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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of IJV performance expectations for a sample of international joint ventures with parent firms from Europe, North America and Australia. A conceptual framework is proposed which identifies the determinants of IJV performance as the dominant control of the IJV by one parent firm, the level of autonomy granted to the IJV management, the level of trust between the partner firms, the effect of differences in the national cultures of IJV partners and the differences in the organizational cultures of IJV partners.

The study adopts a self‐administered questionnaire approach to examine the determinants of performance in the sample firms. The starting point for obtaining a sample of parent firms was the OSIRIS database. Paper copies of the questionnaires were posted to potential respondents. This was followed by an e‐mail to the same potential respondents with the questionnaires attached. In total, 109 usable questionnaires were obtained from respondent companies – 22 questionnaires were returned from the postal survey and 87 questionnaires were returned from the follow‐up e‐mail.

Predicted positive relationships between performance expectations and dominant control of the IJV, autonomy granted to the IJV management, and trust between the partner firms are supported by the data. The predicted negative relationship between performance expectations and national culture differences was not supported, however, the expected negative relationship between performance expectations and corporate culture differences was partially supported.

This study adds to the international business literature on IJVs and provides new empirical evidence in the context of Europe, North America and Australia.

We investigate auditor objectivity as it relates to engagement quality reviews by examining whether engagement quality reviewers (EQRs) exhibit lower levels of objectivity when they have administrative, economic, or social ties with the audit engagement partner. Motivated reasoning theory suggests that EQRs with ties to the engagement partner will reach less conservative conclusions and be more willing to accept an engagement partner's decision relative to reviewers who have no connections with the engagement partner. We conduct an experiment where EQRs must review a decision by an engagement partner related to a contingent liability.

Results suggest that engagement quality reviews are an effective mechanism for reducing the effects of engagement partner biases to accept client-favored accounting choices. Participants with ties to the engagement partner (i.e., from the same office) and without ties (i.e., from the national office) both challenged the decision of the engagement partner and recommended disclosure of a contingent liability, which client management opposed. We also find an interaction of ties with the engagement partner and the probability of the contingent liability. National office EQRs were less likely to decide that disclosure was necessary than were local office partners when the probability of the contingent liability was low. With regard to the need to recognize a liability, EQRs with and without ties to the engagement partner concurred with the decision of the engagement partner.

The link between openness and innovative performance has been established as an inverted U-shape relationship, namely, the openness-performance connection is not always positive. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of partner heterogeneity to characterize the influence of “quality” changes in partners on innovative performance, that is, the focus of this paper. Given that partner heterogeneity is crucial in explaining open innovative performance, it is also worth placing the examination of this key construct in emerging regions such as China.

The sample selection of this study covers a wide range of industries, but requires that the sample firms be manufacturing enterprises with an open innovation strategy. With opportunities and challenges associated with partner collaboration toward open innovation, the Chinese province of Zhejiang has established its reputation. Thus, empirical data were collected randomly from data pool of Zhejiang Province Economic and Information Commission, as well as a survey questionnaire. Data were using a cross-sectional survey methodology encompassing diverse organizations, industries, and nations.

Empirical testing of this assumption in a sample of 217 manufacturing firms indicates that partner heterogeneities, which are classified as organizational heterogeneity, industry heterogeneity, and national heterogeneity are all positively associated with innovative performance, but the strength of this association is influenced by environmental turbulence. Technological turbulence significantly and positively modulates the relationships of organizational and national heterogeneities with innovative performance. Market turbulence also plays a significant positive role on the relationship between national heterogeneity and innovative performance, while technological and market turbulence roles on the relationship between industry heterogeneity and innovative performance are not confirmed.

This paper refines the connotative dimensions of partner heterogeneity around the core concept of partner heterogeneity in open innovation in the context of emerging region, China. The study presents a systematic, in-depth analysis, and verifies the impact mechanisms of partner heterogeneity in open innovation on innovative performance by integrating the resource-based view, organizational learning theory, and transaction cost theory.

In this paper, the authors investigate whether the location of interorganizational partners affects the outcomes of process innovation. Herein, the term partner location refers to multiple degrees of proximity or distance, including in the same national province or state, in other national provinces or states, in the same country and in foreign countries. The purpose of this paper is to show that partner location, whether domestic or foreign, depends on which partner an organization needs in order to advance its process innovation.

To test the hypotheses, the authors employed a panel data regression model to analyze data from 28 Brazilian business sectors from 2003 to 2014, all collected for PINTEC: The Brazilian Survey of Technological Innovation, representing a total of 107,854 companies.

The results show that cooperation is significant with both national and foreign partners, even though they bear different effects on the various degrees of innovativeness related to process innovation.

For managerial practice, the results corroborate that the choice of partners has to be strategic and take their location into account. In particular, practices at the domestic level with suppliers and vocational training centers are relevant to increasing innovation at the micro level. At the same time, for higher levels of innovation, managers should prioritize, within the limitations of existing resources, cooperation with universities, competitors and suppliers from abroad, especially in developed countries.

The main academic contribution of the study is the highlighting partner location (i.e. proximate or distant) as relevant to results of process innovation. Nevertheless, the authors determined that this process is heterogeneous, given the function of each partner and taking the different degrees of innovativeness into account.

Reports on the role of UK emigrants to the USA in the creation and early development of its public accountancy profession. Explains findings in the context of US public accountancy firms founded by UK immigrants and focuses on the recruitment of qualified and unqualified public accountants from the UK. The study is based on searches of relevant archives in the UK and USA. The evidence reveals UK immigrants played a substantial part in the formation and early development of both public accountancy firms and institutions in the USA. However, the recruitment of immigrants by US firms appears to have been a temporary phenomenon pending the supply of US‐born accountants with suitable training and experience. The firms examined include local and national firms. Subject to data retrieval limitations, a major conclusion of the study is that unqualified immigrants played significant roles in the early histories of firms and institutions of US public accountancy.

To build awareness of an emergent global network of sustainability consortia, the network's Sustainability for the Americas (SFTA) regional cluster, its pilot US‐Brazil Sustainability Consortium (USBSC), its subsequent North American Sustainability, Housing and Community Consortium (NASHCC), the process through which these consortia are emerging and evolving to sustained implementation, planned parallel academic and project funding tracks, and models, tools and techniques used for knowledge transfer. To build awareness of an emergent global sustainability network of multi‐national consortia of universities and non‐institutional partners created to promote sustainability and innovation that connects people, ideas, and resources for a sustainable future; and to invite people interested in multi‐national partnering to enter into a dialogue that can lead to emergence of a multi‐national consortium.

The paper establishes the need for key universities to lead society to a sustainable future. It builds understanding of the role of international partnering, global networking, global media networking, multi‐sector partnering, and sustainability consortia in this leadership. It identifies efforts of the Land Design Institute (LDI) at Ball State University and key partners to facilitate emergence of a global network of sustainability consortia. It reviews the model through which these consortia are emerging and evolving to sustained implementation, including the model's parallel academic and project funding streams. It focuses on the SFTA initiative, including its pilot consortium, as a case‐study in phased emergence and evolution to sustained implementation of these consortia. It presents the consortia model for integrating internal and external knowledge networks; and processes, tools, and techniques used by consortia to lead society to a sustainable future. It reviews the model's nested curricula and international collaborative partnership approach to building sustainability leadership. It builds on experiences to date in this pilot consortium to make suggestions for future consortia.

Paper findings include the relative ease of consortium emergence, seeding, implementation start‐up, and acquiring academic funding; relative difficulty of achieving sustained implementation and project funding; increased awareness of the need for project seeding; and a new understanding of the catalytic benefits of consortia, including increased faculty interaction, development, and productivity including professional papers, journal articles, and proposals for external funding.

The paper fulfills the need for effective models, processes, tools and techniques for international partnering to lead society to a sustainable future.

Research within the inter-organizational field has until recently focused on the formation and maintenance of business relationships, while less research has been directed toward the study of relationship ending. Lately, however, research on dissolution and related constructs, such as exit intention and switching has emerged (Halinen, Havila, & Tähtinen, 1999a; Prim-Allaz, 2000; Tähtinen & Havila, 2004; Vaaland, Haugland, & Purchase, 2004). Some literature focuses on the reasons and antecedents to relationship dissolution (Ping, 1999; Haugland, 1999; Wathne, Biong, & Heide, 2000), while other research investigates the process and consequences of relationship dissolution (Grønhaug, Henjesand, & Koveland, 1999; Giller & Matear, 2001; Alajoutsijärvi, Möller, & Tähtinen, 2000). Yet, few studies have investigated relationship dissolution in cross -national dyads. Specifically, the current research examines how supplier reps’ cultural knowledge, cultural adaptation and communication affect buyer tolerance of conflict in cross-national business relationships. The construct tolerance of conflict refers to the intention to discontinue the business relationship with the current partner given conflict situations. This construct is therefore conceptually close to exit intention; a construct frequently used in relationship dissolution studies (e.g. Ping, 1993,1995; Halinen & Tähtinen, 1999b).

This study explores how social partners contribute to the successful return to work (RTW) of individuals affected by chronic diseases, employing the framework of actor-centred institutionalism.

This paper adopts a comparative case study methodology to assess the role of social partners in the workplace (re-)integration of people with chronic disease in Belgium and Italy, both of which represent well-developed industrial relations systems yet having different institutional and policy frameworks on RTW.

Institutional factors are found to affect the type and degree of social partners' commitment and contribution to RTW. Differences in their commitment can be explained by their varied degrees of integration in public policy formation, which explain their different preferred stages of interactions in this field: national tripartite social dialogue for Belgium; and sectoral collective bargaining for Italy. Unsatisfactory outcomes of social partners’ contribution in facilitating RTW processes are attributed to the fragmentation of the legal framework and uneven development of collective bargaining in Italy. In Belgium, the authors find the presence of cumbersome RTW procedures downplaying the role of the worker representative.

This paper adds empirical evidence to the limited literature on the role of social partners in facilitating RTW and sheds light on how to improve the current policy context. It suggests involving the social partners in the development of a comprehensive public policy framework, which should allow for an early, flexible and multi-stakeholder (re-)integration procedure following chronic disease.

The family and specifically, the partners of expatriates are unfortunately the major cause of expatriate maladjustment. Drawing from and extending the concept of relational demography, the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the nationality of expatriates’ partners, conceptualized as host, home or third country nationality, on expatriates’ cross-cultural adjustment.

Survey data from 299 expatriate academics in China, Japan and South Korea were analysed. The authors used confirmatory factor analyses to validate the scales and ANCOVA to test the hypotheses. To further understand the interactions effects the authors conducted simple slopes analysis.

Results show that differences in expatriate academics’ cross-cultural adjustment are not per se based on the different nationality of their partners, but are mainly due to an interaction effect of partner nationality and length of stay in host country. Expatriates with host country national partners perceived the highest increase in cross-cultural adjustment over time, followed by those with third country national partners, whereas those with home country partners did not experience any increase in cross-cultural adjustment.

The study was based on a cross-sectional survey of expatriate academics in Asia. Thus, longitudinal, multisource data from various contexts would increase validity and generalizability of findings. Despite these limitations, the study provided new and intriguing findings. The theory and empirical evidence underscore the importance of expatriate partner nationality and thereby, relational demography between expatriate partners and expatriates.

The research aims to emphasize the important role that expatriate partners can play concerning the success of expatriate cross-cultural adjustment. Greater attention should be paid to the adjustment processes of expatriates and their partners to facilitate expatriate cross-cultural adjustment.

The authors are among the first to study the influence of nationality, conceptualized as host, home country or third country nationality, of expatriates’ partners on expatriates’ cross-cultural adjustment by applying the concept of relational demography. Moreover, the authors look at the role that time in the host country has on the partner’s influence on expatriate adjustment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine European Union (EU) industrial relations in their development over time. It describes and analyzes their main constituent parts, which are deployed along four interlinked institutional dimensions: tripartite concertation; cross-industry social dialogue; sectoral social dialogue; and employee representation and negotiation at the transnational company level. The focus lies strictly on the emerging EU layer of industrial relations, which is common to the different Member States and not on comparative European industrial relations.

The paper is conceptual in nature. It considers the differences and mutually interdependent legal and political processes, policies and institutions between EU industrial relations and national industrial relations.

The findings substantiate that EU industrial relations constitute an incomplete but perfectly traceable transnational reality distinct from industrial relations in the Member States. EU industrial relations are not to supersede but to supplement national industrial relations. Neither the EU institutional framework nor the European social partners have the mandate, legitimation or desire to perform a more ambitious role.

More empirically oriented research would further support the findings in the paper.

The paper presents a conceptual review based on a comprehensive and critical reading of the literature on EU industrial relations. It also puts labor strategies at the forefront of the analysis in corporate relocation.