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An agency relationship exists whenever one party (the principal) delegates authority to another (the agent). Because agents are assumed to be self-interested and to possess goals that diverge from the principal's goals, the principal must expend resources (called agency costs) to insure that agents act in her interest (Jensen & Meckling, 1976). In chains, the firm can choose as outlet managers either employees who are paid a salary (and perhaps a bonus) or franchisees who are granted the right to their outlet's profits after royalties and other expenses. In both cases, an agency problem is created because the firm delegates local decision-making to outlet managers whose interests are not perfectly aligned with that of the franchisor's (Rubin, 1978).

South African scholars, like most scholars in the developing world, have sold the idea that social constructivism is the gold standard of qualitative management research. In this chapter, we caution against this subordination to unquestioned conventions and offer a process relational ontology as an alternative to social constructivism that is often punted by most qualitative research programmes and textbooks. We also debunk the idea that ‘grounded theory’ exists by delving into epistemology and showing how science is ‘self-correcting’ rather than ‘tabula rasa’. Instead of boxing business ethics knowledge, as has been done by the case study gurus, we encourage business and organisational ethicists to own their indigenous heritage through storytelling science based on the self-correcting method underpinned by Popperian and Peircian epistemological thought. This chapter encourages business management researchers to move towards more profound ethical knowledge by refuting and falsifying false assumptions in each phase of the study, in a sequence of self-correcting storytelling phases. This is what Karl Popper called trial and error, and what C.S. Peirce called self-correcting by the triadic of Abduction–Induction–Deduction. We offer a novel method for accomplishing this aim that we call ‘Conversational Interviews’ that are based on antenarrative storytelling sciences. Our chapter aims to evoking the transformative power of indigenous ontological antenarratives in authentic conversation in order to solve immediate local problems ad fill the many institutional voids that plague the South(ern)-/African context.

Economic anthropology of bazaar-type markets for material goods has developed a model of markets under uncertain conditions through microscopic analyses of seller–buyer relationships. The model implies that serious lack of information makes the individuals highly risk-averse and leads to long-term, balanced clientelization. Presented in this chapter is another model of uncertain market conditions. In a bazaar-type market of interpersonal service the individuals are likely to be both chance-seekers as well as risk-averters. Such an attitude derives from a combination of unique service characteristics and uncertain market conditions. Transactions of commodified sexual services (termed here “interpersonally embedded services”) among chance-seekers in bangkok go-go bars often result in disequilibration, rather than equilibration, of the seller–buyer relationship.

The narrative of The Americans weaves together a spy thriller and a family drama, though it drives home the inseparability of the political and the personal through the lives of the central characters, Philip and Elizabeth, a couple whose marriage is a cover for their work as Soviet spies. This chapter provides a queer reading of their marriage, drawing from the real history of the Cold War politics of sexuality that associated American values with the hetero- and gender normative, white, and middle-class nuclear family. In contrast, the Soviet Union was understood to have disrupted this natural order by installing the state as an overbearing patriarch. Philip and Elizabeth’s fictional cover as a nuclear family requires them to perform American marriage, family, and selfhood. In doing so, they reflect the centrality of the family in America’s Cold War self-image in which the family serves as the anchor of the American order, enabling economic and political self-sufficiency. Their performance of the family challenges our ability to differentiate between real, authentic family that can serve as the legitimate source of social reproduction and between the counterfeit, fake family that disrupts the social order. The queer family, refusing to be placed beyond realm of the political by the moral language of family values, subverts our ability to distinguish between genres since the family drama is already a political thriller.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face challenges in internationalisation due to their limited resources. Research on service firm internationalisation as well as the antecedents and consequences is scarce. Literature suggests that internationalisation for service firms is even more demanding than for manufacturing firms due to the characteristics of services such as intangibility. Extant literature states that firms introducing innovations are more likely to export. However, research on learning by exporting and thus investigating the effect of a firm’s export status on innovation is comparatively scarce. Therefore, the authors investigate the influence of different market entry strategies on innovation and firm performance. The authors employ a quantitative, survey-based approach to test our hypotheses based on a sample of internationally active firms headquartered in Austria. Regarding firm financial performance, the analysis of the data shows that the entry strategy of direct entry excels the direct export strategy. In terms of non-financial performance, the strategies of direct entry and direct export seem to be equally feasible.

Despite the importance of the service sector in developed economies and the growth of foreign investments in this sector during the last decade, few studies have undertaken to empirically analyze the factors influencing entry mode choice. The special characteristics of the service sector increase the complexity of the analysis and, thus, traditional explanations of entry mode choice in manufacturing sectors may need to be complemented by other moderating influences. Based on 174 entry decisions of service firms, our results suggest the importance of including strategic variables and the specific nature of services to understand a complex phenomenon, which is not always associated just with efficiency and value-based considerations but also with strategic issues and industry characteristics.

This paper reviews extant contemporary literature in the area of entry mode choice in service firms and analyzes 14 empirical studies conducted in the area. The review is limited to articles which focus specifically on entry mode choice and the determinants of such a choice. The publication time frame covers the period from 1977 to 2003. The review observations in relation to factors such as the origin of the research, the theoretical frameworks underpinning existing entry mode research, methodological approaches and other relevant patterns are presented. The analysis highlights the paucity of empirical research in the area, which in turn has been largely fragmentary and exploratory in nature. It suggests that research sites need to be extended into Europe, alternative research designs need to be considered and the opportunity to conduct some form of collaborative research warrants exploration.