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The purpose of this paper is to explore how different country-specific institutional healthcare settings affect an international new venture’s (INV’s) selling strategies and internationalization process when commercializing a medical technology innovation.

The study is based on a longitudinal in-depth case study approach with a comparative healthcare analysis in Sweden, UK, Germany and the USA.

An institutional framework helps elucidate the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive dimensions in different healthcare settings. National markets differ when operating in a healthcare setting and thus affect both sales patterns and the internationalization process. In this study, three different sales patterns emerged from the countries’ and even regions’ distinctive institutional differences. Although the actual internationalization process starts from the INV’s inception, the subsequent internationalization process was both slow and focused due to institutional diversity and complexity.

Every nation has its own unique healthcare structure, indicating the importance of choosing markets that facilitate a swift uptake of a specific medical technology innovation. Commercializing a medical technology innovation in different country-specific healthcare settings is a lengthy, complex and costly process, especially if new behaviors and routines need to be created.

The paper contributes to the international entrepreneurship-marketing interface by developing an analytical framework for understanding country differences in relation to regulative, normative and culture-cognitive dimensions and by advancing six propositions related to the role of institutional healthcare settings and their impact on INVs’ sales patterns and internationalization processes.

This empirical study conceptualizes the institutional environment within which firms function in a transition economy as a number of dimensions, representing the externally set ‘rules of the game’ as perceived by senior managers. It then proposes a mediating model of the links between that environment and the commercial performance of enterprises in which incentive intensity is a key strategic choice, influenced by perceptions of the institutional setting and the influence of that choice is carried on to commercial performance by a set of managerial orientations. The model is tested using survey data from a sample of 959 Chinese enterprises.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand corporate social responsibility (CSR) and human resource management (HRM) practices of the UK and Japan, who share opposing societal and cultural characteristics, from a national business system (NBS) perspective, to answer the following two questions: the extent of convergence/divergence of CSR-HRM of two very different NBS, and the institutional relations behind the convergence/divergence.

For these purposes, the paper proposes a framework that can be utilised to understand the complex relationships between institutions, HRM, and CSR. Using a qualitative approach and grounded theory analysis as well as multiple-case analysis of six cases from the UK and Japan, the findings are tested against the framework.

The paper was able to confirm that mimetic and coercive isomorphism from global institutional pressure cause certain convergence of CSR-HRM in these two nations. However, simultaneously, the local institutional pressure (i.e. NBS) appears to be deeply rooted and is more salient at micro-level, resulting in diversified CSR-HRM in the two nations. As a result, it appears that convergence and divergence co-exist due to their differences in NBS with possibility of “crossvergence”.

This paper’s significance lies not only in contributing to the existing convergence–divergence debate on both CSR and HRM but also to help understanding of how Western CSR-HRM concepts are utilized and interpreted in East Asian countries with very different NBS from the West, with the aid of the proposed framework.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight systemic factors of competence-based integration of retired military officers into the civilian labour market in terms of the perspective of the institutions and institutional settings of competence involved in the formation and deployment.

This study is based on semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 25 retired military officers in Lithuania.

The main institutional problems and challenges of the competence-based labour market integration of retired military officers involve are concentrated in the fields of deployment of skills in the military service, and as well as in the adjustment of acquired skills to the requirements of the civilian labour market.

The main limitation of the research is the absence of perspectives and attitudes of other stakeholders such as policy makers, employers and providers of education and training.

Research identified expectations of retired military officers concerning improvement of training and labour market integration services.

The paper is focused on the institutional aspects of competence-based labour market integration of the retired military officers from their perspective.

This chapter is aimed at contributing to the question of how institutional reforms affect multi-level governance (MLG) capacities and thus the performance of public task fulfillment with a particular focus on the local level of government in England, France, and Germany.

Drawing on concepts of institutional evaluation, we analytically distinguish six dimensions of impact assessment: vertical coordination; horizontal coordination; efficiency/savings; effectiveness/quality; political accountability/democratic control; equity of service standards. Methodologically, we rely on document analysis and expert judgments that could be gleaned from case studies in the three countries and a comprehensive evaluation of the available secondary data in the respective national and local contexts.

Institutional reforms in the intergovernmental setting have exerted a significant influence on task fulfillment and the performance of service delivery. Irrespective of whether MLG practice corresponds to type I or type II, task devolution (decentralization/de-concentration) furthers the interlocal variation and makes the equity of service delivery shrink. There is a general tendency of improved horizontal/MLG type I coordination capacities, especially after political decentralization, less in the case of administrative decentralization. However, decentralization often entails considerable additional costs which sometimes overload local governments.

The distinction between multi-purpose territorial organization/MLG I and single-purpose functional organization/MLG II provides a suitable analytical frame for institutional evaluation and impact assessment of reforms in the intergovernmental setting. Furthermore, comparative research into the relationship between MLG and institutional reforms is needed to reveal the explanatory power of intervening factors, such as the local budgetary and staff situation, local policy preferences, and political interests in conjunction with the salience of the transferred tasks.

The findings provide evidence on the causal relationship between specific types of (vertical) institutional reforms, performance, and task-related characteristics. Policy-makers and government actors may use this information when drafting institutional reform programs and determining the allocation of public tasks in the intergovernmental setting.

In general, the euphoric expectations placed upon decentralization strategies in modern societies cannot straightforwardly be justified. Our findings show that any type of task transfer to lower levels of government exacerbates existing disparities or creates new ones. However, the integration of tasks within multi-functional, politically accountable local governments may help to improve MLG type I coordination in favor of local communities and territorially based societal actors, while the opposite may be said with regard to de-concentration and the strengthening of MLG type II coordination.

The chapter addresses a missing linkage in the existing MLG literature which has hitherto predominantly been focused on the political decision-making and on the implementation of reforms in the intergovernmental settings of European countries, whereas the impact of such reforms and of their consequences for MLG has remained largely ignored.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a conceptual interpretation of the role business families play in the institutional context of sub-Saharan Africa, characterised by voids within the formal institutional setting. Responding to calls to take a holistic perspective of the institutional environment, we develop a conceptual model, showcasing the emergence of relational familial logics within business families that enable these enterprising organisations to navigate the political, economic and socio-cultural terrain of this institutional context.

The authors undertake a review of extant literature on institutional theory, institutional voids, family business and business families and examine the relevance of these theoretical constructs in relation to the institutional environment of Sub-Saharan Africa. The authors offer tentative propositions within our conceptualisation, which the authors discuss in an inductive fashion.

The review underlines the relevance of informal political, economic and socio-cultural institutions within the sub-Saharan context, within which the family as an institution drives business families engagement in institutional entrepreneurship. In doing so, the authors argue business families are best positioned to navigate the existing Sub-Saharan African institutional context. The authors underline the critical relevance of the embeddedness of social relationships that underpin relational familial logic within the sub-Saharan African collectivist socio-cultural system.

By challenging the assumptions that institutional voids are empty spaces devoid of institutions, the authors offer an alternative view that institutional voids are spaces where there exists a misalignment of formal and informal institutions. The authors argue that in such contexts within Sub-Saharan Africa, business families are best placed to harness their embeddedness within extended family and community for entrepreneurial activity. The authors argue that family and business logics may complement each other rather than compete. The discussions and propositions have implications for future research on business families and more inclusive forms of family organisations.

This paper focuses on the managerial challenges involved in establishing subsidiaries in the Post‐ Soviet market. In these circumstances, the Western firms’ management meets the host country’s institutional structures. It is suggested that management transfers from the Western parent firm towards the local subsidiary take place across institutional boundaries. The analysis focuses on aspects creating, or reducing tensions in relations between local employees and the Western firm’s representatives. This paper explains why some local employees develop identities that facilitate management transfers, and why other employees develop conflict identities that inhibit management transfers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the investment preference of various types of institutional investors in Malaysia, and its influence on firm valuation, operating performance and capital expenditure.

This study employs ordinary least squares model to examine: investment preference according to different types of institutional investors; the association between various types of institutional investors and firm valuation; the association between various types of institutional investors and firm performance; and the association between various types of institutional investors and capital expenditure.

The result shows that different types of institutional investors exhibit different investment preference. From the domiciles perspective, local institutional investors (LII) are found to be associated with higher Tobin’s Q, ROA and net profit margin. When viewed from business relationship perspective, “pressure-resistant” institutional investors (PRII) are positively associated with Tobin’s Q, ROA and net profit margin. Both LII and PRII are also associated with higher capital expenditure.

This study reveals the investment preferences of various types of institutional investors in an emerging market economy. The results show that institutional monitoring is associated with higher firm valuation, higher firm performance and higher capital expenditure. However, the effect is largely driven by local and PRII, particularly government-controlled institutional funds. These evidence suggest that different firm outcomes between emerging and advanced economy can be explained by variation in institutional setting.

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between bank institutional setting and risk-taking by exploring whether board education and turnover are drivers of the risk propensity of cooperative banks compared to joint-stock banks.

Based on a comprehensive data set of Italian banks over the 2011-2017 period, this paper examines whether these board characteristics affect the risk propensity of cooperative and joint-stock banks. Bank risk is measured by the Z-index, profit volatility and the ratio of non-performing loans to total gross loans.

The findings show that cooperatives take less risk than joint-stock banks and have lower board turnover and education. Furthermore, this study finds that while board education mediates the relationship between the cooperative model and bank risk-taking, there is no evidence for board turnover. Thus, the lower educational level of cooperative directors contributes to explaining the lower risk-taking of cooperative banks.

The findings have several implications. In terms of the more general policy debate, the results point to the need to strengthen the governance model for both joint-stock and cooperative banks while supporting the view that a more ad hoc perspective on the best models and practices for each type of institutional setting would be preferable. In particular, the study reveals how board education’s effects on bank risk-taking should be carefully monitored.

Through a mediation framework, this study provides empirical evidence on the relationship between bank institutional setting (by distinguishing between cooperative and joint-stock banks) and risk-taking behavior by exploring the underlying mechanisms at the board level, which is novel in the literature.

This chapter focuses on the circumstances under which active clients in universities construct external management consultants as actors. Much research focuses on how consultants legitimize decisions and trends in business organizations, but we know little about how consultants become legitimized as actors in other organizational fields. In the academic field, clients are embedded in a variety of organizational settings embedded in different institutional logics, which determine their sense making. By analyzing how consultants are legitimized, the authors contribute to a better understanding of the organizational preconditions that support the construction of an external expert as an actor. By focusing on IT and strategy consulting in academia, further, the authors discuss the role of competing institutional logics in legitimization processes and the importance of intra-organizational communities.