Search results

The decision to select one amongst many choices of higher education institutions (HEIs) is a complex process. At a theory-building level, this study investigates the determinants of students' decisions as they consider investing in a long-term credence service higher education (HE) contract in pre- and in-pandemic and the implications for education managers. The second aspect is how disruptive global events influence such choice-making.

The study hypothesized that there would be significant differences in the driving factors and their weight in students' decisions seeking admission into B-schools (Business schools). Structural equation modeling (SEM) and t-test validate the determinants and test hypothesized differences.

Results reveal that core faculty quality, industry exposure, institutional brand name, placement offered, return on investment and specializations offered are the preferred choice criteria. The results reveal that choice criteria in the pre-and in-pandemic differ significantly.

The application of the SEM approach on a large primary database of students during the pre and in-pandemic periods to understand the changes in the choice of B-school for admission is the original aspect of the paper. Insights from the four hypotheses which got rejected provide value to stakeholders. As the pandemic is rearing its head once again across the globe, this study would be able to inform admissions managers on how to navigate for admissions success.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

The phenomenon of student mobility in higher education is influenced by several factors, including the infrastructure provided by institutions in different countries as student support services. These student support services play a pivotal role in fostering students’ adaptability within a new environment, thereby significantly impacting their academic performance and social integration. The study focuses on international students in Uganda and investigates how student support services (as part of institutional infrastructure) support students’ adaptability. Based on Leask’s conceptual model of internationalisation, the study reveals that the presence of such services is essential; in addition, the need to provide newly arriving students with orientation is crucial for them to effectively navigate their surroundings. Offices dedicated to international students are also instrumental in facilitating the students’ orientation and settling-in process and they enhance their overall experience. By recognising the significance of both student support services and orientation, education institutions can create a more conducive and supportive environment for international students, ultimately enriching their academic journey and social interactions.

This paper aims to study whether the adoption of an entry mode that fits the social trust level contributes to the improvement of foreign subsidiary performance.

The authors used the Probit model, linear regression, strategic fit approach and instrumental variable regression. The sample was made up of 11,095 observations of Chinese multinational enterprises' foreign subsidiaries in 54 countries from 2005 to 2020.

The results suggest that a host country with a high level of social trust results in fewer difficulties for enterprises in gaining legitimacy, thus foreign subsidiaries are more likely to select the wholly owned entry mode. The results also show that the effect is contingent on the formal institutions of host countries. The results of the mechanism test suggest that social trust influences subsidiaries' entry mode choice by reducing information asymmetry, costs and uncertainty risks. This study further finds that selecting a fit entry mode based on social trust level substantially increases foreign subsidiary performance and this effect is more significant when multinational enterprises (MNEs) are state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The main limitation of this paper is its only focus on foreign subsidiaries of Chinese MNEs, which may limit the generalizability of research findings.

This paper responds to the call for conducting more research on informal institutions. Findings highlight the critical role of informal institutions in helping foreign subsidiaries in gaining legitimacy in host countries and the essentialness of selecting a fit entry mode based on the informal institutions of host countries for the development of foreign subsidiaries.

This study aims to explore the extent to which Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) rely on supranational institution – the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – versus host country institutional quality to navigate their foreign location choice.

This study uses a conditional logit regression model using a sample of 1,302 greenfield investments by Chinese MNEs in 54 BRI participating countries during the period 2011–2018.

The results indicate that as a supranational institution, the BRI serves as a substitution mechanism to address the deficiencies in institutional quality in BRI participating countries, thereby attracting Chinese MNEs to invest in those countries. In addition, the BRI’s substitution effect on host country institutional quality is more pronounced for large MNEs, MNEs in the manufacturing industry and MNEs in inland regions.

This study expands the understanding of the BRI as a supranational institution for MNEs from emerging markets and reveals its substitution effect on the host country institutional quality. Furthermore, it highlights that MNEs with diverse characteristics gain varying degrees of benefits from the BRI.

This paper aims to explore the changing role of the accountant amid multiple drivers, responses of accountants and situated rationality in a multinational firm, Max-choice Lanka.

It adopts the single-site case study approach under the qualitative methodology and leans on institutional theory, specifically Ter Bogt and Scapens (2019) framework.

The case study findings reveal that the role of the accountant has undergone change amid local and broader institutions linked to organizational culture/norms, the influence of the parent company, global trends and technological advancements. Based on evolving situated rationalities, the contemporary accountant performs an agile role as a value-adding business partner; data scientist; strategic decision-maker; and a cross-functional team member.

At the practice level, identifying drivers influencing the changing role of accountants enables organizations to shape their accounting functions attuned to evolving needs by implementing appropriate strategies and recruiting competent personnel. In the realm of education, it calls for incorporating areas such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, reporting nonfinancial information and integrated accounting software to the accounting curricular and upskill students based on industry expectations catering to changing roles.

This paper adds to the ongoing debate on the contemporary role of the accountant. Capitalizing on case study data, this research illuminates the influence of multiplicity of institutions, different forms and situated rationality within this changing role and extends the Ter Bogt and Scapens (2019) framework.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate different strands of institutional theory within the internationalization process of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in developed and emerging economies. In the light of this purpose, the authors try to fill the gap in the literature through analysing the main institutional theories: neo-institutionalism, new institutional economics, comparative capitalism and the institution-based view. Therefore, the main concern is to determine the distribution of different strands of institutional theory in its subfields in this study.

This study provides a profound analysis of different strands of institutional theory within the period from 1990 to 2018 in a larger sample. With a qualitative content analysis, authors reviewed 150 articles using different strands of institutional theory at both theoretical and analytical level and accessed 25 journals published in Social Science Citations Index between 1990 and 2018. In this study, authors used the inductive approach and the qualitative content analysis (Duriau et al., 2007) and adopted a research method to investigate different strands of institutional theory within the internationalization process of MNEs in developed and emerging markets (EMs).

Coders have synthesized the strands of institutional theory in detail to analyse the theoretical contribution of the study. The strands of institutional theory have been analysed both by institutional perspective and citation analysis. Coders classify the analysis level into three main categories. These are country, headquarter and subsidiary level. Our findings are related to the basic determinants and assumptions of different strands of institutional theory. Because in new institutional economics, analysis levels are country and industry. On the other hand in institution-based view, analysis levels are country and firm. Finally in comparative capitalism, analysis levels are country and region and, in neo-institutionalism analysis level is organization itself. In this study, findings show that sociology-based institutional strands, especially neo-institutionalism, are more preferred than other theories.

This study’s content analysis is limited to scope of selected journals. However, this study may suffer from publication bias. The authors examined only peer-reviewed articles from selected journals and did not include book chapters, book reviews, editor and special issue editor articles, research notes, conference papers and congress invitations. The important theoretical limitation of this study is to clarify the different strands of institutional theory in international business literature (Aguilera and Grøgaard, 2019). The firm size of MNEs is not included in this study, but it should be involved in coding categories in future studies.

This study provides the largest sample up to now and covers developed markets and EMs. Authors analysed this research from four perspectives: theoretical foundation, methodology, location and entry mode choices. On the other hand, this study shows that the institutional environment not only mitigates or mediates the effects but also directs the effects on foreign direct investment’s internationalization process of location choice and entry strategies.

This study attempts to elucidate the role of key influencers impacting the student decision-making process of enrollment for higher education in India from the lenses of Stephen Covey's theory on circles of life.

A sample of 556 students of Delhi NCR, India was selected based on a multi-staged sampling method. PLS-SEM was subsequently applied for statistical data analysis.

This quantitative finding voiced the relationships among the constructs in the proposed theoretical framework, i.e. Stephen Covey's circle of life theory. Additionally, it tinted the crucial role of “College attributes” in reconnoitering the relationship dynamics between key influencers (Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern) and student college choice (Circle of Control).

The present study incorporates only the first-year student population of undergraduate management courses in private universities from Delhi NCR, India limiting the generalization of findings substantially.

The study garners the attention of education policymakers on the cognizance of the role played by parents and cohorts in driving the student's decision-making process of college choice under the circle of influence.

This study is pioneering research disseminating a comprehensive outlook of the circle of life theory of great Stephen Covey engrained upon a compendious conceptual model which enlightens the landscape of the decision-making process of student on enrollment under the influence of key influencers.

The research aims to applying Baumol’s framework to address some research gaps in the literature. This paper aims to analyze how institutional variations at the subnational level impact entrepreneurship decisions and the path toward productive or unproductive entrepreneurship in an institutionally underdeveloped country. The results offer potentially new theoretical insights and practical implications for developing or emergent countries.

The research applies Baumol’s framework to Mexico’s context. The research collects data compounded by individual- and state-level variables from diverse sources for the 32 Mexican states. The individual level and some controls were obtained from sources of regular frequency, but the institutional variables were derived from surveys of irregular frequency, nonsynchronic and mostly nonoverlapping, which required aligning and centered them around 2016 and 2019 to match with the individual variables. The authors apply multilevel nonlinear mixed-effects probit regression to test nine hypotheses regarding the impact of institutional variables on entrepreneurial decisions and the path toward productive or unproductive entrepreneurship.

Improved formal institutions across the Mexican states reduce the entrepreneurship probability, implying interactions with other variables and indirect effects; encourage the selection of productive entrepreneurship, e.g. formal ventures; and discourage self-employment. Consequently, those institutions do not encourage entrepreneurship selection as an occupation but entrepreneurial quality, i.e. the selection of productive-formal entrepreneurship and larger ventures. Deficient informal institutions increase the entrepreneurship and formal entrepreneurship probabilities, implying the interactions with other variables and indirect effects and supporting the corruption “greases the wheels” hypothesis, consequently encouraging productive ventures. New evidence of the positive relationship between criminality and entrepreneurship types in Mexico is reported.

Our findings indicate important impacts of the individual-level variables on the entrepreneurship decisions and that most of those decisions are potentially necessity driven and a minority are driven by opportunity, given their relationship with the macroeconomic controls and the institutional variables. The authors report mixed results on the relationship between institutions and entrepreneurship partially consistent with the literature; some results contribute additional evidence on controversial hypotheses or imply the existence of indirect effects. Overall, the results suggest that institutions impact the individual decisions to venture and the type of venture consequently affecting the amount and quality of entrepreneurship across states.

The research addresses some of the literature gaps by providing empirical evidence on a middle-income country and how diverging regional institutional contexts, including formal and informal institutions, impact the individual’s entrepreneurship decisions within an institutionally underdeveloped country. The paper contributes new knowledge and insights into entrepreneurship in emerging or developing countries with implications for Baumol’s framework in this context and adds to the debated hypothesis on the relationship between some institutions, e.g. corruption and criminality and entrepreneurship.