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The purpose of this paper is to study the spillover effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on skilled–unskilled wage inequality in the Indian manufacturing industries.

The authors show theoretically with a model of spillover that if foreign firms (receiving FDI) have a negative spillover effect on domestic firms (not receiving FDI), then the level of capital and skilled workers in the domestic firms falls down. Consequently, the authors conduct an empirical analysis by using system GMM estimation technique on the firm-level data of the Indian organised manufacturing sector.

The authors show that wage inequality worsens when there is negative spillover effects like competition spillover or skill spillover effect of FDI in India.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to measure the various spillover effects of FDI on the wage inequality in the Indian manufacturing industries by using firm-level data.

The integration of the digital economy and the real economy has been a key focus in promoting digital economic development. It denotes a comprehensive digital transformation of national economic activities regarding technological infrastructure and production modes, which is crucial for establishing a modern economic system, advancing industrial infrastructure and modernizing industrial chains.

Firstly, the study delves into the internal logic behind the emergence of the new development dynamic resulting from digital technology's evolution. Secondly, it explores the mechanism of mutual promotion and support between the new development dynamic and the digital economy based on China's shift in focus from international engagement to the domestic economy during different stages of industrialization. Subsequently, it analyzes the characteristics and critical factors of digital economy development and examines the macro-, meso- and micro-level constraints on these factors. Finally, the paper explores approaches to promoting digital economy development while constructing the new development dynamic and provides relevant policy suggestions.

The construction of the new development dynamic and the development of the digital economy are inextricably linked, and only by mutually reinforcing each other can they provide an inexhaustible impetus for China's high-quality economic development.

The new development dynamic and the digital economy development form an indivisible whole. The new development dynamic creates the necessary conditions for digital economy development and promotes the formation of digital production modes. In turn, the development of the digital economy should strive to improve the mainstay position of the domestic economy, enhance the synergy between the domestic economy and international engagement, upgrade value chains while improving the supply and the industrial chains in China and ensure a parallel increase in labor income alongside improved productivity.

A growing body of literature suggests that creating a just sustainable society will require reorganizing economic arrangements and, in particular, rethinking work. Previous studies have recognized alternative organizations, such as cooperatives and intentional communities, as sites for building more democratic, sustainable models of work. This study contributes a description and analysis of work and sustainability at Twin Oaks Intentional Community, an 80-person income- and resource-sharing commune in Louisa, Virginia. Some measures show that Twin Oaks members live more sustainably in terms of energy consumption than the average US resident. In this article, I investigate the relationship between sustainability and work at Twin Oaks. I find that sustainable work is linked to the following key principles: broadening definitions of work, prioritizing community well-being, and democratizing decision making. In doing so, I contribute to previous literature on work, sustainability, and alternative organizations by suggesting that (1) sustainability in intentional communities is deeply intertwined with systems of work; (2) broadening definitions of work to include social reproductive labour contributes to sustainability; and (3) the democratization of work can further goals of sustainability.

Critiques of international business (IB) have long pointed to the weaknesses in the understanding of context. This has ignited debate on the understanding of institutions and how they “matter” for IB. Yet how institutions matter ultimately depends on how IB applies institutional theory. It is argued that institutional-based research is dominated by a narrow set of approaches, largely overlooking institutional perspectives that account for institutional diversity. This paper aims to forward the argument that IB research should lend greater attention to comparing the topography of institutional configurations by bringing political economy “back in” to the IB domain.

Using principal components analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis, the authors provide IB with a taxonomy of capitalist institutional diversity which defines the landscape of political economies.

The authors show institutional diversity is characterised by a range of capitalist clusters and configuration arrangements, identifying four clusters with distinct modes of capitalism as well as specifying intra-cluster differences to propose nine varieties of capitalism. This paper allows IB scholars to lend closer attention to the institutional context within which firms operate. If the configurations of institutions “matter” for IB scholarship, then clearly, a quantitative blueprint to assess institutional diversity remains central to the momentum of such “institutional turn.”

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of institutional theory, serving as a valuable resource for the application of context within international business. Further, our taxonomy allows international business scholars to utilise a robust framework to examine the diverse institutional context within which firms operate, whilst extending to support the analysis of broader socioeconomic outcomes. This taxonomy therefore allows international business scholars to utilise a robust framework to examine the institutional context within which firms operate.

The agriculture industry has a considerable impact on Malaysia’s economy, as seen by its contribution of roughly 8.2% of gross domestic product in 2018 and its potential to absorb 11.09% of Malaysian labor in the same year. This study aims to simulate rising output in a system model of sustainable and profitable crude palm oil (CPO) supply chain management (SCM) and to formulate policy solutions to build sustainable and profitable SCM of Malaysian CPO.

This research included both primary and secondary data. This study used the dynamic system model to simulate palm oil land expansion, replanting policies and environmentally friendly growing techniques.

This study’s findings suggest that the dynamic system model of Malaysia’s CPO’s sustainable and profitable SCM is valid when its structure and performance are tested. The fifth scenario provides the best results, with the most significant net benefit value compared to the other scenarios.

The ideal policy alternative is replanting sustainable agricultural practices without burning technologies during new land clearing to achieve the best net advantages.

In international business (IB), the discussion of COVID-19-related global value chain (GVC) models driving resilience has taken momentum since May 2020. The purpose of this study is to uncover insights that the pandemic provided as a unique research opportunity, holistically, revealing the significant role of non-lead firms in GVC outcomes and resilience. This allows to extend theory as the authors critically identify impact criteria and assess interdependence and valence, thus progressing the traditional (pre-pandemic) IB view of GVC governance and orchestration.

This study opts for an integrative review to help create a much-needed extension of IB theory by means of a critical perspective on GVC theory. The authors examine the extant body of IB literature as the relevant stock of collective IB knowledge prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, uncovering contributions – with a focus on the role of non-lead firms in orchestration and resilience – that allows to clarify what was not evident pre-pandemic. With this, the authors move the theory from its efficiency focus to a better recognition of the interdependencies of power and profit outcomes stemming from asymmetries of interrelationships. By design, the authors focus on the unique research period of the pandemic and orchestration complexities along the development of configurational arguments beyond simple correlations (Fiss, 2011), revealing key dependencies as key themes. The authors highlight further research avenues following Snyder (2019) that are called upon to strengthen that understanding and that helps extend theory.

This research provides a critical perspective on the application of the traditional IB views for GVC governance (designed for efficiency, cost and proximity to markets with pre-dominance for just in time), which has shifted during the pandemic to accommodate for adaptation and adjustment to resilience and just in case considerations. The holistic review reveals not only the key country- and multinational enterprise (MNE)-dependencies with residual impact determining the balance between just-in-time and just-in-case. Also, the authors advance the understanding of the (un)balance of the traditional GVC – focused on just-in-case rather than just-in-time through a lead and non-lead GVC participation and power lens yet rarely observed. The authors find that governance should not be construed as “management” such that it resolves into decisions undertaken in lead firms for execution in subordinate GVC participants. Autonomy allows to subsidiary units by MNE lead firms and/or exercised by (mainly, innovative) non-subsidiary GVC participant firms, is uncovered as a key driver in this. Greater delegation capacity appears to help provide resilience to loss in profit, with a recognition that there may be a dynamic trade-off between power and profit. In addition, the authors are able to identify correlations with innovation, demand elasticity, digital uptake, investment and other, that the authors trust will set the scene for additional research deepening and extending the findings.

Integrative literature reviews include a problem formulation (i.e. that is limited to published topics around an emerging theme) and are hence very focused in nature and approach. This applies to this paper. Data analysis in this method is not typically using statistical methods in contrast to meta-analyses. Also, the authors limit the sample to a relatively short time period with 33 publications analysed, purposefully focusing on the most prompt and “acute” insights into GVCs during the pandemic.

The traditional GVC governance model is designed for efficiency, cost and proximity to markets with pre-dominance for just in time. The authors reveal dependencies that are instrumental to better understand lead and non-lead interaction and relative autonomy, with a focus on residual impact determining the balance between just-in-time and just-in-case that, if in the sought equilibrium and agile, can allow alignment with context and this resilience. This paper specifically provides practical insights and visualization that highlights stages/“ripple” effects and their impact and the questions to ask as stakeholders look for GVC resilience. This includes, int.al., firms and their role as strategic agents, prompting participants through the learnings from exogenous shock to realign their strategies, redistributed manufacturing of production across subsidiary and non-subsidiary non-lead firms, greater competition and hence power for suppliers leveraging resilience and innovation, greater understanding of localization and regionalization of production of essential supplies, interaction with governments, and of investment impacts abroad especially to secure GVC participation.

The insights provided through this extension of theory with its literature review reveal the importance of aligning IB research into GVCs to factors that became visible through alternative or unusual settings, as they have the power to reveal the limitations of traditional views. In this case, a mainly efficiency-led, just-in-time focused GVC governance model is reviewed through the literature that emanated during the pandemic, with a critical perspective, which helped uncover and underline the complexities and evolution of GVC governance, providing fundamental support to solutioning the continuing global supply chain challenges that started as a result of the pandemic and are yet again accelerated by the Ukraine and Middle Eastern wars and its impact with, int.al., concerns over possible severe global food, labour/migration and resources crises. IB holds a social responsibility to help identify critical challenges from the disciplinary perspective and help advance resilience for social benefit.

This paper supports the original IB theory development by extending GVC theory into the lead – non-lead dynamics that may, under certain conditions, provide a “Resilience wall” for GVCs. The value created through insights stemming from a unique period of time for GVC is significant. It allows us thus also to pave the way to an emerging and critical research adaption looking into equilibrium, nuancing demand elasticity, better understanding trade and investment impacts along GVCs and more. By examining views on the sources of pandemic risks in a possibly unique setting, the authors offer added value from extant IB research insights by combining them, revealing the importance for GVCs to investigate not only key dependencies between the exogenous shock, i.e. context, and the impacts assessed through this literature but to further use their inherent value to create a framework for further conceptualization and extension of the traditional IB view on GVC governance. This work illustrates the urgency and importance for IB to take a timely and possibly more critical approach to the investigation of governance models that have, to date, shown some significant limitations.

This paper presents a cross-sectional study that assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural migrants in Bihar. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the overall impact of the pandemic on migrants and examine their livelihoods, with a focus on identifying measures that can mitigate the economic consequences.

This study used a telephonic survey to collect primary data from 419 respondents. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data, and three indices were constructed: fear and worries, trust and prevention.

The findings provide insights into the psychological well-being of migrant workers and highlight the challenges they face in sustaining their livelihoods amidst the pandemic. This study concludes by suggesting potential measures to alleviate the economic impact and enhance the resilience of this vulnerable population.

This study may be limited by the representativeness of the sample as well as the potential for social desirability bias. The study may also be limited by the reliability and validity of the measures used to capture the fear and worries, trust and prevention indices.

Numerous studies have examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural migrants. However, there are limited studies that estimate the impact of the proposed study based on the challenges faced by rural migrants in Bihar during the pandemic.

The paper underpins an advanced domestic manufacturing that comes with some advanced employment specialization status of individual industries as the key determinant of foreign direct investment (FDI) and considers how FDI in the food processing industry in India relates to this focal point.

This paper investigates how inward FDI inflows relate to domestic investment and revival in the industry using Auto Regressive Distributed lags (ARDL) model over the period 2000–2017. The model allows for different specifications to study whether FDI is responsible for the revival or the prior revival induces the FDI.

The results show the lack of proper advanced specialized employment status of the food processing industry. FDI in food processing is mainly guided by exports and imports opportunities and FDI plays no role in the revival of advanced growth in the industry. This finding explains why FDI in the industry is predominantly service sector oriented.

The paper underlines (1) the proper conceptualization of human capital as an important determinant of FDI; (2) reinterpretation of Kaldor's technical progress function that uncovers how employment dynamics embedded in intermediate goods specializations play a key role in supporting a higher pace of investment (and FDI); (3) labor costs' importance should involve not only the wage rate but also the advantages that a specialized employment base and (4) FDI in manufacturing demands a greater policy focus on developing domestic bases of intermediate goods specializations.

Although essential to social welfare, unpaid domestic and care work is an increasingly scarce resource in modern societies. Despite the growing need, many households refrain from outsourcing their domestic chores to the market. Simultaneously, the household service sector is mostly characterised by low-qualification, informal jobs lacking quality and professional standards. Drawing on transaction cost theory, the present study aims to examine how trust problems deriving from the quality and professionalisation of domestic services can be overcome by also exploring the role of state subsidies in this context.

A factorial survey experiment in Germany (N = 4024) causally explores the effect of state-subsidised service vouchers, quality signals and professionalisation on preferences and willingness-to-pay for domestic services. The data were analysed using multilevel modelling techniques.

Hypotheses are mostly confirmed: strong quality signals help overcome trust problems, thus facilitating the demand for household services. Further, service vouchers can generate better pay for domestic workers while simultaneously reducing the costs for households.

The relevance of professionalisation and quality of service as important determinants of domestic service demand is revealed. However, the experimental survey design involves hypothetical scenarios.

The analysis offers insights into how to stimulate demand for household services and increase formal employment in a sector currently largely characterised by informal arrangements. It further shows how social policies can help secure quality and foster professionalisation by shifting paid domestic work from the informal to the formal economy.