Search results

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

This paper aims to evaluate the institutional complementarity thesis, which anticipates that the institutional context of the firm will have a considerable influence on the choice and success of employment relations strategies. Focusing on two liberal market economies, the paper presents analysis of secondary data from the US airline industry and primary data from UK civil aviation to assess the power of the institutional context on employment relations.

Secondary data were drawn from trade journals, newspaper reports and other civil aviation information sources such as the Civil Aviation Authority database. Primary data collection involved interviews with airline management, officials at the British Air Line Pilots Association, and pilots. A large‐scale questionnaire survey of pilots was also conducted.

In both liberal market economies airlines have adopted a range of employment relations strategies, which demonstrates the robustness of strategic management choice. Moreover, in both the UK and the USA, airlines with institutionally complementary employment relations strategies performed less well over a range of measures than their counterparts with employment relation strategies more closely aligned with coordinated market economies.

The findings identify best practice in the management of people in the airline industry and build a business case for cooperating with employees and their trade unions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the attitude of European firms towards human resource management (HRM) configuration and HRM practices on a country-level basis. Assuming the persistent relevance of institutional framework, the paper investigates the applicability of the varieties of capitalism (VoC) theory to these domains in European countries and their evolution between 1999 and 2005.

The paper selects and groups together variables that are related to both HRM configuration and HRM practices using data coming from the survey performed in 2005 by the Cranfield Network on International HRM. Then, a hierarchical cluster analysis among 16 European countries is performed. Relevant varieties are obtained through the combined application of two stopping rules.

Evidence shows that the evolution of HR policies over time is in line with an extended VoC approach that divides Europe in four VoC. One of these varieties (the “State” model), however, is not validated after a robustness check.

For HR managers, the implementation of common personnel policies within the same variety of capitalism could represent a potential fertile ground for beneficial interactions and mutual learning among HR functions. In particular, the classification suggested in the paper does matter if an intervention on HRM practices is accompanied by a change in the participation of the HR department to the decision-making process and/or in the delegation of responsibilities between the HR department and the line management.

The authors’ results contribute to the debate on the relationship between HRM and institutional context in two ways. First, they show that an extended VoC framework can explain the differentiation among European countries with regard to HRM domains. Notably, the correlation between the structure of the HR function and the intensity of HRM practices generates a clusterization of European countries based on at least three models of capitalism. Second, it emerges from the analysis that a substantial shift occurred with respect to the previous wave of the survey together with an increase of similarities between countries.

Whether corporate governance systems and practices are converging to the Anglo-American shareholder-value-oriented model or continue to diverge from this model and maintain their idiosyncrasies has been controversially debated among scholars in a variety of academic disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to review, critique and integrate the disparate positions in the convergence-divergence debate in corporate governance and to suggest promising directions for future research.

The author constructs a theoretical framework in which convergence and divergence dynamics are conceptualized as simultaneous processes of institutional change and continuity. This framework takes into account the influence of economic market forces, social embeddedness and cultural forces in shaping corporate governance at the national and the firm levels and provides a holistic and integrative perspective on the extant literature in the convergence-divergence debate.

The literature review does not support either the predictions of convergence advocates or the predictions of divergence advocates. Instead, the paper finds that convergence and divergence dynamics can coexist and lead to increasing heterogeneity in corporate governance arrangements of firms within and between corporate governance systems. This finding adds complexity to the debate and opens room for interesting research directions.

The paper offers a comprehensive review of the topic and draws from literature in financial economics, comparative law, economic sociology, international business, political science and strategic management. Most importantly, the paper offers a multi-theoretical framework that allows for an integration of the divergent perspectives presented in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the characteristics, efficiencies and interaction of many alternative market governance modes, by the approach of comparative institutional experimentation.

First, a highly simplified model of market economy is developed, which is embedded in a three‐layer governance structure. Then the model is transplanted into laboratory experimentation, so the characteristics and efficiencies of different governance modes can be identified by observing the subjects' behaviors under them.

The experimental results show that the market with governance structure based on rule is more efficient than the market with governance only based on long relation and based on preference or belief, and the dynamic improvement of governance based on rule has a destructive effect on the governance based on relation and governance based on preference or belief.

These results have profound implications for the development or enhancement of market institutions in transition or developing countries.

This paper analyses the stalling of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and its systemic and institutional consequences through a geopolitical economy approach that integrates the French school of international economic relations and Régulation Theory. These approaches put states and their economic roles at the fore, correcting dominant free trade approaches to world trade. The paper also avoids monocausal explanations for trade talk deadlocks and aims to provide a comprehensive approach on the co-evolution of world trade patterns and its institutions. In this approach, the DDA stalemate is traced to an institution-structure mismatch in how states articulate their accumulation strategies and institutions (competition, state regulation, adhesion to international regime) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime occasioned by the emergence of new trade powers. This has given rise to three distinct conflicts in how member states navigate between the main parameters of the multilateral trading system (non-discrimination, reciprocity and balance of power) and their national accumulation strategies: the erosion of non-discrimination and reciprocity; the failure to build an operational compromise between development and ‘globalization’, that is, between multilateral openness and new trade and power balances; and the difficulty in reaching a compromise between historical and emerging capitalisms. The outcome of these conflicts will determine the institutional configuration of the post-Doha WTO agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree of integration of reference documents (RD) produced by French CAC 40 listed companies to determine whether they have initiated the adoption of an integrated reporting (IR) approach. In particular, the author has examined how the French regulation shapes the integration of sustainable development issues within the business practices of these companies.

On the basis of content analysis of 279 RD over nine years (2006-2014), the author has examined the extent and the quality of the IR practice with the help of three criteria (strategy, governance and commitment of stakeholders). Evidence of the existence of an integration practice is thus sought using 34 CAC 40 companies having the obligation, according to various regulations, to include in their management report information relating to questions of sustainable development (SD).

There is a variation between the CAC 40 companies regarding integration of SD issues in the core business. As a result of the analysis, the author has observed that 41% of companies in our sample integrate issues of SD to more than 90%, whereas other companies consider concerns relating to SD as subsidiary. All of the companies (100%) have put in place policies to manage the environmental and social governance aspects, assuming recognition of the importance of these issues for the companies. Yet only a few (41%) went further than the mere declaration of intent and have revised their business processes to reflect the taking into account of all the factors which contribute to the process of value creation. On the whole, the principle of connectivity that perfectly defines the integrated character of a report is only moderately respected by the companies in the sample.

The methodology deployed in this study to identify the integration practices of listed companies in France can be replicated by other researchers who would endeavor to assess the IR practices of companies from other countries. For regulatory agencies, this study provides evidence on how the various regulations that make up a national business system shape company reporting and allow informing different categories of stakeholders.

This research provides the empirical result of a longitudinal study of the degree of integration of RDs in the context of an environment regulating non-financial reporting. The construction of a set of criteria characterizing the degree of integration of SD issues at the heart of businesses is another innovative approach of this study.

From the perspective of the economic theory of complementarity, the purpose of this paper is to examine how internal collaboration and external competencies would provoke and strengthen each other, and subsequently enhance organizational innovation capability.

The survey data were collected from 201 manufacturing firms and checked for common method variance, validity and reliability. Structural equation modeling was then used to test the hypothetical complementarity effect.

The results suggest that internal collaboration (as a manifestation of exploitative learning) and external competencies, which include supply network flexibility and supplier operational capabilities (as manifestation of exploratory learning), do in fact compensate for each other’s deficiencies. Complementary deployment of internal collaboration and external competencies enhances each other’s contribution to innovation capability. Practically, the study indicates that organizations should consider making concerted efforts to develop internal collaboration, supply network flexibility and supplier operational capability as a bundle.

Extensive discussions exist in the literature on exploration and exploitation being essential components of innovation and their conflicting impact on innovation efficiency and effectiveness. But how an organization should operationally develop supply chain competencies in order to maximize overall innovation capability still remains largely an unanswered question. The current study advances the research on the inter-relationships between exploration and exploitation by empirically demonstrating the complementary nature of internal collaboration and external competencies in developing sustainable innovation capabilities.

Do multinational enterprises evolve differently in emerging and developed economies? Although one camp argues that emerging economy multinationals are different from their developed country counterparts owing to the underdeveloped institutions in their home countries, another camp counters that they are the same and the existing international business theories can fully explain their strategies. A third camp suggests a more nuanced perspective by finding value in both approaches. In this introductory chapter, we review this debate and offer new perspectives on how to extend existing theories by accounting for four specific aspects of the home country institutional environments of emerging economies: breadth, depth, timing, and duration of exposure to institutional development. We then discuss how the chapters in this volume extend these ideas.

Building on the institutional theory perspective on corporate governance change and based on interviews with investor relations (IR) managers in large Japanese companies, this study aims to examine Japanese IR managers’ perceptions of the influence of foreign shareholders on Japan’s corporate governance reform and stakeholder-based system. The paper examines tensions, conflicts and collaborations among different stakeholders involved in corporate governance changes in Japan, especially in the areas of firm ownership, employment relations and boards of directors. The paper explains why convergence does not happen in some large Japanese companies by investigating Japanese managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in multiple corporate contexts.

The author conducted in-depth interviews with ten IR managers at large, listed Japanese companies in Kyoto and Tokyo and two managers at foreign investment banks in Tokyo, between 2018 and 2021.

This paper explores five themes that emerged from my interviews: Chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) mixed perceptions of foreign investors, the effectiveness of CEO compensation and outside directors, managers’ reluctance to accept stock price-driven business strategies, foreign investors’ engagement vs investments in index funds and gender patterns, including the effectiveness of token female outside directors. The Japanese companies the author looked at incorporated foreign shareholders as consultants and adopted a few major shareholder-based customs, such as CEOs communicating with investors, having outside directors, increasing CEO compensation and slimming down unprofitable parts of the business via restructuring and downsizing. Simultaneously, they resisted a few major shareholder-based practices. Foreign shareholders’ pressure revealed tensions and contradictions between the Japanese stakeholder system and shareholder primacy-based customs.

This paper is one of the few qualitative studies that explores Japanese IR managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in corporate governance reform, with a particular focus on ownership, employment relations and board members. This paper provides examples of tension, conflict and cooperation between Japanese managers and foreign investors, as seen through the eyes of Japanese IR managers. Examining changes in Japan’s stakeholder-based system of corporate governance reform enables us to better understand the processes by which, with vigorous pressure from government and foreign shareholders, a non-western country like Japan may adopt shareholder-based customs and how such a change may also lead to institutional changes.