. However, it was worrying to know that 22 percent responded negatively to the statement “KS is important to the organization”. Also, 27 percent of the respondents were also not willing to share knowledge. The most effective method to promote knowledge sharing was to link it with rewards and performance appraisal. Top management support was also vital to ensure the success of knowledge sharing in the organization.

The survey did not cover the non‐executive level employees such as operators, technicians, facilitators and shift leaders due to difficulties in gaining access to these groups of people as they work in shifts. In addition, most of the operators would have difficulty in understanding the survey objective and content.

While existing studies on knowledge sharing are more of a generalized nature, this study examines the perceptions about various aspects of knowledge sharing more in a country and company specific setting.

THE end of October saw the return of most of our overseas visitors, continental and otherwise, to their homes, leaving with us pleasant memories of a mutually successful visit. The Englishman's proverbial difficulties with foreign tongues, even of neighbouring France, did not complicate matters unduly or reduce too much those interchanges which conference and school afforded. We can repeat our frequently‐expressed hope that there will be an ever increasing series of visits, both of the foreigner to England and of ourselves as foreigners to other countries. We would welcome longer stays in both cases. Nothing but good can come from them.

MID‐OCTOBER sees the activities of the library world in full swing. Meetings, committee discussions, schools at work, students busy with December and May examinations in view, and a host of occupations for the library worker. This year—for in a sense the library year begins in October—will be a busy one. For the Library Association Council there will be the onerous business of preparing a report on State Control; for libraries there will be the effort to retain readers in a land of increasing employment and reduced leisure; and for the students, as we have remarked in earlier issues, preparations for the new syllabus of examinations which becomes operative in 1938. It is a good month, too, to consider some phases of library work with children, “which,” to quote the L.A. Resolutions of 1917, “ought to be the basis of all other library work.”

To provide an empirically based analysis and evaluation of the existing and possible future evolution of Internet business models within the digital content market, focusing particularly on the possibilities for cooperation and coopetition within this market‐space.

The paper is based on a three‐year study of the European online news and online music sectors, comprising a set of preliminary, scene‐setting case studies of a number of major players within the European online news and music sectors; a detailed, two‐stage survey made up of online questionnaires and face‐to‐face interviews; and a small number of in‐depth case studies.

Provides a discussion of the changes taking place in the online news and music sectors, the evolution of the business models within them, the driving forces we have identified, and finally some predictions about what the future may hold for both these sectors.

The research is indicative, rather than general – being centred on European participants in two sectors of the digital content market‐space in the period between May 2003 and August 2004.

A rich evaluation of these two fast‐moving digital content sectors, providing empirically based insights into the ways in which they are evolving and changing and into parallels with other, similar sectors of the digital content market.

This paper is the first major empirical evaluation of the digital content market‐space and offers practical assistance, as well as new theoretical insights on e‐business model evolution in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact the US Supreme Court's Tellabs decision has had on Section 10 (b) cases generally and on cases related to subprime mortgage‐backed securities.

The paper provides background including provisions of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA) of 1995. Analyzes the decision in Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issue & Rights, Ltd, recent decisions since Tellabs by the the Second, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, and decisions in two recent subprime securities cases in which defendants moved to dismiss pursuant to Tellabs; and draws preliminary conclusions from cases that have applied Tellabs so far.

The PSLRA raised the bar for pleading scienter by requiring a “strong inference”, but the courts of appeals have differed in applying the standard. The Tellabs decision asserted that the PSLRA requires consideration of competing inferences in determination of whether scienter is adequately pleaded. The Supreme Court's “prescription” said the inference of scienter must be more than merely “reasonable” or “permissible”; it must seem to a reasonable person to be at least as cogent and compelling as any opposing inference. One lesson of Tellabs and the Seventh Circuit's decision on remand is that the “plausibility” of scienter allegations requires a fact‐specific inquiry. The Ninth Circuit court found that “deliberate recklessness” is sufficient to allege scienter. In one of the subprime cases, In re 2007 Novastar Financial, Inc., a district court found that a deterioration of a company's business was not evidence of wrongdoing. It is difficult – and premature – to draw firm conclusions from cases that have applied Tellabs so far, but requiring courts to consider competing inferences, requiring the pleadings in question to satisfy more “adjectives”, and requiring the “weighing” of inferences at the pleadings stage would all appear to help defendants. However, Tellabs could help plaintiffs by reversing previous practice in which a “tie” between competing inferences automatically resulted in a victory for the defendant.

The paper offers practical guidance by experienced securities lawyers.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest the usage of an approach based on sociological systems theory for exploring the (latent) functions of documents in organizations. The focus lies on the reconstruction of organizational knowledge practices required for the competent production and use of documents.

The argument is developed through a critical and integrating review of relevant literature as well as through the analysis of empirical data drawn from participant observation and ethnographic conversations in a multi-organizational, multi-site, and multi-event setting.

The essence of the paper is that a systems theoretical approach in the analysis of the production and use of documents in organizations yields new and startling insights into their (latent) functions for organizations compared to what document analysis and institutional ethnography can achieve.

The paper focuses on the contexts, situations, and the organizational knowledge practices necessary for the competent use of documents in organizations not on the document itself. Hence, it offers a more comprehensive understanding of the (latent) functions of documents for organizations compared to mere document analysis.

Using Anthropological methodology to achieve an understanding from a “local point of view” the purpose of this paper is to explore how safety is established in what clearly is, at least from the outside, a risky everyday. Floods are a recurring problem for people in Jakarta. However, for poor families living on river banks in the city center the floods also constitute a necessary condition to create a viable livelihood. The floods keep land grabbers and urban developers at bay and keep costs for living low. For the families living in these areas there is a constant “trade off” between safety and risk taking with the purpose to create a living.

The methodology applied in the paper is conventional Anthropological field work. The material is collected through participant observation and formal interviews. The data produced are of an experience near quality which is analyzed in terms of how it addresses and relate to the infrastructural policies of Jakarta and the specific project of normalizing the river Ciliwung.

The fact that people perceive floods as normal part of everyday life does not mean that they are unproblematic. Furthermore, the flood mitigation programs that authorities claim are “normalizing” the river system actually increase riverbank settler’s problems.

Additional long-term field work on conditions for political mobilization inside and outside the formal political system in urban Jakarta is needed to better understand why organized resistance seldom materializes and how to strengthen the bargaining capacity of local communities in urban planning processes.

As flood mitigation programs demand relocation of people, the argument forwarded in the paper is that general social and economic security systems have to be strengthened, enhancing capacity for mobility, before instigating flood mitigation programs.

Studies of disasters and risk often portray local subjects as either victims or losers. In this paper a more nuanced picture is presented. Vulnerability as well as livelihood is related to floods. The paradoxical situation is that people’s vulnerability as well as safety is related to their embeddedness in local socio-economic networks. People are dependent on specific networks and a specific space to produce a livelihood. However, the same embeddedness makes their livelihood vulnerable to the demands of being relocated. If relocated their networks are scattered. Just offering alternative living space and economical remuneration for lost property is not sufficient to replace a lost livelihood. Relocation without a new form for subsistence economy creates new forms of vulnerability. Hence, relocation rather than flood is perceived as the main danger by people living on river banks in Jakarta.