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1 – 10 of over 195000Huong Le and Jade McKay
The purpose of this paper is to examine the voice of Chinese and Vietnamese international students through studying the similarities and differences in their learning experiences…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the voice of Chinese and Vietnamese international students through studying the similarities and differences in their learning experiences and the reasons underlying their experience.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 57 Chinese and Vietnamese international students participated in focus groups and interviews regarding their experiences of higher education and their suggestions for improvement.
Findings
The findings show that Chinese and Vietnamese students had varying levels of challenges and different progress in the adaptation process and that Chinese students were more vocal and less satisfied with their experience of higher education than Vietnamese students. This is due to the mismatch in their expectation and the actual experience and the cultural influence.
Research limitations/implications
The sample size is relatively small. This study only looked at Vietnamese and Chinese students in one university, which might have limitations in relation to subjectivity and bias.
Practical implications
The findings provide useful implications for educators, institutional leaders and support staff to improve facilities, teaching quality and service to students.
Originality/value
In the current era of internationalisation, commercialisation and mobility in institutions around the world, this study advances current research and provides timely insight into the experiential differences of the Chinese and Vietnamese student experience and their voice.
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Akbar Azam, Fabiola Bertolotti, Cristina Boari and Mian Muhammad Atif
The purpose of this paper is to test whether Top Management Team (TMT) international experience is positively associated to international information acquisition from managerial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test whether Top Management Team (TMT) international experience is positively associated to international information acquisition from managerial international contacts and whether international information partially mediates the positive relationship between TMT international experience and international strategic decision rationality.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through a survey of small- and medium-sized of international Pakistani software firms.
Findings
This study reports that TMT international experience-international strategic decision rationality relationship to international information acquisition and that this information acquisition partially mediates the TMT international experience, i.e. international strategic decision rationality relationship.
Practical implications
When selecting the members of their TMT, international firms should pay careful attention to their international experience.
Originality/value
Previous research demonstrates that TMT international experience has a positive effect on international strategic decision rationality and that this effect is transferred to performance. This study shows that the positive effect of TMT international experience is derived from the personal international knowledge and the international information collected from managers’ international contacts. This ability to make rational international strategic decisions could have a positive effect on decision-making and firm performance.
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Cosmin Ionut Nada and Helena Costa Araújo
The aim of this paper is to explore qualitatively and holistically the experience of international students in the context of Portuguese higher education. This paper interrogates…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to explore qualitatively and holistically the experience of international students in the context of Portuguese higher education. This paper interrogates the potential that an experience abroad provides for multicultural learning and for enhancing interaction between students with different cultural backgrounds.
Design/methodology/approach
To provide depth to the understanding of their experiences abroad, the narratives of 12 international students in Portugal were constructed and analysed interpretatively. The findings presented in this paper result from a solid set of data based on 41 interviews with an average duration of two hours each.
Findings
Regarding students’ levels of multicultural contact, the findings presented in this paper are not consistent with previous research literature which indicates a tendency for segregation among international and local students. Aside from one exception, all the interviewed students were rather comfortable to interact with their local peers and even established meaningful friendships with them. Concerning students’ learning throughout the sojourn, the findings indicate that the experience of living in a different country provides numerous opportunities for multicultural learning.
Research limitations/implications
Even though the findings suggest that multicultural learning is part of international students’ lives, it is beyond the scope of this paper to identify institutional strategies to further support students’ learning.
Originality/value
The study adds to knowledge production in the field of multicultural education by bringing data from Portugal, a country seldom approached in the research literature.
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Mário Henrique Ogasavara, Dirk Michael Boehe and Luciano Barin Cruz
Based on integrating learning, resource-based and social network theories, the purpose of this paper is to shed fresh light on the association between export experience and export…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on integrating learning, resource-based and social network theories, the purpose of this paper is to shed fresh light on the association between export experience and export performance by seeking to better understand the links between them, and assessing the boundary conditions, moderators, mediators, and non-linear relationships in greater depth.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper mobilizes a quantitative research design using a survey of Brazil-based exporters. The authors test the hypotheses proposed in this study by employing moderated mediation regression models.
Findings
The authors find support for a J-shape relationship between export experience and export market performance. In particular, the authors find that innovation and international marketing resources mediate the effect of export experience on export market performance, and the authors unveil that this mediation effect is contingent on the strength of international business network ties.
Originality/value
This study advances the export marketing literature by explaining how export experience drives export success in two ways: first, by clarifying the ambiguity in extant theoretical explanations and previous empirical findings regarding the shape of the relationship between export experience and export performance. Second, this study reconciles the disagreement as to whether superior export performance results from exporters’ existing resources or from their learning by exporting. Thus, the paper is valuable for scholars and export managers or policymakers alike by providing recommendations on how less experienced firms can overcome the initial period of weak export performance.
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Peng-Yu Li and Fang-Yi Lo
The purpose of this paper is to incorporate the resource-based perspective with upper echelon theory to examine the effect of top management teams’ (TMTs) managerial resources on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to incorporate the resource-based perspective with upper echelon theory to examine the effect of top management teams’ (TMTs) managerial resources on international diversification.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors sampled 360 listed companies in the USA that operated in the information technology industry in 2009, the year after the financial crisis.
Findings
The findings show that TMTs’ tenure has a negative impact on international diversification but international experience exerts a positive impact on international diversification. Furthermore, TMTs’ educational background diversity and international experience contribute to a reduction in the negative effect of tenure on international diversification.
Originality/value
Prior studies have investigated the role of TMT in international diversification, but they pay less attention to the interactive effect of the variety of managerial resources on international diversification. In particular, the authors examined the effect of a variety of management resources on the level of international diversification under the uncertain environment.
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Jie Hao, Zhenzhen Xie and Kunpeng Sun
The purpose of this study is to examine if the international experience of a family firm’s chairman, second-generation managers and other top managers all have impacts of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine if the international experience of a family firm’s chairman, second-generation managers and other top managers all have impacts of different strengths using information about Chinese family firms’ international expansion.
Design/methodology/approach
Matching tactics and dynamic Heckman 2-stage analysis were applied to data on 766 publicly-listed Chinese family businesses covering 2008–2014.
Findings
The international experience of the chairman, second-generation family managers and other senior managers all were found to correlate with the proportion of a firm’s revenue earned abroad, as well as with the number of its cross-border mergers and acquisitions. The impact of a chairman’s international experience is stronger than the impact of the other two groups when internationalization is measured in terms of the proportion of revenue earned overseas. The second-generation managers’ international experience is the most influential when internationalization is measured in terms of the number of cross-border mergers and acquisitions.
Originality/value
This paper bridges agency theory with upper echelons theory in the context of the family business. The findings contribute to the scholarly understanding of family business by illuminating the mechanisms through which second-generation managers may influence family firms’ internationalization. They also enrich the knowledge of family firms in China.
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Chih-Wei Peng and She-Chih Chiu
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of chief executive officer (CEO) international work experience, functional background and career concerns on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of chief executive officer (CEO) international work experience, functional background and career concerns on managerially-distorted investment decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper focuses on S&P 500 publicly held US manufacturing companies during the period from 2009 to 2012. The data related to the CEOs’ international experience and their functional background experience are manually collected from Business Week’s Corporate Elite. Financial data is retrieved from COMPUSTAT database. The data for CEO tenure and age are retrieved from the ExecuComp database. Besides ordinary least squares regression, this paper conducts two-stage least squares regression analysis. Endogeneity and additional tests are also considered in this paper.
Findings
The findings show that CEO international work experience may not reduce under-investment, but it may exacerbate over-investment. CEO throughput functional background may exacerbate under-investment, but it may not reduce over-investment. Furthermore, CEO career concerns are useful in reducing the inefficient investments caused by international work experience and throughput functional background. These results remain similar when potential self-selection bias, as well as alternative measures of career concerns and investment efficiency, are considered.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the existing literature in the following ways: first, while a significant amount of attention has been paid to how investment decisions are affected by financial reporting quality and material internal control weaknesses, there has been little evidence accumulated related to how managers’ international experience, professional background and career concerns affect investment inefficiency. The authors attempt to fill this gap. Second, the authors manually collect the international experience and functional backgrounds of CEOs working for S&P 500 US manufacturing companies. This unique data set makes it possible to complement previous studies by investigating the effects of managerial international experience and functional background on investment behavior. Finally, previous theoretical studies have long recognized that managers’ career concerns affect their corporate investment decisions. These studies suggest that young CEOs have a greater incentive to signal their abilities by adopting more active and possibly riskier investment strategies, thus raising the moral hazard problem with regard to firm investments. The authors enrich these studies by showing that work experience alleviates the moral hazard problem with respect to young CEOs’ investment decisions.
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Chipoong Kim, Chul Chung and Chris Brewster
The literature on international staffing in multinational enterprises (MNEs) often focuses on staffing choices based on nationality categories (e.g. parent-country nationals…
Abstract
Purpose
The literature on international staffing in multinational enterprises (MNEs) often focuses on staffing choices based on nationality categories (e.g. parent-country nationals, host-country nationals, third-country nationals) for key positions in subsidiaries when examining their impacts on subsidiary outcomes. Considering both nationality and international experience, the purpose of this paper is to suggest an integrative typology to identify and classify various types of traditional and alternative subsidiary staffing options and evaluate them in relation to social capital and knowledge flows across MNE organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a social capital view of MNEs, the authors propose a typology of subsidiary staffing options founded on the dimensions of nationality and the location of prior international experience of incumbents of key positions. Then traditional as well as alternative staffing options from the literature are identified and evaluated corresponding to each type of staffing option in the framework.
Findings
The typology identifies nine types of subsidiary staffing options. It includes and classifies the traditional and alternative staffing options, while highlighting types which need further research. The study also suggests impacts of the traditional and alternative staffing type on social capital and knowledge flows in MNEs.
Originality/value
The new typology identifies various types of subsidiary staffing options comprehensively and evaluates them systematically. HRM specialists can classify subsidiary managers based on the typology and examine which staffing option would be desirable given a specific subsidiary context. The research also provides novel insights on what needs to be considered to select and develop subsidiary managers who can build internal and external social capital in MNEs.
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Ibraiz Tarique and Ellen Weisbord
The “adult third culture kid” (ATCK) is an individual who has spent significant periods of childhood living outside his or her parents’ culture(s). Research is needed to identify…
Abstract
Purpose
The “adult third culture kid” (ATCK) is an individual who has spent significant periods of childhood living outside his or her parents’ culture(s). Research is needed to identify specific experiential variables responsible for the development of components of cross-cultural competencies (CC) in ATCKs. The goal of this study is to gain insight into these relationships and provide a foundation for continuing investigation by examining how early international experience and personality variables impact CC in ATCKs. Specifically, the study examines how four components of early international experience and two characteristics of stable CC impact three dynamic characteristics of CC.
Design/methodology/approach
Study participants (159) had spent their childhood years living in one or more foreign countries. In all, 54 percent of the sample was women, and the average age was 22 (SD=1.52). None of the subjects had any international work experience, allowing us to look at the impact of non-work experience without the confounding effect found in other research of this type. Data were collected at the beginning and end of a three-week period.
Findings
There are five important predictors of CC in ATCKs: variety of early international experience (number of different countries lived in), language diversity (the number of languages they speak), family diversity (the number of different ethnicities in their family's background), and the personality trait of openness to experience.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizability of study findings is limited by the nature and size of the sample. In addition, the single source sample of this study is also a limitation, as single source samples are subject to common method bias. We reduced this potential bias by using a time lag (Podsakoff et al., 2003) to create a temporal separation between the measurement of the predictors and the dependent variables, a procedural remedy suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2003).
Practical implications
The practical uses for the findings of this study by human resource management (HRM) professionals are in the areas of hiring and assignment of expatriate managers. Study findings provide HRM professionals with an initial set of criteria to assist in the process of identification and training of expatriate managers. Global organizations have traditionally used training to increase the pool of effective global managers. This study provides initial evidence that identification of individuals with early international experiences should prove a useful addition to the process of selecting candidates for foreign assignment.
Social implications
The practical uses for the findings of this study by HRM professionals are in the areas of hiring and assignment of expatriate managers. Study findings provide HRM professionals with an initial set of criteria to assist in the process of identification and training of expatriate managers. Global organizations have traditionally used training to increase the pool of effective global managers. This study provides initial evidence that identification of individuals with early international experiences should prove a useful addition to the process of selecting candidates for foreign assignment.
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge this is one of the first studies to empirically examine ATCKs and provides a starting point for future researchers in this area. Obtaining a sample of ATCKs is extremely challenging.
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Charmaine Glavas, Shane Mathews and Rebekah Russell-Bennett
Technology has profoundly transformed the international business environment, particularly regarding the flow of information and the way in which knowledge is acquired and shared…
Abstract
Purpose
Technology has profoundly transformed the international business environment, particularly regarding the flow of information and the way in which knowledge is acquired and shared. Yet, the extent of this transformation is still underappreciated. The purpose of this paper is to examine how small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner/founders acquire and utilize knowledge for internationalization via internet-enabled platforms.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis draws on multiple case study methodology to examine 13 Australian SME owner/founders and the knowledge they acquire from utilization of internet-enabled platforms.
Findings
The analysis reveals four differing types of internet-enabled experiences: “technical internet-enabled experiences,” “operational internet-enabled experiences,” “functional internet-enabled experiences,” and “immersive internet-enabled experiences.” The findings indicate that internet-enabled experiences can generate both explicit and tacit forms of knowledge for the pre, early and later phases of internationalization.
Practical implications
The findings provide a structured approach by allowing SMEs to “plot” themselves against the classification of internet-enabled experiences to denote their level of technological involvement, and for discerning the types of knowledge that can be acquired. The findings are particularly helpful for owner/founders, highlighting that internet-enabled platforms are affecting the ways in which knowledge can be acquired and applied to international businesses processes.
Originality/value
The findings extend the conventional notion of knowledge acquisition for international business by highlighting how information and knowledge can be acquired via internet-enabled platforms. The findings lay the necessary groundwork for building an evidence base and theoretically extending the concept of knowledge acquisition via internet-enabled platforms.
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