Search results

This paper examines the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) international experience (IE) and firm performance. The authors also examine the symmetry of this relationship, whereby home and host countries would be interchangeable without any significant change in the impact of each cultural dimension on firm performance.

For a sample of CEOs from Fortune's list of Global 500 companies, firm performance was measured as average net margin for the first four years of CEO tenure. IE was the difference between home country culture and that where CEO experience was gained, based on the GLOBE cultural dimensions. Regression then tested the IE/firm performance relationship. For symmetry, distance direction was coded as either positive or negative, depending on whether home country score on a given dimension was higher or lower than that of the host. Moderator regression then tested for whether distance direction impacted the relationship between IE and firm performance.

Results show that overall distance between home and host cultures in aggregate does not have a significant effect on firm performance. However, for specific dimensions, greater distances between the CEO's countries of experience and that of the parent company on in-group collectiveness and performance orientation are associated with higher firm performance, and greater distances on power distance and assertiveness are associated with lower performance. The authors further find asymmetric patterns in the IE–performance relationship, attributable primarily to the fact that, when scores on performance orientation are greater for the home than host country, organizational performance is significantly enhanced.

This study's hypotheses are grounded in theory, combining the human capital perspective with cultural paradox theory. In addition, the authors offer a unique approach for measuring the dimensional distance of culture.

This study explores the role of expatriate satisfaction in organizational performance. It also posits that international transfer of knowledge and corporate learning are determinants in the overall satisfaction of expatriate managers. Moreover, as organizations gain international experience, their expatriate managers contribute to the global learning of the firm. This corporate learning provides the tools (e.g. foreign market experience and know‐how) for future expatriate managers and increases the likelihood of positive overseas experiences. Results from 132 expatriates of Fortune 500 firms indicate that satisfaction is significantly related to the performance of the organization as a whole and, further, that this relationship will vary depending on the international orientation of the organization.

This paper aims to assess the relationship between expatriate personality and effectiveness on overseas assignments.

Survey data were collected from 118 expatriates who were currently on assignments overseas or had been on an assignment in the past.

Results of multiple regression analysis show expatriate personality traits to be significant predictors of two of the effectiveness measured used. Extraversion, emotional stability, and openness have a significant, positive impact on expatriate adjustment, and agreeableness is significant and positively associate with expatriate job performance.

Organizations may be well‐served to consider expatriate personality as an important criterion for selection for overseas assignments, as successful assignments reflect on the organization in a number of ways and thus contribute to the company's global competitiveness.

Extant research on the connection between expatriate personality and effectiveness has been limited, relies on expatriate or supervisor perceptions of which traits they believe are important to success, and has been inconsistent in measuring the effectiveness construct. This paper directly assesses personality and employs multiple dimensions of effectiveness, thus contributing to the understanding of this relationship.

This study is based on the premise that, as organizations gain experience in the international marketplace, the determinants of job satisfaction for expatriate managers will vary. It is hypothesized that significant learning, manifested in firm international experience, will moderate the effects of work/life experience, mentorship, training and environmental benevolence. Findings partially support this theoretical argument and confirm the expectation that the impact of mentoring on satisfaction will lessen over the course of firm internationalization. Further, the impact of training on expatriate satisfaction was more pronounced for highly internationalized firms than for those with limited exposure abroad. Results of the empirical tests are provided, and their implications are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between cultural distance and cross‐cultural adjustment. The authors address four hypotheses regarding this relationship: the Cultural Distance Hypothesis; the Cultural Distance Paradox; the Null Hypothesis; and the Asymmetry Hypothesis, in an effort to reconcile the disparities found in the literature. Specifically, portions of the extant literature support a positive relationship, while others support the opposite. There is also some evidence that this relationship may vary depending on the direction of expatriate transfer. Finally, some of the research has failed to support any significant relationship between cultural distance and adjustment.

Survey data were collected from 125 expatriates (117 expatriates and eight repatriates), representing 36 nationalities and on assignment in 32 different countries. Multiple regression analyses were used to regress cultural distance on both general and work‐related adjustment. Cultural distance was first operationalized as a composite of the scores on Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Subsequently, distances for each of the dimensions were entered into the regression models.

The authors concur with the Cultural Distance Paradox that greater differences in individualism between home and host cultures facilitates work adjustment. Findings also support the Asymmetry Hypothesis that travel from individualistic societies to more collectivist ones results in greater adjustment than does travel in the opposite direction.

Based on the Cultural Distance Paradox, firms may be well‐advised to direct their expatriate training efforts toward those assignments where the home and host cultures are presumably similar, as there may be a tendency to take adjustment for granted and therefore forgo cross‐cultural training. Similar efforts should be made to ease transfers to locations where the culture is more individualistic than that of the parent country.

Rather than fixate on one set of findings from the literature, this study considers all four of the possible relationships between cultural distance and adjustment, as found or suggested in previous research. This comprehensive approach should advance our understanding of cultural distance as a complex construct, with a role that cannot be consistently defined across all situations. This represents a departure from the need to assign static roles to variables that may be dynamic in nature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the demise of Enron, one of the most curious aspects of which was that on the surface it appeared to be thriving, giving no one any cause to question the company's governance structures.

The paper provides a detailed analysis of the composition of Enron's board of directors, demonstrating how directly observable traits are not the sole determinants of effective corporate governance.

The paper finds that collectively, the board's qualifications are less overt, and even more elusive are the ethics and morals that drive the governance process.

This case illustrates how ethics and morals are necessary, but that none is sufficient, to deter poor governance, and also underscores the far‐reaching impact of Enron's moral deficiencies.

Academics, politicians and the media have debated the merits of the Anti‐Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) for over a decade. Much of this discussion has been associated with negative connotations and there are currently government proposals to abolish the order in favour of a Crime Prevention Injunction (CPI). This study seeks to provide a practitioner perspective to further inform this debate.

Using qualitative analysis, the research examines 36 ASBOs administered within a policing division in the North West of England. It supplements these findings with qualitative data that harvest the views of practitioners involved in the application and enforcement of these orders.

The study shows that practitioners view the ASBO as an effective tool in managing and reducing antisocial behaviour. In doing so it questions the interpretation of other research findings and provides timely and relevant information that should be considered prior to the implementation of any change to current practice.

The data relate to one Police Division in the North West of England and caution must be acknowledged when considering how representative they are across the rest of the UK.

A practitioner perspective has been lacking from the debate concerning the ASBO. These data provide a fresh perception on its use and benefits.

This study aims to recognize the growing importance of Open Innovation (OI) theory and practice in the broader fields of Management and Information Systems, and focuse on the relationship existing between OI and a firm’s Business Strategy. Hence, the study aims at investigating the multifaceted OI – Strategy nexus at a business level, assessing how OI initiatives influence Strategy within the Mobile Telecommunications Industry and thus contributing to framing and classifying such inherent relationship.

A data-driven research approach is used, based on 45 qualitative interviews on firms operating in the Mobile Industry and involved in OI initiatives.

Six cross-themes the OI–Strategy relationship in the Mobile Industry revolves around are identified, i.e. OI and Competitive Advantage; OI and Strategic Positioning; OI and Business Models; OI in Networks; OI and Co-opetition; and OI and Resilient Business Advantages. For each theme, examples from the sample of interviewed Mobile firms are organized and reported. The key managerial issues emerging in the attempt to relate OI initiatives and the firm’s overarching Strategy are also underscored and organized in three streams, namely, designing an open business model; achieving competitive advantage through value capture; and nurturing OI as a dynamic capability.

The proposed reorganization of real-world OI and strategic initiatives in the Mobile Industry, together with the underscoring of key managerial issues, constitutes a comprehensive research agenda or roadmap, with value for both academics and practitioners.