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This paper aims to contributes to the literature on team diversity, both in general as well as relating to Chinese managers. Previous studies largely focused on the link between work group heterogeneity in terms of different ages, genders or nationalities of the members and performance. It adds to this body of knowledge by investigating the relationship between the composition of value priorities of team members and achievement, team identity and intra-team communication. The assumption behind this is that differences in value priorities represent the underlying latent source for team diversity, which is only insufficiently represented by the above observable demographic variables.

To test for optimal value priority composition, a series of experiments was conducted with 29 project teams and four team types comprising 174 Chinese expatriates at a German business school.

The general result is that (in the long run) highly heterogeneous teams and (in the short run) highly homogeneous teams outperform moderately heterogeneous work groups. However, the major contribution is that the relation between value diversity and performance has a modified upright U-shaped format. It specifically requires the attempt to close as many value gaps as possible.

This new insight, which has not been adequately explained by previous studies, results from the existence of a circular structure in which values are organised. Based on this specific outcome, the paper provides recommendations for practicing managers both in China and elsewhere, admits limitations and paves the way for future research avenues.

Environments coined as “VUCA” (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) are hotbeds for new modi operandi in organisations that involve a shift from face-to-face towards distant leadership, as well as from “classical” towards agile organisation principles.

At the same time, digital collaboration tools have found their way into daily business operations. As the above changes arguably leave deep imprints on performance indicators, our work accordingly illuminates potential impacts on employee engagement. Based on a German sample, we conduct a qualitative investigation featuring in-depth interviews.

Our findings indicate a curvilinear inverted (approximate) U-shaped relation between what we dub “leadership richness continuum” (including specific characteristics of leadership, agility, as well as the application of a digital collaboration tool) and engagement.

Although our work may inspire practicing managers, we also contribute to theory development providing a new theoretical model for employee engagement.

Fuelled by the latest scandals at Siemens, VW or Walmart, there is a lively debate on the role of compliance and ethics programmes. Unlike large corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) arguably tend to underestimate their significance and lag behind. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to shed light on the process of introducing compliance codes and its effects on employee acceptance and performance.

In line with the qualitative methodology, the authors conducted 12 in-depth interviews with German SME employees which the authors evaluated with the qualitative content analysis.

As for the major contribution, results indicate the emergence of a lack of understanding, anger, anxiety and operational performance losses – both at the individual and the corporate level – especially when employees feel uninvolved in the initial introduction stadium.

Practicing managers may benefit from the recommendation to facilitate staff involvement at earlier stages. As for theory advancement, the authors draw on Kotter’s (2007) long surviving “Eight Steps Change Management Model” and find significant support for shifting the spotlight of attention towards the first four phases. The authors discuss the original value of the research, admit limitations and illuminate some promising future research trajectories.

The purpose of this paper is to trace back the roots of US-driven “Human Resource Management” (HRM) school of thought which now become widely institutionalized in China, up to the present day.

It looks at the diffusion of management knowledge over the period to Chinese business, which involved in turn scientific management (SM), human relations (HR) and HRM, respectively, from the interwar years onwards, by using a bibliometric analysis of Chinese language sources, searching a number of databases now available.

The authors scanned the international, as well as Chinese, literature to support a conjecture of a HR route towards China and how it morphed into HRM and went on to conclude that there was by the end of the year 2015 still a significant output of academic publications with references to both HR and HRM, respectively, but that we must be cautious in asserting a firm conclusion.

This paper traces back the roots of Chinese HRM back to the US-driven HR school of thought.

Since the dawn of leadership research, generations of scholars have looked at the topic through the lenses of leader personalities and traits, their behaviour, the situation they are in and their relations with co-workers. Same as with ideology waves in managerial discourse and though sailing under different flags, many of the above “classical” foci reverberate in “modern” organisational literature. The authors argue, however, that relatively little effort has been put into what we label as “organisational embeddedness of leadership” (OEL). The authors here focus on the role of institutionalising leadership within the setting of “poly-contextual” organisational frameworks.

Addressing the ambiguity of previous OEL research with fresh primary data from Germany, the authors present a clear-cut five-dimensional, 15-items construct. The authors’ empirical validation rests on (1) two independent qualitative studies and (2) three independent quantitative investigations computing exploratory (N = 61) and confirmatory (N = 172) factor analysis as well as a regression analysis (N = 131).

Structural equation modelling results indicate a single-factor model with five sub-dimensions consisting of leadership training and career development, leadership alignment, evaluation and feedback, implementation of employee interviews and supporting resources for leadership.

This work contributes to a broader understanding of “leadership emergence and development” (LED) from an organisational perspective. The limitations of the present article call for a lively debate on OEL and may illuminate some promising future research avenues.

Sterilization is endorsed as a method of family planning by international governmental organizations; abortion is not. Focusing on policy development for these two issues in a single country, Peru, we ask how power and inequality operate under conditions of global consensus or dissensus. The case of sterilization unfolded the way many previous research studies would predict, with Peruvian state actions corresponding to a global diffusion process. We find that global consensus provided cover for top-down actions that violated the human rights of indigenous women in the country, who were predominantly poor, non-Spanish speakers, and residents of the mountainous, sparsely populated parts of the country. With respect to abortion in Peru, in the absence of global consensus, the state resisted calls for change, advocacy networks have worked at cross-purposes, and a powerful local actor, the Catholic Church, has effectively blocked liberalization efforts. As with sterilization, however, marginalized indigenous women and their interests were rendered invisible.

Given the inconclusive evidence in the literature on the impact of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows, as well as dearth of literature on this subject matter as regards West Africa and the European Union (EU), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which BITs and preferential trade and investment agreements (PTIAs) triggered foreign investment flows particularly between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries and the EU.

Trend analysis was used to trace the link between FDI and BITs, while panel regression models were used to investigate the impact of BITs on FDI during 1980‐2010.

Econometric results indicate that, as in most previous studies, BITs have strong positive impact on FDI in West Africa, with this impact significant at a higher level (1 per cent) for FDI flow than stock (5 per cent). The impact of BITs on FDI is significant even with the state of internal factors (such as capital account liberalisation, trade openness, high inflation rate and poor governance) in West African countries. The findings suggest that in the absence of BITs, West African countries would have suffered adversely from poor FDI inflows given their poor macroeconomic stability and governance. On the contrary, the PTIAs did not have significant impact on both FDI flows and stock. The results also show that FDI inflow to West Africa is both market and resources seeking.

Sensitivity analysis may not have been sufficient. For instance, not tested was the impact of the signalling effect of BIT, as well as other vertical FDI such as those from the USA.

The implication of the findings is that West Africa countries need to design policies and programmes that will enable them to maximise the technological spill‐over from FDI in order not to be perpetual suppliers of primary products and purchasers of manufactured goods. Further, they have to maintain macroeconomic stability and good governance. They need to understand the type of provisions in the BITs that constituent states signed and compare with the provisions of the PTIAs, with a view to discerning what is responsible for the superior response of FDI to BITs.

Given the absence of literature on the impact of BITs on FDI flows between West Africa and EU, it becomes imperative to investigate this issue with a view to motivating the investment component of the EPA, as investment is one of the Singapore issues that were removed from WTO's Doha Round.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

This paper explores how consumers use the media products of mass culture to co-create the meanings of popular culture. Specifically, we examine both why and how Harry Potter fans utilize the primary texts written by J. K. Rowling to co-create their own fan fiction. Towards this end, we utilize Kenneth Burke's dramatistic method to explore the pattern of literary elements in both the original texts and the fan fiction. We argue that the primary impetus for consumers to engage in the co-creation of these texts is found in their ability to emphasize different ratios of literary elements in order to express their individual and collective desires. Through this process, fans utilize and contribute to the meta-textual meaning surrounding these primary focal texts and propel the original products of mass culture to the cultural texts of popular culture.