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As US business organizations continue to use more expatriates in international locations, the reasons for high failure rates of these assignments need to be examined. Selection and training may be the key inadequacies. Intercultural anxiety plays an important role in productive expatriate assignments. By determining personnel with lower intercultural anxiety levels, successful assignment completions should increase. Examines attributional complexity, stereotyping, ethnocentrism and acquaintance with host‐country nationals to determine the relationship of these variables to reduced intercultural anxiety. A group considering assignments to Japan, consisting of business and education executives and their families, were surveyed before and after an intensive study visit. Findings indicate that stereotyping and ethnocentrism have a negative association with decreased intercultural anxiety. Attributional complexity and acquaintances have a positive effect on reduced anxiety levels. Suggestions for organizations making expatriate selection decisions include screening potential candidates for these traits. Also provides areas for further research.

Entrepreneurship; tourism and hospitality.

Junior or senior-level business students as well as graduate-level (MBA and/or EMBA) classes in entrepreneurship, small business management, strategic management, international business or international economics.

Cuban tour guides working for the communist Castro Government dream of working for themselves or leaving for the USA. Their story is contrasted by a visit to Cuba as told by a US business professor.

To compare entrepreneurship under capitalism that is slowly relaxing their communistic rules, to learn more about the island of Cuba and its potential for tourism and new venture creation, to understand the legal, social, political, historical and cultural barriers to entrepreneurship, to hypothesize or brainstorm potential new ventures for Cuba.

Teaching notes; photos also available upon request from the author.

Starts from the premiss that quality and productivity are important tools for organizations to use to achieve competitive advantage. Takes a strategic perspective from which to examine why productivity is important to the economy and to look at quality as an integral part of productivity improvement. Considers the forces which support productivity and quality as strategic weapons, including key organizational initiatives and processes. Presents tables which compare the past, present and future states of quality, productivity and manufacturing strategies. Concludes with a presentation of ways in which to implement and measure the success of productivity and quality strategies.

This study examines how entrepreneurial marketing dimensions (proactiveness, opportunity focused, leveraging, innovativeness, risk taking, value creation, and customer intensity) are related to qualitative and quantitative outcome measures for the SME and the entrepreneur (including company success, customer success, financial success, satisfaction with return goals, satisfaction with growth goals, excellence, and the entrepreneurʼs standard of living). Using factor analysis, three success outcome variables (financial, customer, and strong company success) emerged together. A separate factor analysis identified satisfactory growth and return goals. Stepwise regression revealed entrepreneurial marketing impacts outcome variables, particularly value creation. Implications for entrepreneurs and areas for research are included.

Venezuela ranks fifth in the world in oil proven reserves and has the largest accumulation of liquid fuel in the world. With its importance as an oil country, many countries including the U.S. have expressed concerns about Venezuela’s current economic and political situation. Using the popular SWOT analysis, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats facing the country, are identified. The discussion and conclusions summarize the observations and address the relative tradeoffs within the country. Finally goals and policies appropriate for Venezuelan reform are presented.

In an attempt to understand student attitudes better towards P/OM (production and operations management) classes and P/OM careers, a pre‐and post‐class survey was administered to students enrolled in a required MBA‐level P/OM class. Findings indicate that students do not fully understand P/OM issues or how the P/OM functional area relates strategically to other organisational areas. Students had almost no interest in P/OM careers, and before participating in the strategically‐focused class, students had little desire to include a P/OM class in their core MBA course requirements. Results of this study may explain general attitudes towards P/OM as well as the declining number of students choosing P/OM as a major. Suggestions for changing these attitudes are discussed.

Measures the effects of experiences of undergraduate business students completing the Summer Study Abroad programme. Information was gathered through structured questionnaires and informal interviews. Responses were grouped into four areas: cognitive changes; cultural awareness; personal growth; and changes in subsequent behaviour. Results indicate that the international study programme has an extensive and lasting effect on participants, leading to greater cultural awareness, personal growth and an interest in worldwide affairs.

Mergers in higher education seem to be more common as academic institutions work to control costs and avoid program duplications in challenging economic times and adopt the more common cost saving measures often espoused from business mergers. The purpose of this paper is to highlight successes from a complementarity-based merger of two institutions in the University System of Georgia (USG) and present results over time.

A case study methodology was employed to explain why a particular merger resulted in greater growth compared to other system-wide academic mergers. This research focuses on a single merger of two institutions in Georgia, one of seven such mergers in the USG institutions to date, involving Gainesville State College and North Georgia College and State University to become the University of North Georgia. Observations are made and complimented by secondary data to rank growth among the seven USG consolidations.

The case findings highlight the success from the complementarity of these institutions. While the two were unique institutions, the success of the merger was linked to the underlying complementarity issues.

Using the strategic issues inherent in mergers from the business literature, the merger of the two institutions is profiled and discussion and recommendations are provided along with areas for future research.

To achieve their business objectives, many companies are exploring varying degrees of virtuality or remote working (away from the office location), facilitated by technology. Managers have to decide when, where, and for whom such virtuality is appropriate to ensure that rewards are maximized for the staff and for the organization. This paper explores the challenges for managers in establishing virtual offices or teams. It suggests that successful virtual offices require more than just technology. They require radical new approaches to evaluating, educating, organizing and informing workers. The real challenge in maximizing the virtual experience lies in designing the organization structure and processes to achieve agreed goals.

Research has shown that the most important management training and development concerns from 1983 to 1986 were: (1) interpersonal skills, (2) communication skills, and (3) managing human performance. Furthermore, these same concerns were projected, in 1986, to be the most important development topics for the next three to five years (Bolt, 1986). Given that business is undergoing fundamental technical changes, one might think that these people‐related issues may not be as important as technical development concerns in the future.