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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of Global Electronic Commerce (GEC) on transnational regulatory governance and to suggest a novel way of understanding its implications for national and transnational governance structures.

The paper has two components. The first part endeavours to establish a basis from which to observe regulatory governance of GEC and, in doing so, suggests a framework that draws together the relevant elements of transnational GEC governance. The second part examines the central determinants in shaping a functioning framework for GEC, namely, copyrights, data privacy protection and jurisdiction.

The findings are twofold. Owing to limitations deriving from institutional structural divergences; variations in cultural, political and commercial interests; and the relative power of non‐state actors, the cases first indicate how GEC has made multilateral negotiations between states more complex. Second, given the complexity of cross‐border governance and the variation in interests across its regulatory subsectors, GEC calls for an increasing degree of cultural harmonization across all regulatory subsectors.

In the absence of major views or paradigms, a novel approach to understanding the regulatory governance of GEC between states is a welcome addition to the study of transnational governance. Such an approach seeks to elucidate the impact of GEC on the development of transnational regulatory mechanisms, on the one hand, and the transformations that the governance of GEC imposes on transnational negotiation processes, on the other hand. It also seeks to understand how these underpinnings affect formation of holistic governance structures for GEC.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Wiki and its influence on the anxiety produced during cross-cultural web-based collaborative learning sessions.

In total, 49 high school students participated in transnational collaborative learning and engaged in a one-month Google Wiki activity. A transnational collaborative learning anxiety inventory was used to measure the anxiety of the participants, which included the dimensions of social anxiety, foreign language anxiety, and computer anxiety. In addition, platform usage records were compiled using Google Wiki user records and participation process checklists. Relative data derived from these two items were compared with the questionnaire data.

The results indicated that participants who had experience with Wiki transnational collaborative learning exhibited significantly reduced SA and FLA. Participation process and user records revealed that embedding videos; responding to content created by others; proofreading and editing the content of others; updating layouts; underlining text, changing the font, and color coding; and increasing the number of edits reduced FLA. The number of times edits and responses were produced was correlated with decreases in SA.

The causes and effects of transnational collaborative learning have concurrently received attention. However, studies on Wiks and their impact on the anxiety produced during cross-cultural Web-based collaborative learning are limited. Therefore, Google Wiki was used in this study as the medium through which the effects of Wiki participation on anxiety resulting from transnational collaborative learning were explored.

Transnational entrepreneurship can be considered a new stream of research where migrant entrepreneurship and international business research fields intersect. The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical framework to address the following research question: How do transnational entrepreneurs (TEs) develop their competitive advantage to succeed in a global market?

Based on the strategic entrepreneurship approach and dynamic capability perspective, this paper suggests a theoretical framework to extend the understanding on how TEs may develop their competitive advantage to succeed in a global market.

The suggested theoretical framework exhibits how the social ties of TEs affects their firm performance through the mediating effect of a bundle of two organizational processes (opportunity sensing and opportunity seizing) and the moderating effect of institutional distance between countries of origin and residence.

TEs should not solely focus on their ethnic social ties. That is why this paper suggests that ethnic ties in the country of origin and the country of residence (COR) may lead to higher firm performance only if systematically used alongside nonethnic ties in the COR. Furthermore, it is crucial for TEs to understand the importance of dynamic capabilities in developing and sustaining their competitive advantage.

Based on the strategic entrepreneurship approach, this paper suggests a social tie-based model of the dynamic capability to address the theoretical void in the transnational entrepreneurship literature. The linkage between social tie and performance which has been in a black box is examined in terms of how strong and weak social ties may affect different underlying processes of TEs’ dynamic capabilities differently. In contrast to the common conceptualization of institutional distance as a negative moderator in international business literature, institutional distance is theorized as a positive moderator in the suggested theoretical model of transnational entrepreneurship.

It is argued that a key step in becoming a “transnational” company is to implement transnational HRM (THRM). However, what is meant by THRM and how can it be assessed? The purpose of this paper is to develop the characteristics of THRM along two dimensions: standardisation and knowledge networking, in contrast to many existing studies which focus on IHRM strategies and structures. Standardisation and knowledge networking are to be examined at both the meta and operational levels.

The paper is based on two case studies of major German MNCs, both with significant operations in Spain and the UK. Data were collected by means of semi‐structured interviews with senior managers, HR managers and labour representatives.

The findings show that THRM can be operationalised using knowledge networking and standardisation on a meta level, in terms of principles, and at an operational level in terms of practices. The two firms show differences in the process and intensity of HR knowledge networking which have implications for the level of standardisation, local autonomy and innovation capabilities. The findings also suggests that THRM is more about processes than outcomes.

A limitation of this study is that the cases were only drawn from Western Europe. The patterns of THRM structures and processes may differ significantly in MNCs from other regions.

This paper extends existing research by exploring international HR beyond strategies and structures and focuses on communication and coordination processes. It advocates a refined view of the transnational firm.

The accounting regulation literature has recently devoted a significant degree of attention to delineating the roles of accounting firms as key professional actors in the transnational policy arena. Such a heightened level of scholarly engagement with firms seems to have shifted the focus away from the roles of the national professional institutes. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of not losing sight of the national professional bodies as important players on the transnational governance scene.

The accounting regulation literature has recently devoted a significant degree of attention to delineating the roles of accounting firms as key professional actors in the transnational policy arena. Such a heightened level of scholarly engagement with firms seems to have shifted the focus away from the roles of the national professional institutes. The aim with this paper is to demonstrate the importance of not losing sight of the national professional bodies as important players on the transnational governance scene.

The paper provides empirical illustrations and discussion of the transforming agendas and strategies of influence pursued by various national professional bodies as they attempt to reinvent themselves to face up to the challenges of the changing regulatory landscape. Specifically, the paper analyses a range of activities where such bodies are seen to be competing with each other as well as partaking in a variety of collaborative initiatives in their quest to gain/maintain the status of a global/regional professional thought leader.

The paper is designed to encourage renewed academic debate on the roles and strategies of national professional institutes and highlight opportunities and venues for future research. The paper is also suggestive of the need to refine conceptual perspectives on professionalization processes operational in transnational settings.

The accounting literature is lacking in terms of contemporary study of national professional bodies as active institutions with global ambition and strategies of influence. This paper addresses such a shortcoming by analysing the strategic intent and actions of a range of such bodies (revealing, in the process, a quite fascinating complex of activity, competition and cooperation) and calling for a renewed focus on national professional bodies as a way of enhancing contemporary understanding of the workings of the “global accounting profession”.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research on the strategies of inequality at the workplace level of multinational corporations within the context characterized by the weakening of traditional bargaining and representation structures. Through which specific strategies multinational corporations foster inequality across different workplaces across borders and how do trade unions in Europe respond to it?

This paper is a conceptual one and it is based on existing qualitative comparative research developed by the author.

The regulatory regime of organized and governed labor markets and employment relationships is undermined by the employment relationships becoming increasingly unstable in most industrialized countries in Europe. The breakdown in the collective structures for employment regulation, particularly collective bargaining, has led to growing insecurity and inequality among working people. At the workplace level of multinationals inequality is fostered by strategies of flexibilization and benchmarking which force trade unions to negotiate concessions regarding the working conditions of different workers. Trade unions are seeking effective responses to increasing labor market instability and inequality. The paper argues that the transnational regulation of employment relationships through the European Framework Agreements (EFAs) can serve the purpose of constraining benchmarking, while containing workplace inequality.

This paper offers an in-depth view that the EFAs can constrain the multinationals’ strategies of benchmarking and workplace inequality. This is because EFAs can potentially spread across countries the positive gains of local negotiations where unions are able to negotiate on employment protection to other local subsidiaries where unions may struggle to do so.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss economic and social issues of contemporary capitalism through the views and works of Grazia Ietto-Gillies who has a long experience of research in these fields. The issues relate to strategies of TNCs, to globalization and transnationalization, to internationalization indices, to linkages between innovation and internationalization, to uneven development, and, finally, to issues related to the economics profession and the dissemination of research in the twenty-first century.

In-depth interview; use of relevant literature to support statements by interviewer and interviewee; qualitative analysis of issues discussed.

The article links together under the same theoretical umbrella the following issues: a theory of TNCs based on strategic approach towards labour, governments and suppliers; the development of an internationalization index based on the geography of TNCs' networks; and the possible impact of internationalization on innovation. Uneven development is linked to current problems in Europe. The need and opportunity to reconsider the economics profession and the peer review system in the digitalization era is presented.

The article is based on the views of the interviewer and the interviewee. Their views are backed by their own previous research as well as by research by other scholars cited in the article.

The interview draws policy implication in relation to TNCs and other actors who interact with them such as labour and governments. There are also policy implications in the economic and social spheres regarding the implications of TNCs' strategies and the aftermath of the 2007/2008 crisis.

At the methodological level the article highlights the advantages of in-depth interviews. Specifically, it allows the interviewee to give an overall perspective on her research and to show how the various strands are connected and how they developed through the decades of her research. It allows both interviewer and interviewee to link the issues to a variety of literatures in the economics, sociology and politics fields.

The use of a multi‐disciplinary research team can often enhance the investigation of IS phenomena ‐ particularly when the construct under study is multi‐dimensional. This paper explores the challenges and benefits of carrying out IS research with a multi‐disciplinary team. By way of illustration a study is described which purposefully pulled together researchers from different (but related) disciplines to carry out an IS research project. The challenges confronting the team included miscommunication, initial disagreement concerning research constructs, and the amount of time required for meetings. The benefits far outweighed the difficulties. Benefits accrued to the study itself and to the research participants. The study was more holistic and included better construct definition. The participating researchers benefited from critically examining their own views and outlooks whilst being exposed to viewpoints from other disciplines.

This paper responds to calls for a new raison d’être in the field cross-cultural management (CCM) and culture-sensitive studies of international business (IB) more broadly. It argues that one way of addressing the crisis of confidence in the field is to develop a line of inquiry focussed on corporate-driven cultural globalization. This paper also proposes a theoretical approach informed by international political economy (IPE) and postcolonial theory and outlines a research agenda for future work on cultural globalization.

The paper is a desk-based analysis that draws on relevant research in the wider social sciences to insert cultural globalization into the CCM/IB field’s intellectual project.

The paper finds the field of CCM and culture-sensitive IB studies more broadly to be almost exclusively focussed on studying the impact of cultural differences. Surprisingly, little attention has been devoted to the phenomenon of corporate-driven cultural globalization.

The paper redirects the field and presents a research agenda, calling for studies on the role of four related actors in cultural globalization: MNEs, global professional service firms, business schools and CCM/IB researchers themselves.

CCM/IB scholars may be able to reorient themselves towards the phenomenon of cultural globalization and, in so doing, also seize an opportunity to contribute to important debates about it in the wider social sciences.

The paper suggests possibilities for renewal by redirecting CCM/IB towards the study of cultural globalization and by encouraging the field to develop a postcolonial sensibility in future research on the phenomenon.

This paper aims to conceptualise a framework of “transnational human resource management” (HRM) and to demonstrate the validity of the model.

Evidence is drawn from survey of 93 large Japanese multinational companies (MNCs). Data are analysed through descriptive statistics, hierarchical multiple regression analyses and mediation effect analyses.

The analysis reveals that the practices for normative and systems integration are associated with increasing levels of social capital and geocentric staffing, respectively, and the social capital and geocentric staffing fully mediate the relationship between normative and systems integration and transnationality.

The research extends the integration theory in international HRM and demonstrates the validity of our framework for transnational HRM. The authors also shed light on the reality of the integration aspects of international HRM in Japanese MNCs.