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This chapter explores the strategic motives behind the decision of hotels to internationalize. It approaches the subject from the perspective of the soft-service sector and aims to develop an understanding of this phenomenon. The literature covers several different factors that stimulate the decision to expand operations abroad. The process requires a trigger that will initiate the process and control the assignment until completion. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with international hotel chains to develop an understanding of the process. The findings reveal factors that can be distinguished between proactive and reactive and also be categorized under the four major motives behind internationalization: seeking natural resources, markets, efficiency and strategic assets or capabilities. The international strategy of hotel chains provides a roadmap for expansion and often acts as a trigger. The findings also reveal the significant role of vice presidents (VPs) of international development, development directors, agents and networks in initiating the process of internationalization and stimulating the chains towards specific parts of the world. One of the main differences between manufacturing and soft services is the wide variety of entry modes that are at the disposal of services. The findings are consistent with the literature published and provide an insight into the initial steps towards internationalization by hotel chains, in the post-COVID era.

Research question: What are the strategic motives behind the decision of hotels to internationalize?

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in firms entering the international market at increasingly early age. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that more than a quarter of the world's small manufacturing firms enter international markets within 10 years of their founding and derive a substantial percentage of their revenue from foreign sources (OECD, 1997). In addition, between 1 and 2% of small manufacturing firms are estimated to be international at inception – that is, within 2 years of their founding (OECD, 1997). Being new and proactively international at the same time, international entrepreneurial firms seem to contradict prevailing theories that see internationalization as a gradual process (McDougall, Shane, & Oviatt, 1994).

Millions of people die of chronic diseases within inpatient settings annually in the United States, despite patient preferences for dying at home. This medicalization of dying has received social and economic critiques for decades. This chapter offers a further analysis to these critiques by examining the ecological impacts of inpatient end-of-life care on the natural environment and occupational and public health.

We compare the ecological health outcomes of medical care in three inpatient units (conventional cancer unit, palliative care ward, and hospice facility) using ethnographic observations, semi-structured interviews, and institutional records on medical supply use, waste generation, and pharmaceutical administration and disposal.

Care provided on all three medical units had significant socioecological impacts. Cumulative impacts were greatest on the conventional unit, followed by palliative care, and lowest on the hospice unit. Variations in impacts mirrored differences in dependence on material interventions, which arose from variations in patient needs, institutional policies, and nursing cultures between the three units.

Social and economic concerns have been major drivers in reforming end-of-life medical care, and our analysis shows that ecological concerns must also be considered. Transitioning terminal patients to less materially intensive modes of care when appropriate could mitigate ecological health impacts while honoring patient preferences.

This chapter describes how the medicalization of dying has converged with institutional policies, practices, and actors to increase the negative consequences of medical care, and recognizes that the far-reaching impacts of clinical decisions make the provision of medical care a socioecological act.

We revisit the model of socialism proposed in our Towards a New Socialism (1993) and attempt to answer various questions that have been raised regarding the connection between our view of socialism and our perspective on capitalism, the process of transition to socialism, the failings of the Soviet model, the relationship between socialism and communism, the role of direct democracy under socialism, and the use of labor-time calculation in a socialist economy. We argue that the contradictions of capitalist property relations, and of the accumulation process on a world scale, are set to present once again the necessity of the abolition of private property during the 21st century, and offer some thoughts on transitional forms that could implement this abolition. We defend the ideas of direct democracy and economic calculation in terms of labor time, and argue that these elements distinguish our proposals from the Soviet model. We trace the demise of the latter both to specifics of the Russian situation and to more general problems of Leninism, notably Lenin’s conception of the council state, and of socialism as a long period during which the productive forces are built up in preparation for an eventual communism.

Internationalizing new firms face the dual challenge of overcoming the liabilities of newness and liabilities of foreignness (Stinchcombe, 1965; Dunning, 1981; Zaheer, 1995). Because of their newness, new firms are constrained in their ability to access external resources required for survival and growth. Because of their foreignness relative to the foreign target market, internationalizing firms are disadvantaged relative to domestic firms when establishing business relationships. These disadvantages are exacerbated by the additional knowledge inputs required by the internationalization process itself: internationalizing firms face the dual challenge of both learning how to do business in a new national and institutional environment while also learning to manage the inherently complex international business organization (Johanson & Vahlne, 1990).

Charles Tilly argues that continuous wars and preparation for wars motivated early European rulers to extract resources from their subject populations, thereby expanding states’ infrastructure and establishing mechanisms to enable negotiations with societies. State capacity was thus strengthened. Tilly's argument has inspired a wave of scholarship to reconsider state building in various regions of the Third World. Analysts of the Third World employ two theoretical elements inferred from Tilly to account for the failures of many Third World states. One is that without continuous international wars (as early modern Europe had), there would be no capable and effective states. The other element is that availability of foreign aid from the global powers so unique to the Cold War Era exempted Third World states from extracting resources from their societies. I call these analyses Tillian theories of the Third World.

Tillian analysts acknowledge that the capable state in Taiwan during the Cold War stood out from its Third World counterparts. However, the Tillian generalization of the Third World does not account for Taiwan's state-building path. Taiwan's experience is situated in a perplexity between the two variables above: On the one hand, Taiwan resembles early modern European state formation with high military expenditures and a huge standing army prepared for war. In the Tillian model, this condition enhances state capacity. On the other hand, Taiwan was a huge US aid recipient in the Cold War, second only to South Korea. In the Tillian model, this degrades the state's effectiveness, contrary to Taiwan's experience. Solving this puzzle will revise Tillian logics of state building. That, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, through literature review and presentation of empirical evidences, I suggest some analytical directions for future research to enhance our understanding of Taiwan's state-building trajectory in particular and of Third World states in general.

In Sweden, responsibility for the public care of the frail elderly rests with three authorities acting at different levels. At national level, the Riksdag and the Government realize policy goals through legislation and financial control measures. At regional level, 18 county councils and two regions are responsible for the provision of health and medical care. At local level, Sweden's 290 municipalities have a statutory duty to meet the social service and housing needs of the elderly. Sweden's municipalities and county council have a high level of autonomy by international standards. Activities in caring services are ultimately controlled by politicians appointed to policy-making assemblies in municipalities and county councils through general elections. The decentralization of responsibility for elderly care makes it possible for local and regional conditions to be taken into account when policies for the elderly are formulated. The national authorities – the National Board of Health and Welfare and the 20 county/region administrative boards – are responsible for supervision, follow-up, and evaluation of municipal and county council caring services.

Singapore, a multiracial nation, where 80% of the population resides in mid- to high-rise public housing estates, provides an interesting milieu to study neighbouring in the context of high-density living. Its geopolitical position and socio-demographic features – such as an ageing demographic, changing family structure, and increasingly diverse population – have rendered social cohesion an integral aspect of national and neighbourhood-level policies, programmes, and institutions. However, these programmes and policies are built on a relatively static national narrative around mutuality, harmony, and community bonding that rarely takes into consideration current social, temporal, and spatial constructions of neighbouring. It is in this light that we re-examine the social construction of ‘neighbours’ and ‘neighbourliness’ in Singapore using a holistic quality of life (QoL) framework to better understand both institutional and lived forms of neighbourliness. A mixed-methods research approach, comprising 243 semi-structured interviews (161 with a Q method component) and a large-scale survey comprising 3,134 participants, was conducted to explore and assess current norms, attitudes, and practices around neighbouring. Our findings show a dominant set of practices around neighbouring that are polite, minimal, and often referred to as ‘hi/bye’. we note two particular perspectives of the relative importance of neighbours in contributing to QoL and consider the effects of hi/bye neighbouring upon an older group of residents for whom neighbours are still important. This deeper understanding around neighbouring in public housing estates also brings relevant insights to related social cohesion policies and programmes.