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The subject company operates in a vigorously growing sector of the packaging market, with plants in most European countries. But could this disparate business function as a single company in a single (European) market? This article sets out some lessons learned from a pilot transnational implementation of a strategic management information system, designed to counter entrenched national business thinking in one European company and its subsidaries.

People differ in the degree to which they exercise control over their expressive behaviour and self-presentation. This can be measured by a self-monitoring scale. Studies have shown that the consumer behaviour of high and low self-monitors is always different and that an understanding of the relationship can help marketers and advertisers develop effective marketing promotions and strategies to capture their target consumers. The teenage years are a period of transition from childhood to adulthood, and teenagers use clothing as a way of expressing their identity. Teenagers also make up a large part of the market and are therefore of interest for researchers.

This paper investigates the relationship between the buying behaviour and self-monitoring of teenagers (13-19 ages old) using Snyder’s Self-Monitoring Scale. The results show that teenagers exhibit different consumer behaviour. A cluster analysis of consumer attitudes towards the selection of apparel can be classified into three major types: practical, brand- and quality-oriented, as well as easy-going.

This study investigates the way in which acquisition-related human factors affect knowledge transfer in the context of Chinese cross-border M&A for strategic assets. The authors find that the process of knowledge transfer is reciprocal for revenue and cost synergies, including explicit and tacit knowledge. The establishment of joint ventures (JV) in China after the takeover boosts product-oriented knowledge transfer from overseas-acquired firms in mature markets to Chinese acquirers. The promotion of overseas synergies stimulates complementary knowledge transfer flow, which is reversely transferred from Chinese acquirers to overseas-acquired subsidiaries such as low-saving sourcing and new market applications. This study identifies three acquisition-related human factors that impact overseas knowledge senders for knowledge transfer. These human factors are implemented by Chinese strategic investors as new shareholders during the loosen integration phase. The first facilitator is all-round communication programs with top management involvement, aiming to build up constructive communication channels to boost knowledge transfer. The second facilitator is competence-based trust, which stimulates cooperation and application based on similar professional competence between Chinese acquirers and their overseas-acquired subsidiaries. The impeder is a high turnover of key skilled workers at Chinese acquirers to undermine the effectiveness of knowledge transfer.

This paper focuses on the managerial challenges involved in establishing subsidiaries in the Post‐ Soviet market. In these circumstances, the Western firms’ management meets the host country’s institutional structures. It is suggested that management transfers from the Western parent firm towards the local subsidiary take place across institutional boundaries. The analysis focuses on aspects creating, or reducing tensions in relations between local employees and the Western firm’s representatives. This paper explains why some local employees develop identities that facilitate management transfers, and why other employees develop conflict identities that inhibit management transfers.

In the great trading days of the 16th and 17th century it was often trade which preceded the flag. Today there is still clearly a ‘push‐pull’ relationship between international business and international politics. Interwoven with the warp of international politics is the weft of international business. As the Whitehall Eurocrats polish up their French prior to descending on Brussels a growing number of businessmen are choosing and being chosen to settle temporarily in foreign countries.

An online library catalogue served as a testbed to evaluate an interactive query expansion facility based on relevance feedback for the Okapi probabilistic term weighting retrieval system. The facility was implemented in a graphical user interface (gui) environment using a game‐board metaphor for the search process, and allowed searchers to select candidate terms extracted from relevant retrieved items to reformulate queries. The take‐up of the interactive query expansion option was found to be lower, and its retrieval performance less effective, compared to previous tests featuring automatic query expansion. Contributory factors including the number, presentation and source of terms are discussed.

Researchers and practitioners are interested in developing frameworks that can improve the understanding of the emerging field of global talent management (GTM) within and across the subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs). A few studies have proposed such frameworks but only implicitly include constructs at different levels of analysis. This paper is a step toward bridging the gap. Grounded in multi-level theory, international human resources management (IHRM) frameworks, and the ability-motivation-opportunity model, the purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-level framework that describes the processes through which antecedents at four levels of analysis affect a subsidiary’s GTM system, which in turn directly affects outcomes at three levels of analysis.

This paper develops a multi-level framework that describes the processes through which antecedents at four levels of analysis affect a subsidiary’s GTM system. Along with including four levels of analysis and highlighting cross-level interactions in our proposed multi-level framework, several testable propositions are offered.

The framework developed in this paper depicts the causal relationship between the subsidiary IHRM strategy (subsidiary level) and subsidiary GTM system (subsidiary level), and the several moderating variables that specify conditions under which the subsidiary IHRM Strategy affects a subsidiary GTM system. The moderator variables include national culture distance (country level), MNE headquarters (HQ) orientation (MNE HQ level), and the required dynamic cross-cultural competencies (expatriate level). In addition, the framework shows the outcomes of a subsidiary’s GTM system across three levels: knowledge transfer (MNE HQ level), localization (subsidiary level), and cross-cultural learning (expatriate level). In the context of multi-level analyses (the authors discuss this next), the framework shows several top-down processes (e.g. P2, P4 and P5) and several bottom-up processes (e.g. P3 and P7).

The proposed multi-level framework describes important antecedents and outcomes of a subsidiary’s GTM system, and proposes several propositions for future empirical and theoretical research that could be the focus of a systematic research program and agenda on GTM in subsidiaries. In addition, the proposed framework enables us to advance the GTM literature by improving the understanding of and offering insights about the GTM system of a subsidiary, and specifically contribute to research in IHRM and GTM in a number of ways.

Existing scholarly GTM frameworks used by practitioners do not take into account the multi-level complexities that exist when a subsidiary IHRM strategy may not align with the subsidiary GTM system. As such, both practitioners and researchers would benefit by adopting a multi-level framework that accounts for these complexities and how they interact with one another to influence the way subsidiaries manage their expatriate talent.

By using multi-level theory to examine subsidiary GTM systems, the authors advance both the GTM literature and the IHRM literature. Overall, this paper attempts to shift the focus of each subsidiary’s GTM system to a broader, multi-level perspective and contribute to new theory building in GTM research, specifically in subsidiary GTM-MNE research and provide some thoughtful suggestions for HR practitioners wanting to enhance the effectiveness of their MNEs.

In the $75 billion restructuring of the defense industry during the 1990s, no company that does business with the military has emerged unscathed. Take Raven Industries Inc., a widely diversified, $140 million company based in Sioux Falls, S.D. At one point, Raven garnered 90% of its sales from defense contracts; now defense accounts for just 4% of its business.

IT WAS IN 1952 (see our October issue of that year) when we last made a tour of the Tecalemit factory at Plymouth. It had then only recently commenced production but even so, was thought to be the largest factory in Europe to be devoted exclusively to the manufacturing of lubrication equipment. We have now been back again, and made a further tour which we have illustrated in this article.