Search results

A family business founded by Chinese immigrants grew into a $133 million toy and costume maker by exploiting seasonal niche segments in the highly competitive, global toy industry. Sales of traditional toys stagnated when replaced by game consoles and electronic toys. Unable to compete in high tech toys, MegaToys moved instead toward seasonal products. In 2007, brothers Peter and Charlie Woo were about to pitch what they hoped would be $63 million in Easter basket sales to Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart took the full order, it would come to represent over half of MegaToys' revenue.

The company was faced with the dilemma of how to grow, and at what pace. Charlie Woo knew that MegaToys could continue to grow as long as it was able to satisfy Wal-Mart's demands. Peter Woo wondered if this was the smartest way to grow the business. “Growth is a good thing as long as you don't sell your shirt to get it,” he noted. Should MegaToys continue to increase its sales to Wal-Mart, or would dependence on Wal-Mart eventually threaten the firm's success? Were there other, untapped opportunities for MegaToys that were well aligned with its strengths, resources, and capabilities?

Examines critically the bulk of cross‐cultural research involving the constructs of individualism and collectivism. Highlights some of the main conceptual and methodological shortcomings in the use of these constructs and the need for refinement and synthesis in definition and measurement. Suggests a research strategy that integrates previous empirical findings in a theory‐driven approach. Proposes multiple group confirmatory factor analysis as a technique for confirming a 2‐2 factor structure for individualism and collectivism and for testing the equivalence of their measures across culturally diverse groups.

The literature on academic international research teams (AIRTs) has drawn conclusions and made recommendations based on cross-sectional “snapshots” of the research team process – observations made prior to the conclusion of the research project. Several large-scale AIRTs have now evolved through a life cycle including result-related publications. We evaluate and extend the literature using a project life cycle perspective, in which each stage exhibits different challenges and opportunities that influence the quality, reliability and validity of the final research output and the overall viability of the knowledge-creation project. We conclude with recommendations for the effective management of AIRTs and, indeed, perhaps all multinational, globally distributed teams engaged in both basic and applied knowledge creation.

The purpose of the present study, which is part of a larger cross‐cultural study, is to examine two potential antecedents of entrepreneurial intent (EI): proactive personality (PP) and entrepreneurial self‐efficacy (ESE). Specifically, the study is interested in empirically testing the mechanism (mediation/moderation) by which ESE affected the relationship between PP/EI.

For testing the mediation and moderation hypotheses the study used structural equation modeling and moderated regression analyses respectively.

The authors found that PP has a robust relationship with the three different manifestations of EI – general, high growth, and lifestyle. Furthermore, ESE not only mediated the relationship between PP and all the three forms of EI but also moderated the relationship between PP and high growth EI as well as PP and lifestyle EI.

The authors studied intent, not behavior, with the understanding that cognitive intent is a powerful predictor of later behavior. Future research can replicate this study using entrepreneurial behavior instead of intent. Implications for education and future research are discussed.

The results of the study can be used and applied to both pedagogic and business settings in the field of entrepreneurship.

The present study not only provides evidence for the robust relationship between EI and PP but provides insight into the mechanism by which ESE affects EI/PP relationship.

Bindu Aryais currently a doctoral student in International Business and Strategy at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her dissertation will empirically investigate how collaborative efforts between for-profit, not-for-profit and governmental agencies facilitate outcomes and can function to enhance sustainable development. Her research on how social networks facilitate organizational and group decision-making processes and outcomes has appeared in Journal of Management (forthcoming).

The authors aim to look at the conditions under which central bank easing – and specifically the purchase of private sector securities – can/should contribute to growth, rather than fiscal policy and also ask when can the central bank’s purchase of private sector securities help supplant traditional monetary policy.

After surveying the existing literature, the authors use simple correlation of central bank private asset (stocks, bonds, etc.), interest rates, gross domestic product (GDP) growth, inflation and the extent of the functioning of domestic banking sectors (among others) to classify countries in which these purchases promote pro-growth investment.

Under the typical conditions for unconventional monetary policy, central bank purchases of private companies’ securities can promote growth in some places (like Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Georgia and Greece at the time of our writing) while hurting it in others (like in parts of Latin America and Africa in the mid-2010s). The authors find how such purchases effectively “bypass” dysfunctional banking systems and central/government local bodies fiscal spending, making the central bank the “funder of last resort” in many middle and lower income countries.

This paper tells specific central banks to ramp up – or reduce – their purchases of private sector securities. The authors identify exact jurisdictions where such “helicopter money” has led to investment in the past economic growth.

All previous work on conventional and unconventional monetary policy has looked at the way monetary policy affects investment and growth through the banking system and holding companies’ reactions constant. The authors do the opposite – looking at how companies respond, holding banking system responses constant. No one has ever looked at these private purchases (taken from a special IMF database), much less tried to argue that central banks can sometimes target investment growth much better than fiscal policy. No one has ever considered them as a funder (rather than lender) of last resort.