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The global economic power shift towards the East has caused the governments of developed economies to support national businesses which are involved in the process of internationalizing and expanding across borders. Commercial diplomacy provides a means for governments to increase their international trade and to stimulate their national economies. Foreign posts play a crucial role in offering effective diplomatic support for international business. But what are the factors that can explain commercial diplomacy effectiveness at the foreign post level? This chapter presents the results of a survey that was conducted among commercial diplomats stationed at foreign posts. It appears that the amount of experience that commercial diplomats acquired at these foreign posts, combined with their established business network, form two of the most important factors which have a positive impact on the quality of commercial diplomacy. This extends further to include the importance of the client (business) preparedness in terms of knowledge and skills as well. Furthermore, the results indicate that the less favourable a cognitive institutional environment in a host country is, for instance in terms of information availability, the more relevance commercial diplomacy will have. The results of this study promote the understanding of how commercial diplomacy works and show how the debate on the future of commercial diplomacy can be taken a step further. This study should also be seen as a starting point for a holistic framework of commercial diplomacy effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the early development stages of International New Ventures (INVs). Specifically, the authors explore how INVs acquire and leverage four kinds of capital – strategic, managerial, financial and social – to recognise a foreign opportunity, begin the pre-foreign entry activities, and finally start the INV.

A stage-based, multidimensional framework was used to investigate how INVs acquire and use the four capitals throughout the internationalisation process. Drawing on four case studies of high-tech INVs, this study tracks their development in three stages: foreign opportunity, pre-foreign operation and post-foreign operation.

Results indicate INVs build advantages and internationalisation activities occur before formal operations begin. INVs deliberately orchestrate certain kinds of capital contingent to the specific internationalisation stage. Further, the authors find that not all types of capital are equally important throughout the internationalisation process: INVs identify foreign opportunities when endowed with managerial and social capital; INVs source a majority of their managerial and financial capitals externally before internationalising; and INVs only contribute all four capitals simultaneously after internationalising.

Findings contribute to knowledge about the development of INVs pre-internationalisation and pre-founding. The study is limited to a comparative sample of INVs, which impacts the generalisability. However, the findings provide a starting point for investigating similar effects using more representative samples.

Entrepreneurs can be proactive in networking activities to allow them greater opportunity to interact with potential resource providers dependent on the stage of internationalisation.

This study contributes to the international entrepreneurship literature with qualitative evidence of the micro-level processes of internationalisation. Very few studies investigate the early, pre-internationalisation and pre-foundation, development stages of INVs.

Roots of global Terrorism are in ‘failed’ states carved out of multiracial empires after World Wars I and II in name of ‘national self‐determination’. Both sides in the Cold War competed to exploit the process of disintegration with armed and covert interventions. In effect, they were colluding at the expense of the ‘liberated’ peoples. The ‘Vietnam Trauma’ prevented effective action against the resulting terrorist buildup and blowback until 9/11. As those vultures come home to roost, the war broadens to en vision overdue but coercive reforms to the postwar system of nation states, first in the Middle East. Mirages of Vietnam blur the vision; can the sole Superpower finish the job before fiscal and/or imperial overstretch implode it?

Online influencers are increasingly used by brands around the globe to establish brand communication. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of social media content in terms of presentation style and brand communication among online influencers in China. The authors identified how characteristics of social media posts influence young consumers’ engagement with the posts.

The authors analyzed 1,779 posts from the Sina Weibo accounts of ten top-ranked online influencers by combining traditional content analysis with Web data crawling of audience engagement with social media posts.

Online influencers in China more frequently used photos than videos to communicate with their social media audience. Altogether 8% and 6% of posts carried information about promotion and event, respectively. Posts with promotional incentives as well as event information were more likely to engage audiences. Altogether 22% of the sampled social media posts mentioned brands. Posts with brand information, however, were less likely to engage audiences. Furthermore, having long text is more effective than photos/images in generating likes from social media audiences.

Combining content analysis of social media posts and engagement analytics obtained via Web data crawling, this study is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, one of the first empirical studies to analyze influencer marketing and young consumers’ reactions to social media in China.

The authors revisit the literature on the use of expatriates and specifically Boyacigiller (1990) and examine whether OW Bunker, a Danish bunker oil trader, filled positions at its foreign units with traders transferred from its other units (expatriates). The authors test the generalizability and robustness of past findings on this topic by using a different dependent variable, sample, and methodology.

By searching the traders' LinkedIn profiles and consulting secondary sources, the authors obtain data on current and previous positions and work location and type of customer handled (global or local). Using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), the authors analyze 236 hiring decisions made between 1983 and 2014.

The authors find that OW transferred expatriates, principally home-country nationals, to handle global customers in its large foreign subsidiaries located in high-income countries. In another clear pattern, expatriates were used to start new foreign subsidiaries. These results generally confirm those of Boyacigiller. However, and contrary to her findings, none of our scenarios for internal transfers feature expatriates being sent to culturally and institutionally distant subsidiaries unless it is to serve global customers, casting doubt on the idea that a major reason for using expatriates is to remedy a local shortage of skills or to handle political risk.

The authors test the generalizability of Boyacigiller’s (1990) findings and confirm a large part of it. They extend her study by demonstrating that MNEs deploy expatriates not only to distant countries but also to close ones.

This study aims to examine whether a firm's demand for high-quality auditors is influenced by multiple large shareholders (MLS). As one type of ownership structure, MLS have gained popularity in China recently and have different types of large shareholders, including large institutional shareholder, large foreign shareholder and large state shareholder. The authors also examine whether different types of MLS have heterogeneous impacts on appointing high-quality auditors.

With a sample of 27,131 firm-year observations from Chinese public companies from 2003 to 2018, the authors use multivariate regressions to examine the effect of MLS on auditor choice. Heckman two-stage analysis, a firm fixed effects model, propensity score matching and difference-in-differences test are used as robustness checks.

This paper finds that the presence and power of MLS increase the likelihood of appointing high-quality auditors. With regard to the types of MLS, large institutional shareholders and foreign shareholders have significant positive effects on appointing high-quality auditors, while the presence of state-owned large shareholders has no effect on auditor choice. Further analyses reveal that the positive effect of MLS on high-quality auditor choice is more pronounced in firms with severe agency problems and information asymmetry. Taken together, these results suggest that MLS play a monitoring role by demanding high-quality auditors.

This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of auditor choice. While prior studies primarily focus on the impact of concentrated ownership structure, corporate governance and the pressure from stakeholders on auditor choice, this paper complements the literature by providing evidence from the heterogeneous effects of different types MLS. This paper also extends the literature on the consequences of MLS from the perspective of auditor choice.

Previous research has considered human motivation as a determinant of inquisitiveness, learning and innovation. However, how student’s motivation affects both exploitative/exploratory research outcomes has not yet been sufficiently addressed. The purpose of this paper is to examine self-determination theory (SDT) as a conceptual tool to understand post-graduate student’s academic motivation and how it affects two types of ambidextrous outcomes (exploitative and exploratory), and thus posit relational capital as an important mediator in the motivation–innovation process.

The authors draw conclusions using 331 valid post-graduate foreign scholars data collected via online survey in three Chinese Universities and conduct data analysis using the structural equation modeling technique (AMOS).

Results indicate that: academic motivation and perceived collaboration capability both has a significant effect on exploitation behavior; there was no significant relationship between academic motivation and tendency to collaborate with actors within their networks; collaboration capability and exploitation behavior mediate the relationship between academic motivation and exploration behavior; and further a complementary link was found to exist between exploitation behavior and exploration behavior in students attempt to be ambidextrous.

The authors advance innovation research by expanding SDT to include relational perspective as an antecedent of ambidexterity (exploration/exploitation behaviors) and provide new insights into current understanding of research engagement in higher education settings. The authors highlight some implications for educational agencies seeking to promote the emergence of psychological and relational conditions to enhance novelty in post-graduate internationalized education.

The leaders of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced to negotiate a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECP) in November 2012, which is comprised of 10 ASEAN Member States (Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar) and its six FTA partner countries (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India). Embedded in the ASEAN Charter and implemented in all existing ASEAN + 1 FTAs, the ASEAN Centrality has been a corner stone principle in ASEAN-centric economic initiatives. Emerging discord in the region, complicated security climate and the rise of China, among others, have put the ASEAN Centrality under challenge. The development of the RCEP provides a timely case to assess ASEAN’s leadership role in creating the world’s most populous Free Trade Area. The RCEP may enhance ASEAN’s central role, but ASEAN needs to address challenges facing the regional integration now and beyond 2015. On the country/economy level, the chapter reviews some ASEAN Member States and their FTA Partners how they practice their ASEAN policy and seek leadership role in ASEAN. The three major players in ASEAN-Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia have reiterated the importance of the ASEAN Centrality in their foreign policy in the past, but debates emerge whether, such as in Indonesia, ASEAN Centrality best suits the national interests. The chapter also explores how the major powers, including China and the United States, respond to and collaborate with the group of smaller developing country players.

Previous research indicates that accompanying partners often struggle to find employment upon international relocations. This study aims to highlight diplomat’s partners’ employment situation and to examine how unrealized professional aspirations affect their socio-cultural and psychological adjustment in the foreign environment.

This study applies OLS regression analysis to a sample of 220 partners of German Foreign Service diplomats who were surveyed regarding their locational adjustment, general stress and perceived quality of life using an online questionnaire. This study differentiates between working partners (19.5% of the total sample), non-working partners with a desire to obtain paid employment (65.5%) and partners who are unemployed by choice (15.0%).

The results demonstrate that partners’ employment situation and employment aspirations are important variables explaining differences in socio-cultural and psychological adjustment. Working partners reveal the highest levels of general stress, non-working partners with an employment desire report the lowest levels of locational adjustment and non-working partners without employment aspirations experience the highest quality of life.

As this study has a cross-sectional design, the authors are not able to deal with potential issues of reverse causality.

Sending organizations should consider accompanying partners' unrealized employment aspirations by providing services with regard to job search and career development. Moreover, they should ensure the provision of services that support the work–life balance of working couples.

Previous research only sparsely examined the adjustment and well-being of partners accompanying foreign service employees, who are in contrast to business expatriates required to relocate every three to five years. Moreover, this study features the crucial role of partners' employment situation and discusses possibilities to promote spousal employment, as well as complementary measures to improve work–life balance for dual-earner couples.

Forces associated with globalization have facilitated the development of transnational corporations (TNCs). Such companies have a geocentric orientation and attempt to be responsive to both national markets, while simultaneously seeking global coordination. In this paper we propose that such companies need to reconsider the traditional balance sheet approach to expatriate compensation. Accordingly, we suggest that transnational corporations need to engage in a paradigm shift from the notion of expatriate compensation to transpatriate compensation. We suggest that such a paradigm shift is necessary in light of increasing globalization of markets and operations.