Search results

The paper aims to examine the consequences of a cross‐border acquisition on business network changes in the Russian bakery industry.

This study employs the IMP group's network approach to analyse the empirical single case study with two embedded sub‐cases.

The empirical study offers a typology on the forms of network change that may be triggered by mergers and acquisitions (M&As), while the conceptual framework broadens understanding of the change sequence and reciprocal interaction among actors, activities, resources and the external environment, with implications for network change analysis.

While the theoretical position developed fits the unique characteristics of the case studied in the industry and country settings, it is necessary to be cautious in generalising the study beyond this context.

For managers of merging parties to garner superior performance from the network changes they initiate, it is critical for them to have precise insights into their network. Other connected actors must also adapt to the changes triggered by the merging parties, if they want to maintain their network positions.

For academicians, the paper attempts to broaden the understanding of different forms of network change that M&As may evoke. For practitioners, it offers a picture of what internal and external adjustments may be required of them following an M&A.

Corporate financial communications concern public and private disclosure (Holland, 2005). This paper aims to explain how banks developed financial communications and how problems emerged in the global financial crisis. It explores policy responses.

Bank cases reveal construction and destruction of the social, knowledge and economic world of financial communications over two periods.

In the 1990s, learning about financial communications by a “dominant coalition” (Cyert, March, 1963) in bank top management was stimulated by gradual change. The management learnt how to accumulate social and cultural capital and developed “habitus” for disclosure (Bourdieu, 1986). From 2000, rapid change and secrecy factors accelerated bank internalisation of shareholder wealth maximising values, turning “habitus” in “market for information” (MFI) (Barker, 1998) into a “psychic prison” (Morgan,1986), creating riskier bank cultures (Schein, 2004) and constraining learning.

The paper introduces sociological concepts to banking research and financial disclosures to increase the understanding about financial information and bank culture and about how regulation can avoid crises. Limitations reflect the small number of banks and range of qualitative data.

Regulators will have to make visible the change processes, new contexts and knowledge and connections to bank risk and performance through improved regulator action and bank public disclosure.

“Masking” and rituals (Andon and Free, 2012) restricted bank disclosure and weakened governance and market pressures on banks. These factors mediated bank failure and survival in 2008, as “psychic prisons” “fell apart”. Bank and MFI agents experienced a “cosmology episode” (Weick, 1988). Financial communications structures failed but were reconstructed by regulators.

The paper shows how citizens require transparency and contested accountability to democratise finance capitalism. Otherwise, problems will recur.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the forms of change that horizontal and vertical mergers and acquisitions (M & As) may evoke in acquired firms’ customer networks. M & As have increasingly become a dominant mechanistic growth path,pursued relentlessly by companies with varying attributes. However,acquiring a firm does not automatically imply that the market position of the acquired firm and its networks can be taken over,as conventionally held.

The approach takes the form of two qualitative interview-based case illustrations.

The illustrative empirical cases within the context of this study suggest that customer network changes may be rapid and/or radical,and gradual,depending on the specific acquisition type,context and managerial actions following the acquisition. Moreover,the visual simplicity of the network drawing in the post-acquisition network environment of a vertical acquisition type is not equivalent to lesser complexity of managing within the network. Rather,it shows a greater complexity as the M & A induces more direct customer relationships to manage and be managed. The study also shows that connected network changes may cause a revision of a specific industry’s business rules,and the management of these changes is critical for acquisition success.

While the two illustrative M & A cases are deemed practically significant in strategic and social terms within their industry and country settings,further research is required to establish the generalizability of the findings to wider industry and geographical contexts.

This paper contributes to the discussion on the important role of the business network approach in elaborating the understanding of a strategic management event,particularly M & A.

The purpose of this paper is to provide new insight concerning a relatively understudied phenomenon in the medium sized enterprise (SME) internationalisation and international entrepreneurship literature; the internationalisation of firms crossing the border to only one adjacent foreign country. These firms are called border firms. This study explores the variety of internationalisation patterns of border firms.

The study is based on theoretical perspectives related to speed of internationalisation and country embeddedness, and uses empirical data from seven Norwegian case companies operating across the border between Norway and Russia.

Three different internationalisation patterns of border firms are empirically identified and described; an early single-country path, a born-again border path and a born border path. Then, a model of the distinctive cross-border pathway is developed.

Several limitations of this study have implications for further research, such as sample size and setting, the new perspective on country embeddedness and questions related to generalisation of the findings.

The study has implications for both entrepreneurs and policy-makers. It demonstrates that internationalisation is not always about “going global” and is sometimes simply a matter of “hopping” across the nearest border. The model demonstrates different possible patterns for how to achieve or support this in practice.

This study contributes to theory-building in the field of SME internationalisation and international entrepreneurship in three ways. First, it identifies and defines an interesting but neglected type of international venture; border firms. Second, it explores the different start-up patterns of these firms, their speed and embeddedness. Third, it offers a theoretical framework of the distinct cross-border pathway of internationalisation.

This preliminary survey begins to probe a few purposes and practices of “Earth System Science” to rethink the ways in which Nature is “taken into account” by this new power/knowledge formation. The workings of “environmentality,” or green governmentality (Luke, 1999c), and the dispositions of environmental accountancy regimes depend increasingly on the development and deployment of such reconceptualized interdisciplinary sciences (Briden & Downing, 2002). These practices have gained much more cohesion as a technoscience network since 2001 Amsterdam Conference on Global Climate Change Open Science. Due to its brevity, this study is neither an exhaustive history nor an extensive sociology of either Earth System Science or the new post-2001 Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP), which acquired new legitimacy during and after this professional-technical congress. Instead this critique reexamines these disciplinary developments to explore the curious condition of their rapid assembly and gradual acceptance as credible technoscience formations. This reevaluation allows one, at the same time, to speculate about the emergent interests hoping to gain hold over such power/knowledge programs for managing security, territory, and population on a planetary scale (Burchell, Gordon, & Miller, 1991; Foucault, 1991c, pp. 87–104).

A numerical model is presented for the computation of unsteady two‐fluid interfaces in nonlinear porous media flow. The nonlinear Forchheimer equation is included in the Navier‐Stokes equations for porous media flow. The model is based on capturing the interface on a fixed mesh domain. The zero level set of a pseudo‐concentration function, which defines the interface between the two fluids, is governed by a time‐dependent advection equation. The time‐dependent Navier‐Stokes equations and the advection equation are spatially discretized by the finite element (FE) method. The fully coupled implicit time integration scheme and the explicit forward Eulerian scheme are implemented for the advancement in time. The trapezoidal rule is applied to the fully implicit scheme, while the operator‐splitting algorithm is used for the velocity‐pressure segregation in the explicit scheme. The spatial and time discretizations are stabilized using FE stabilization techniques. Numerical examples of unsteady flow of two‐fluid interfaces in an earth dam are investigated.

Despite the undoubted role of family firms in the economy, some main factors challenge their attempts for business internationalisation. These drivers are varied from organisational and environmental to individual attributes. This study tries to recognise and explore the impacts of the personality traits of managers, founders, and owners of family firms in their business internationalisation. The study used a questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 204 managers, founders, and owners of small- and medium-sized family firms to consider the relationship between personality traits: conscientiousness, openness, extroversion, neuroticism and agreeableness, and business internationalisation (BI). The hypotheses were analysed through structural equation modelling (SEM) using Lisrel. The results suggest different impacts of personality traits on facilitating the internationalisation process. According to the finding, extroversion and openness have a significant positive and agreeableness and conscientiousness have positive, less significant impacts on the tendency towards business internationalisation. Moreover, neuroticism impacts negatively significantly. Therefore, managers, founders, and owners of small- and medium-sized family firms who are extrovert, open, and non-neuroticism (tranquil) are more encaustic to making strategic decisions for extending their business to international markets.

The purpose of this study is to verify how the carbon doping of the WC-Co cemented carbide (CC) affected their structure before their processing by hot isostatic pressing (HIP) technology.

The samples for this experiment were fabricated by selective laser melting technology (SLM) using a YAG fiber laser with a power of P = 40 W and a scanning speed of 83 mm/s. The subsequent carbon doping process was performed in a chamber furnace at 900 0 C for 1, 4 and 12 h. The HIP was performed at 1,390°C and pressures of 40 MPa, 80 MPa and 120 MPa. The changes induced in the structures were evaluated using X-ray diffraction and various microscopic methods.

X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the structure of the samples after SLM consisted of WC, W₂C, Co₄W₂C and Co phases. As a result of the increase in the carbon content in the structure of the samples, the transition carbide W₂C and structural phase Co₄W₂C decayed. Their decay was manifested by the coarsening of the minor alpha phase (WC), which occurred both during the carburizing process and during the subsequent processing using HIP. In the samples in which the structure was carburized prior to HIP, only the structural phases WC and Co were observed in most cases.

The results confirm that it is possible to increase the homogeneity of the CC structure and thus its applicability in practice by additional carburization of the sample structure with subsequent processing by HIP technology.

Considering the last-mile delivery service supply chain as a social-ecological system rather than just a firm-based service system, this research exploit the COVID-19 pandemic disruption to investigate how the supply chain develops resilience from a viewpoint that integrates a social-ecological perspective with the traditional engineering one.

This research adopt a multi-case study approach using qualitative data collected via semi-structured interviews with executive-level managers from nine leading UK last-mile delivery companies. Data analysis is guided by a research framework which is developed by combining the social-ecological perspective with the structure–conduct–performance paradigm. This framework aids the investigation of the impacts of external challenges on companies' resilience strategies and practices, as well as performance, in response to disruptions.

The research identifies three distinct pathways to resilience development: stabilization, focussing on bouncing back to the original normal; adaptation, involving evolutionary changes to a new normal; transformation, involving revolutionary changes in pursuit of a new normal-plus. Three strategic orientations are identified as operating across these pathways: people orientation, digital orientation, and learning orientation.

In contrast to the manufacturing supply chain focus of most current research, this research concentrates on the service supply chain, investigating its resilience with a social-ecological perspective alongside the traditional engineering one.

The main objective of this paper is to critically examine the effects of the ongoing reform process on the overall functioning of Serbia's banking system. It is essential that this reform process bears fruit by developing a sound, efficient and reliable banking system.

The research results were obtained through exploratory field research. The interviews were aimed at capturing the attitudes of bank managers regarding the country's banking reform process and examining the context of the managers' feelings, thoughts, and actions.

Based on questionnaire results collected from Serbia bank managers in 2004, the findings suggest that the reform process, although characterized as slow and sluggish due to a lack of customer's confidence in banks, has indeed improved the overall functioning of Serbia's banking sector.

This study's weakness is the fact that it was for the most part exploratory research. Conclusions can be drawn from the research, but not at the desired level of cause‐and‐effect.

The Serbian banking reform process can offer lessons for both more and less advanced economies, as it exposes critical problems and mistakes that could be avoided and managed appropriately.

This paper contributes to the research and literature on transition, as Serbia is an area of research in the transition literature, especially regarding the banking sector, which appears to be inadequate and limited.