Search results

This study aims to analyse how multinational corporations (MNCs) organise value chain activities to penetrate new market segments. It contributes by expanding traditional decisions regarding the vertical fine-slicing of value chain activities (whether performed internally or externally) and the consideration of resource-sharing decisions (integration or separation) for each value chain function.

The authors draw on primary data collected from two case study firms operating in the large emerging Chinese market: Volvo Construction Equipment AB and Epiroc AB. In-depth cases illustrate how foreign MNCs expand into new market segments and simultaneously target both the lower-priced mid-market and the premium segments in the Chinese mining and construction industry.

The results reveal that product diversification creates challenges for managers who must oversee new (vertical) value chains, often simultaneously. Beyond geography and modes of governance, managers must decide whether to integrate or separate value chain activities for the new product lines. The study identifies four main strategic choices for firms to address this complexity, focusing on the decision to internalise or externalise (i.e. within or across organisational boundaries) and integrate or separate value chain activities between different product lines.

This study builds upon the internalisation theory and recent international business contributions that focus on value chain configurations to explain MNCs’ product diversification as a growth strategy in a host emerging market. It also sheds light on the choice of conducting new activities in-house or externally and elucidates firms’ managerial decisions to operationally integrate or separate individual value chain activities. The study provides insights into the drivers explaining managerial decisions to configure value chain activities across product lines and contributes to the growing body of literature on MNC activities in emerging economies by highlighting that product diversification impacts entry mode diversity and resource sharing across units.

This paper reports a longitudinal study of 58 students who undertook an engineering traineeship concurrent with their final two years of secondary school. The student experience was planned as a partnership arrangement between a manufacturing enterprise, a secondary school, and a post‐secondary technical education institution. Results are discussed in terms of completion of studies, employment and career pathways, employment outcomes, and post‐traineeship employment destinations. Both the quantitative and qualitative data indicate that participants have benefited significantly in each area investigated. The significance of the program in developing propositional, procedural, and dispositional workplace knowledge is also discussed.

This study examines the performance of first year accounting students in a recently amalgamated tertiary institution which conducts a common accounting course across three campuses. Despite the uniformity in curriculum content there are distinct campus differences including tertiary entry cut off scores, teaching styles and contact hours. A multiple regression model has been employed to examine the impact on performance of student background (including tertiary entrance score, prior accounting knowledge, sex and motivation), perceptions of teaching and campus, in a first unit of accounting. The quantitative model is supplemented by qualitative data analysis of student perceptions of the course and the teaching. The findings of this study are that background variables including prior accounting knowledge, tertiary entrance score and motivation to study accounting are significant in explaining performance. Of the variables tested on student perceptions of teaching only one, memory, was significant in explaining performance of students. Differences were identified in student performance across campuses after controlling for student background and in the perceptions of teaching. Campus differences were attributed to the differences in contact hours on the three campuses. These findings have implications for accounting educators teaching first year accounting both in a single campus setting and those endeavouring to develop a common curriculum across campuses in the recently formed Unified National System.

In this study, the authors explore the effects of politically controlled boards on bank loan performance in both state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) and private sector commercial banks (PCBs) in Bangladesh.

The data consist of 409 bank-year observations from 46 sample SCBs and PCBs of Bangladesh for the period 2008–17. The authors apply ordinary least squares pooled regression with year fixed effect for baseline econometric analyses and generalized method of moments regression for robustness tests after addressing the endogeneity issue.

The regression results reveal that the presence of bank “boards controlled by politically affiliated directors” (PA) have significant positive effects on non-performing loans (NPLs). Similarly, the presence of “boards controlled by politically affiliated directors without substantial ownership interests” (PAWOI) show positive association with NPLs. In contrast, the presence of “boards controlled by politically affiliated directors with substantial ownership interests” (PAOI) exhibit an inverse relationship with NPLs. These findings support ‘agency conflict’ arguments and document that both PA and PAWOI are detrimental to bank loan performance in Bangladesh, while PAOI do not have significant effect on increasing NPLs.

This study contributes to the existing bank governance literature by providing evidence from an emerging economy perspective, where politically affiliated directors (PADs) exploit their positions for personal and/or political gain at the cost of other stakeholders by taking advantage of relaxed regulatory oversights and investor protections.

There is evidence that students who attend Technical and Further Education (TAFE) prior to entering higher education underperform in their first year of study. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of self-efficacy in understanding the performance of students who completed TAFE in the previous year in a first year subject of microeconomics in a dual sector university in Melbourne, Australia.

The study utilises data collected by surveys of 151 students.

A student’s self-efficacy is positively associated with their marks in a first year subject of microeconomics. However, the relationship between final marks and self-efficacy is negative for those students who attended TAFE in the previous year suggesting that they suffer from the problem of overconfidence. When holding self-efficacy constant, using econometric techniques, TAFE attendance is found to be positively related to final marks.

The findings are exploratory (based on a small sample) and lead to a need to conduct cross institutional studies.

The research points to the need for early interventions so that TAFE students perform well in their first year of higher education. It also points to potential issues in the development of Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) programs.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the inter-related impact of attendance at TAFE in the previous year and self-efficacy on the subsequent academic performance of TAFE students.

The growth in importance of performance assessment in education over recent years has been linked with a concern to ensure that the service represents “value for money”. Increasing concern over funding of schools by government and the limitation on the resources available to the education sector has given rise to demands for greater efficiency and public accountability. These concerns reflect the need for comprehensive techniques to assess the degree to which school management practices and the education industry structure promote efficiency in education. An additional problem has been that, whilst there are many different desirable outcomes which are appropriate for education authorities to pursue, conventional models handle these one at a time.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate delivered hydrogen cost including both transport and expected accidents cost comparing compressed gas or liquid hydrogen road transport. The model allows to determine whether, in a given context, the risk of accidents is an influencing variable in the selection of the hydrogen transport mode. It also helps to select the lowest cost transport mode and route.

Transportation cost models are developed and integrated with a risk analysis model to determine expected accidents cost so that an overall delivered hydrogen cost can be computed. Alternative transport modes are compared on the basis of hydrogen demand, delivery distance and route type.

While safety cost in many cases can be considered negligible with respect to overall hydrogen transport cost, there are cases (high flow rate, long distance) where accident cost is relevant, especially in routes through densely populated areas. In such cases, factoring in accidents cost may significantly affect the break even point between CH2 and LH2 transport alternatives.

The paper only deals with proven road transportation methods (CH2 and LH2). Inclusion of alternative transport modes such as pipeline or hydrides is a future research goal.

Decision makers can examine the costs implied by hydrogen transportation alternatives in different economic scenarios factoring in safety costs to make informed decision.

Available hydrogen transportation cost models neglect any safety issue, while risk assessment models only consider accident consequences costs. This work integrates both views.

Smallholder families in Papua New Guinea (PNG) feed the nation and produce income-generating cash crops such as coffee and cocoa. However, agricultural extension has not yet effectively reached many farming families in the country, and many families still work with semi-subsistence practices. As a result, the majority of farming families have insecure livelihoods, with many living below the poverty line. This chapter explores a collaborative research for development project that sought to address this issue.

Using data from two highlands sites in the Western Highlands and Jiwaka provinces, we outline the empowerment processes we developed in both our research and our learning activities. We illustrate how the experiential learning processes enabled women, especially those with low education, to confidently engage in this form of agricultural extension. Our work surfaced the knowledge of both women and men and supported families to determine how to work together in effective and equitable planned farming.

Humane Entrepreneurship (HumEnt) is strongly purpose-oriented and characterized by a focus on inclusiveness and social and environmental sustainability, with attention to both internal and external stakeholders and their needs. In the attempt to provide new research in this field, this study aims to conduct an empirical investigation within the theory of HumEnt and, in particular, of the Human Resource Orientation (HRO) model among Italian Small and Medium-size Enterprises.

Based on quantitative data, this study used a deductive approach to investigate the relationship between the HumEnt model and firms’ relational embeddedness with different types of stakeholders (value chain stakeholders and societal stakeholders, respectively). More concretely, to investigate the relationships between the dimensions of the HumEnt model and firms’ relational embeddedness, partial least squares structural equation modeling was applied.

Findings of this study suggest that Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) directly contributes only to value chain embeddedness. However, the results also show that if EO is mediated by an HRO (i.e. companies with a high HRO), a high level of societal embeddedness is also present.

This study represents a first attempt to provide comprehensive empirical evidence about the different dimensions characterizing the HumEnt theoretical model, and to highlight their relevance in supporting companies’ relational embeddedness capacity with different categories of stakeholders.