Search results

While the implications of outsourcing have been extensively studied from the point of view of the developed country multinational corporation (MNC) and its home economy, far less attention has been paid to the developing country firm (DCF) participating in the outsourcing collaboration. This article aims at presenting, evaluating, and synthesizing a number of theoretical contributions that may help build an agenda for future research on outsourcing from a DCF perspective.

Through a review of the extant theoretical literature on outsourcing, the article seeks to explicate a DCF perspective on outsourcing.

The article argues that although several theoretical domains indirectly shed light on outsourcing from a DCF perspective, they are typically approaching the issue from a macro (country) and meso (industry) level perspective and rarely explicitly apply a micro (firm) level perspective. Moreover, they tend to view DCF strategy in outsourcing collaborations as functions of MNCs' strategies, not as strategies in their own right. In order to fill this apparent lacuna in the outsourcing literature, the article reviews a number of theories that may help building a research agenda on outsourcing from a developing country perspective.

The article contributes to the outsourcing literature by explicating a DCF theoretical perspective on outsourcing.

There is an ongoing debate over the transference of managerial and organizational skills, techniques, values and culture from developed countries to developing countries. We argue there is a false underlying assumption among academics in developed countries that the theoretical template of managerial and organizational attributes in developing countries is similar to what one finds in developed countries. Two key analytical insights are offered. First, we explicitly differentiate organizational, environmental and cultural characteristics of developed and developing countries. Second, we apply Scott’s (1992) natural/ecological level of analysis to create a framework to better carry out organizational analysis in developing countries.

The main aim of the research conducted was to identify whether the particular country environment of today's professional librarian impacts upon his/her skills capabilities as well as upon his/her access to opportunities for continued development.

Data was sourced by means of a survey administered to professional librarians mainly from the developing Caribbean Region and the developed North American countries. Firstly, the satisfaction level of librarians with regard to six recommended skills and characteristics was measured. These areas are detailed as follows: communication; training; information technology (IT); managerial; commitment and subject knowledge/profiling. Secondly, professional development opportunities were measured via skills, services and attitudes, key areas also recommended for staff development and training.

Findings demonstrated that librarians' perceptions showed noteworthy similarities and fewer differences than expected between the respective country categories. Both perspectives reflected similar zones of “skills insecurity”.

The greatest challenge faced by the researchers was to source a sample size that could yield meaningful results in relation to the hypotheses.

A comparison of librarians from a geo‐economic position (i.e. in relation to geographic location and world economic order) appears to have been largely unexplored. The study is intended as well to encourage key players from both country contexts to unite for the enhancement of librarians' professional development.

Drawing upon Abrahamson's (1991) typology of innovation diffusion, this study aims to investigate the factors underpinning diffusion of sustainability key performance indicators (SKPIs) in a developing country.

A qualitative study was conducted in Sri Lanka involving semi-structured interviews with managers, as users of SKPIs (demand-side), and both consultants and academics, as agents in diffusion process (supply-side).

Diffusion of SKPIs was found to be driven by efficient-choice considerations, with fashion motives intertwined with these. The diffusion was influenced by developing country context issues relating to market competition, education, government and culture. It was somewhat surprising that market forces played a key role to the extent they did. Minimal stakeholder pressure was found to undermine the diffusion process, contrasting with developed countries in which key stakeholders act as catalysts. The developing country context appears to slow down the pace, rather than alter the pattern, of diffusion of SKPIs.

This study is limited by its focus on SKPI adopters, which does not permit to draw insights regarding motivations of non-adopters.

This study draws upon Abrahamson's typology to explore the diffusion of SKPIs in the poorly understood developing country context. The findings provide insights into driving forces behind diffusion of SKPIs, suggesting the developing country context creates “stickiness” that influences pace rather than the pattern of diffusion of SKPIs.

This study aims to test a model in which the effect of strategic information technology (IT)-business alignment on organizational agility is examined by the moderating influence of environmental uncertainty.

This research utilizes a matched-pair survey data collected from 300 IT and business executives working in various privately owned Indian financial enterprises, and structural equation modeling is used to examine the alignment–agility linkage.

The analysis demonstrates the positive effect of alignment on agility (studied as business process and market responsive agilities), and alignment is more effective on business process agility than market responsive agility. However, the moderation analysis reveals that in a highly uncertain environment, alignment has more effect on market responsive agility but not on business process agility.

Although previous studies (mostly conducted in the context of developed countries) have reported about the positive IT-business alignment and organizational agility linkage, the literature is silent regarding the influence of external contingent factors on this relationship from a developing country perspective. The authors have conceptualized alignment on the basis of strategic alignment maturity model and meticulously examined its relationship with both categories of agility. This research extends the alignment-agility theory and provides empirical support for this unique association from a developing country (i.e. India) perspective, and thereby, greatly contributes to the alignment literature.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how reality television (RTV) influences the socialization of teenage consumers in a developing country. While the influence of television on consumer behaviour has been researched extensively in developed countries, the effect of RTV on consumer socialization has not, particularly in the context of developing countries.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was used to develop the theoretical model, constructs and measurement variables. The data were then analysed, and the hypotheses tested and confirmed using structural equation modelling.

RTV has a positive influence on the socialization of teenage consumers in a developing country. Teenagers’ consumption-related cognition, attitude and values are strongly affected by RTV. Furthermore, their consumption-related attitude is affected by consumption-related cognition and values. Social structural variables (parental control, peer-group influences, gender differences and social class differences) have an effect on teenagers’ RTV involvement and consumer-socialization process.

Current consumer-socialization literature identifies the role of TV in consumer socialization. However, there is very little extant literature about the role of RTV in consumer socialization, particularly from a developing-country perspective. Furthermore, in the present literature, consumption-related cognition, attitudes and values are considered outcomes of consumer socialization; however, this has not been empirically tested regarding teenagers’ involvement in RTV and its consumer-socialization outcomes. This research considers the involvement of teenagers with RTV, and the influences of various social structural variables from a developing-country perspective.

The purpose of the research is to determine the social consequences of economic globalization based on experience of developed and developing countries and to determine the perspectives of optimization of this process through regulation.

The research method is correlation analysis, for it allows determining dependencies between the indicators without requirements to their close mutual dependence. The research objects are top ten developed and top ten developing countries as to the KOF globalization index in 2019.

It is determined that, contrary to high economic risks, social risks of globalization are very low. Instead of this, in the course of globalization the social advantages increase – they are expressed in the form of harmonization of the labor market, development of digital society and increase of population's quality of life – in particular, provision of balance of the global society by leveling the social disproportions between developed and developing countries. It is substantiated that consequences that stimulate the increase of population's quality of life in developing countries are more expressed than in developed countries. This means that developing countries, which are traditionally more inclined to limiting the influence of globalization on them due to economic reasons, have to reconsider their foreign economic policy and include the measures on stimulation of globalization in the interests of social development. Other than that, the differences in consequences for developed and developing countries are minimal. There is no imbalance of consequences that is peculiar for the economic sphere, in which the main advantages are obtained by developed countries, and developing countries bear most of the costs. From the social point of view, globalization could be characterized as a positive phenomenon of modern times.

The offered authors' recommendations will allow optimizing the influence of globalization on the social environment in developed and developing countries and ensuring usage of economic globalization as a mechanism of implementation of the global goals in the sphere of sustainable development.

This study aims to explore the challenges and complexities of interaction in international stakeholder networks within the context of projects focused on the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs). In particular, it examines the challenges faced by stakeholders in a network from a developed country during interaction in the context of a developing country.

Using a qualitative approach, this study analyses interview data collected from the key managers of an international consulting company in charge of a water supply and sanitation project in Nepal. The primary data is triangulated with secondary data, such as project reports and related academic articles.

This study illustrates how interaction in international stakeholder networks affects and is interrelated with SDGs, as well as how aiming to achieve one specific goal can stimulate the implementation of other sustainable goals. Further, this research shows how project managers from a developed country had to adapt to the specifics of the developing country context and how their sustainability project influenced the well-being of local communities by improving environmental and social sustainability.

The research suggests that challenges in stakeholder interaction may arise because of differences in process management methods used by the international stakeholders involved in the project and country-context specifics, such as corruption, imperfect national regulations, cultural specifics, effects of climate change, etc.

The paper contributes to the literature on international multi-stakeholder interaction between actors from developed and developing countries. Furthermore, it adds to the literature on stakeholder networking by highlighting the importance of engaging in a dialogue with local communities during the conceptualisation stages of both sustainability and SDG implementation because of diverging worldviews and practices.

This paper aims to present a systematic review of scholarly articles focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries and published during the period 2004 to 2014 in international journals.

This paper applied a bibliometric analysis to 101 articles on CSR research focused on developing countries.

The study confirms that the most prevalent CSR themes addressed in journals have been social issues, followed by environmental issues in a distant second, with ethics-related issues receiving the least attention. Also, as CSR research in developing countries constitutes an emerging stream of literature, an overwhelming dominance of empirical (qualitative) papers aimed at exploring and/or seeking interpretations to CSR motivations have been confirmed.

An important limitation of this study is in relation to the methods applied. In the first place, this review is based on two electronic databases: ABI/INFORM Global (ProQuest) and Web of Science Core Collection: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED). This means that research published in international journals that are not included in either of these databases will be omitted.

This review provides useful guidance for future CSR research focused on developing countries thereby providing a foundation for future research in this stream of CSR research.

The findings of this study suggest that much CSR knowledge in developing countries reflects the unique social issues that call for companies to adopt different CSR interventions when operating in developing countries.

Although this paper is not the first to systematically review CSR research, but it is one of the initial attempts, to the best of the knowledge, to systematically review the state of CSR knowledge in the context of developing countries.

This paper aims to focus on the trade effects of outward direct investment in developing countries.

To illustrate the effects, the author analyses it from the efficiency of resource utilization, technological advancement and transaction costs, respectively.

The author concludes that OFDI has a positive effect on trade development in developing countries.

Studying the interactions between FDI and trade, the traditional perspective that the investment can only lead to changes in capital endowment in a country is not perfect. These theories were mainly created and founded in developed countries and aimed only to explain their direct investment behavior. If the perspective is shifted to developing countries, it is found that the effect of FDI not only changes the supply-demand relationship of monetary capital, but also significantly influences division of labor and trade through the change in knowledge-oriented factors. Therefore, incorporating international direct investment as a new variable into contemporary international trade theories will enrich the existing theories, and also be beneficial for the development of integration theory of investment and trade.