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Language commonality and barriers are often taken as exogenous given variable and independent of the context; however in this chapter we investigate the factors determining perception of language barriers. As such we are responding to the question of when do managers perceive language barriers and which business contexts foster the perception of language barriers and which do not? Language serves different purposes and entails different communicative requirements depending on the context in which it is used. In addition, language has multiple dimensions and we argue that the different dimensions of language vary in their importance depending on the specific context, where the contextual variation in this case is related to the operation mode chosen in the foreign market. More specifically, we argue that language distance (relatedness in language) matters when the firms conduct business abroad through their own employees, while language incidence (accuracy in language) is critical when operating through a local agent. The different use of language implies a need for different language skills. The combination of the operation mode and the availability of people with the needed language skills will affect managers’ perception of language barriers. The hypotheses are tested on a large data set encompassing 390 multinational corporations headquartered in Finland, South Korea, New Zealand, and Sweden that have undertaken a business operation in a foreign country.

The biggest enlargement of the European Union (EU) took place in May 2004 when 10 new countries (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) joined the union, increasing the number of member states from 15 to 25. Of these newcomers, eight are former Eastern European countries with transition to Western-type market economies. These emerging markets provide increasingly growing investment opportunities and international diversification options for fund managers and individual investors. Well-known features of emerging equity markets are high returns, high volatility, and low correlation with developed markets. Bekaert and Harvey (2002) find that this correlation is on average increasing, particularly for those emerging markets that have liberalised their financial markets. Mateus (2004) finds similar results with EU access countries for recent years. Additional features of emerging markets are sparse data, low liquidity, and large price changes due to political changes or market crashes (e.g. Hwang & Pedersen, 2004).

Purpose and Methodology – Championing a shared vision and strategy for informed learning (INFL) as an approach to information literacy (IL) education (ILE) centers on establishing a common understanding of IL/INFL that is sensitive to the variation in the ways stakeholders perceive their information context and conceptualize IL. Accordingly, the purpose of this chapter is to examine findings from a recent phenomenographic study of conceptions of IL that captures the understanding of IL held across multiple stakeholder groups in an international school community (Cunningham, 2017) and to use these findings to revisit Bruce’s (2008) RACER framework as a compass to champion INFL throughout an organization.

Findings and Originality – The phenomenographic study found that stakeholders did not hold one singular conception of IL but rather they shared a series of conceptions of IL to varying degrees, and that the variation in the ways IL was conceptualized prevailed across three continuums namely the individual-collective, affective-cognitive, and competency–personal mastery continuums. Furthermore, the comparative analysis of the series of conceptions of IL created the opportunity to develop a model of the common ground of conceptual understanding of IL thereby making an original contribution to knowledge. By undertaking a comparative analysis of this common ground model of IL with Bruce’s conceptions of IL/INFL and RACER framework for championing IL, the outcome is to present a new IL “without borders” model offering a blended strategic approach to advancing INFL/ILE based on a more representative understanding of the ways stakeholder groups perceive their information context and conceptualize IL.

I am honored to receive the Booz Allen Hamilton/strategy+business Eminent Scholar Award in International Management. I am even more honored to follow in the footsteps of such distinguished previous recipients of the AOM-IMD (Academy of Management-International Division) Distinguished Scholar Award as: John Child, Christopher Bartlett, Sumantra Ghoshal, John Dunning, and Yves Doz. Like them, I shall reflect here on my past contributions to scholarship, and then use this work as a building block for the major part of this paper, which is on the need for new and relevant theory in the field of international management.

In this chapter I put forward a framework to help us understand the underlying sources of national policy failures regarding intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, the need for international coordination, and how the coordination should be done. I also analyze whether global harmonization of IPR standards is necessary or sufficient for achieving globally welfare-maximizing policies. Then I move on to analyze the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which is a mighty effort to coordinate IPR policies across member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO). I discuss what TRIPS was supposed to do and what it has actually achieved, with reference to my theoretical framework. I explain that it is desirable for IPR to be included in world trade talks and be negotiated along with other trade issues. I offer analyses on the extensions of the basic model by introducing political economy and trade barriers, as well as allowing countries to discriminate against foreign firms. Finally, I comment on further potential extensions such as introduction of foreign direct investment (FDI) or licensing, parallel imports, cumulative innovations, subject matter of protection and costs of implementation. The main thrust of the basic model is that, provided that there is free trade and non-discrimination of foreign firms, there exist positive cross-border externalities as a country strengthens its IPR protection, since it raises the profits of foreign firms and the welfare of foreign consumers without causing any deadweight loss on foreign soil. This implies that national governments tend to provide too little IPR protection compared with the global optimum. The model also implies that a country with higher innovative capability and larger domestic market would provide stronger IPR. Thus, it is natural for the South to protect IPR less than the North in the absence of international coordination. These basic results largely continue to hold under various extensions.

This study explores the interrelationship between regulatory risks and strategic controls within the financial supervision architecture of an emergent global financial centre of China that embraces innovation as part of its strategic objectives.

This paper employs a longitudinal case study approach to examine the institutional dynamics of the key financial regulators in connection with the regulated financial institutions in Hong Kong before and after the financial tsunami of 2008.

First, this study reveals an organic development of a specialised financial regulatory architecture that resists transforming itself structurally despite the significant impact of externalities. Second, in this post-financial crisis analysis, regulated financial institutions swiftly respond by strengthening their risk controls through compliance with the guidelines imposed by the regulator. Institutional dynamics in influencing the implementation of risk controls through a top-down interactive mechanism are observed. Such dynamic and pertinent rapid responses induce the pursuit of optimal risk management within a regulatory framework.

This paper provides a longitudinal case study to reveal regulatory risks and strategic controls of the global financial centre of China. It unveils mitigating risk control measures in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The study demonstrates how regulatory institutions strive to take precautionary, coercive measures such that the regulated institutions mimic and implement prudent mechanisms.