Search results

1 – 10 of over 4000
Article
Publication date: 4 December 2017

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the Eurocentric conceptualisation of “risk” which reinforces rent-seeking language, culture and practices of doing business that are…

660

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the Eurocentric conceptualisation of “risk” which reinforces rent-seeking language, culture and practices of doing business that are alien to non-European societies. This paper also attempts to engage with Eurocentric methods and strategies that sustain hegemony in international business by promoting “risk” and perpetuating “uncertainty” within the non-European business culture. Such territoriality within basic conceptualisation of in international business is central to manufactured “risks” that reinforces crisis, while state deals successfully or fails to deal with it, the global corporations extract resources and expand their capital and market base in non-European societies while doing business. This paper is divided into two parts: the first part presents the philosophical basis of risks and its historical foundations and the second part deals with the neo-colonial business methods, languages, cultures and strategies which are Eurocentric by nature. This paper argues that manufacturing risk is the Eurocentric business strategy.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws its methodological lineages to nonlinear historical narrative around the concept and construction of the idea and language of “risk” and “uncertainty”. This paper follows discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) to locate the way in which the Eurocentric concept of risk was exported and incorporated within the language of international business in non-Western business traditions. While engaging with conceptual discourses, it focusses on the power of language in the process of conceptualisation where “authority comes to language from outside” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 109). As a result of which the concept does not reflect the objective reality of non-European business culture and its uniqueness while assimilating it within the Western European theoretical traditions of “risk and uncertainty” in international business practice.

Findings

The understanding of risk in business within the non-European context needs new ways of conceptualising risk. The updated version of Eurocentric theories, languages and methods of international business and associated risk narrative can never be a starting point. The duality of philosophy in which “economic growth” and “backwardness” measures progress and reduces human experience and objectives of business to seek and expand profit. The starting point of any theoretical analysis on risk in doing business in non-European societies must acknowledge the specificities of their context in terms of local ideas, knowledge, history, language and methods of business practice which is different from Europe.

Originality/value

This paper outlines the Eurocentric conceptualisation of “risk” which reinforces rent-seeking language, culture and practices of doing business that are alien to non-European societies. It engages with the Eurocentric methods and strategies that sustain hegemony in international business by promoting “risk” and perpetuating “uncertainty” within the non-European business culture. Such territoriality within basic conceptualisation of in international business is central to manufactured “risks” that reinforces crisis; while state deals successfully or fails to deal with it; the global corporations extract resources and expand their capital and market base in non-European societies while doing business. This paper is divided into two parts: the first part presents the philosophical basis of risks and its historical foundations; the second part deals with the neo-colonial business methods, languages, cultures and strategies which are Eurocentric by nature. This paper argues that manufacturing risk is the Eurocentric business strategy. This paper argues for a new language, a new method and a new strategy of doing business by decolonising the discipline of international business.

Details

Society and Business Review, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5680

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 1983

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of…

16287

Abstract

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 21 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 June 2017

Lyn Yates

This paper was originally presented as a keynote presentation to the annual conference of the ANZHES whose theme was “knowledge skills and expertise”. The purpose of this paper is…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper was originally presented as a keynote presentation to the annual conference of the ANZHES whose theme was “knowledge skills and expertise”. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on history as a field of study in the context of changing conditions and new debates about knowledge in the twenty-first century.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reviews three important lines of sociological argument about changed conditions for knowledge: the case to “bring knowledge back in” to school curriculum; the contention that knowledge in universities is moving from “mode 1” to “mode 2” forms; and arguments about testing and audit culture effects on the practices of universities and schools. It then draws on interviews with historians and history teachers to show how they think about the form of their field, its value, and the impact of the changing conditions signalled in those arguments.

Findings

The paper argues that some features of the discipline which have been important to history continue to be apparent but are under challenge in the conditions of education institutions today and that there is a disjunction between teachers’ views of the value of history and those evident in the public political arena.

Research limitations/implications

The paper draws on a major Australia Research Council funded study of “knowledge building across schooling and higher education” which focusses on issues of disciplinarity and the fields of physics and history.

Originality/value

The paper is intended as a new reflection on the field of value to those working as historians.

Details

History of Education Review, vol. 46 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0819-8691

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 2005

Geoffrey M. Hodgson

This paper aims to counter the view that Marshall was an opponent of the historical school. This false account has survived and prospered because it has fitted into more general…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to counter the view that Marshall was an opponent of the historical school. This false account has survived and prospered because it has fitted into more general conceptions of intellectual history, held by both orthodox and heterodox economists.

Design/methodology/approach

Marshall's affinity with the historical school is established by examining his writings and his relationship with historical school sympathisers in the UK.

Findings

It is established that Marshall regarded his work as building on historical school insights, and he repeatedly referred positively to the ideas of the German historical school. It is argued in this paper that Marshall's opposition to the historical school was confined to its anti‐theoretical wing, principally Cunningham. In other important respects Marshall's position was compatible with German and British historicism.

Originality/value

In preceding literature, Marshall's affinities with the historical school have been denied, unacknowledged, or unexplored.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 32 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 October 2019

Tony Yan and Michael R. Hyman

Studies on cross-culture marketing often focus on either localization or globalization strategies. Based on data from pre-communist China (1912–1949), product hybridization …

Abstract

Purpose

Studies on cross-culture marketing often focus on either localization or globalization strategies. Based on data from pre-communist China (1912–1949), product hybridization – defined as a process or strategy that generates symbols, designs, behaviors and cultural identities that blend local and global elements – emerges as a popular intermediate strategy worthy of further inquiry. After examining the mechanisms and processes underlying this strategy, a schema for classifying product hybridization strategies is developed and illustrated. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Critical historical research method is applied to historical data and historical “traces” from pre-communist China’s corporate documents, memoirs, posters, advertisements, newspapers and secondhand sources.

Findings

Strategic interactions between domestic and foreign companies in pre-communist China fostered products and a city (Shanghai) containing Chinese and non-Chinese elements. Informed by historical traces and data from pre-communist China (1912-1949), a 2 × 2 classification schema relating company type (i.e. foreign or domestic) to values spectrum endpoint (i.e. domestic vs foreign) was formulated. This schema reflects the value of communication, negotiation and cultural (inter)penetration that accompanies cross-culture product flows.

Research limitations/implications

Cross-culture marketing strategies meant to help companies satisfy diverse marketplace interests can induce a mélange of product design elements. Because product hybridization reflects reciprocity between domestic and foreign companies that embodies multiple interests and contrasting interpretations of product meanings, researchers should examine globalization and localization synergistically.

Practical implications

Strategies adopted by domestic and foreign companies in pre-communist China (1912–1949) can help contemporary companies design effective cross-culture marketing strategies in a global marketplace infused with competing meanings and interests.

Originality/value

Examining historical strategies adopted in pre-communist China (1912–1949) can inform contemporary marketers’ intuitions. Understanding product hybridization in global marketplaces can improve marketing efficiency.

Details

Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-5855

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 September 2008

Phillip Anthony O'Hara

This paper seeks to evaluate how some of the core general principles of heterodox political economy (HPE) can be applied to the issue of how HPE has managed to undergo resurgence

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to evaluate how some of the core general principles of heterodox political economy (HPE) can be applied to the issue of how HPE has managed to undergo resurgence and development over recent decades.

Design/methodology/approach

Four major principles of heterodoxy are applied successively to this issue: historical specificity; contradiction; heterogeneous agents and groups; and circular and cumulative causation.

Findings

These principles assist in comprehending how HPE is able to develop its own concepts, networks, publications, academic departments, teaching and policy‐relevant material.

Research limitations/implications

HPE has had considerable success in developing a conceptual apparatus, which helps to explain the emergence of much of its edifice being developed in academic and policy circles. The performance of HPE has been impressive.

Practical implications

The conceptual apparatus of heterodoxy can be applied to real world situations; specifically a component of world history over especially the past 40 years.

Originality/value

This is the first time such a theme has been explored in the literature.

Details

On the Horizon, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1074-8121

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 March 2020

Andrea Doucet and Lindsey McKay

This research article explores several questions about assessing the impacts of fathers' parental leave take up and gender equality. We ask: How does the conceptual and contextual…

1980

Abstract

Purpose

This research article explores several questions about assessing the impacts of fathers' parental leave take up and gender equality. We ask: How does the conceptual and contextual specificity of care and equality shape what we focus on, and how, when we study parental leave policies and their impacts? What and how are we measuring?

Design/methodology/approach

The article is based on a longitudinal qualitative research study on families with fathers who had taken parental leave in two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Québec), which included interviews with 26 couples in the first stage (25 mother/father couples and one father/father couple) and with nine couples a decade later. Guided by Margaret Somers' historical sociology of concept formation, we explore the concepts of care and equality (and their histories, networks, and narratives) and how they are taken up in parental leave research. We also draw on insights from three feminist scholars who have made major contributions to theoretical intersections between care, work, equality, social protection policies, and care deficits: Nancy Fraser, Joan Williams, and Martha Fineman.

Findings

The relationship between fathers' leave-taking and gender equality impacts is a complex, non-linear entanglement shaped by the specificities of state and employment policies and by how these structure parental eligibility for leave benefits, financial dimensions of leave-taking (including wage replacement rates for benefits), childcare possibilities/limitations and related financial dimensions for families, masculine work norms in workplaces, and intersections of gender and social class. Overall, we found that maximizing both parental leave time and family income in order to sustain good care for their children (through paid and unpaid leave time, followed by limited and expensive childcare services) was articulated as a more immediate concern to parents than were issues of gender equality. Our research supports the need to draw closer connections between parental leave, childcare, and workplace policies to better understand how these all shape parental leave decisions and practices and possible gender equality outcomes.

Research limitations/implications

The article is based on a small and fairly homogenous Canadian research sample and thus calls for more research to be done on diverse families, with attention to possible conceptual diversity arising from these sites.

Practical implications

This research calls for greater attention to: the genealogies of, and relations between, the concepts of care, equality, and subjectivity that guide parental leave research and policy; to the historical specificity of models like the Universal Caregiver model; and to the need for new models and conceptual configurations that can guide research on care, equality, and parental leave policies in current global contexts of neoliberal capitalism.

Originality/value

We call for a move toward thinking about care, not only as care time, but as responsibilities, which can be partly assessed through the stories people tell about how they negotiate and navigate care, domestic work, and paid work responsibilities in specific contexts and conditions across time. We also advocate for gender equality concepts that attend to how families navigate restrictive parental leave and childcare policies and how broader socio-economic inequalities arise partly from state policies underpinned by a concept of liberal autonomous subjects rather than relational subjects who face moments of vulnerability and inter-dependence across the life course.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 40 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2005

Alexander Ebner

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct economic reasoning on entrepreneurship from the perspective of its institutional content, thus underlining the aspects of power…

18527

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct economic reasoning on entrepreneurship from the perspective of its institutional content, thus underlining the aspects of power relations and leadership, which are related with the organisational and technological dimensions of innovation and coordination as entrepreneurial functions.

Design/methodology/approach

In reconstructing the theory of entrepreneurship in a range from classical political economy to current efforts in economic sociology, the paper focuses on an appreciation of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship as a concept that is influenced both by Austrian marginalism and the German historical school.

Findings

The paper finds that the research perspective of economic sociology as a means for exploring the institutional foundations of entrepreneurship is of utmost relevance for further efforts in theorising the role of entrepreneurship in economic development.

Practical implications

The paper promotes policy implications, which underline that policies for the support of entrepreneurship need to account for the differentiation of entrepreneurial functions and their actual carriers, reconsidering the economic manifestations of their institutional embeddedness.

Originality/value

The paper establishes innovation and coordination as ideal types of entrepreneurial functions, perceiving them as fundamental concepts in economic reasoning on entrepreneurship in the process of economic development.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 32 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1981

A. Graeme Hyslop

In his explication of nationalist activity in Scotland since 1707, Tony Dickson, although falling into the realms of economic expressivism, must be commended for raising a number…

Abstract

In his explication of nationalist activity in Scotland since 1707, Tony Dickson, although falling into the realms of economic expressivism, must be commended for raising a number of important issues which have until recently been elusive, or, at least, never considered together. It is the inter‐relation of these issues which, for the first time, allows us to begin to develop a specific theory of Scottish Nationalism. These issues may be compartmentalised into three broad pre‐requisites:

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Article
Publication date: 1 May 2006

Alexander Ebner

This paper suggests that an adequate understanding of the notion of the social market economy, which has become a prominent aspect of debates on the social model of the European…

1696

Abstract

Purpose

This paper suggests that an adequate understanding of the notion of the social market economy, which has become a prominent aspect of debates on the social model of the European Constitution, is to be assessed in the context of the historist tradition in German economic and social thought.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper explores the intellectual history of the notion of the social market economy and its conceptual relevance for a dynamic European social model by highlighting Alfred Müller‐Armack's contributions to ordoliberalism and their relationship with German historism, in particular with Gustav von Schmoller's approach to Socialpolitik.

Findings

The paper finds that the decisive concern of the notion of the social market economy is the reconciliation of economic dynamism and social cohesion in a basic setting of legal rules and cultural values, reaching beyond common interpretations that focus more narrowly on institutional aspects of social policy.

Practical implications

By highlighting the interplay of economic, social and cultural dimensions, the paper suggests an extension of the conceptual horizon of current debates on the social model of the European Union, promoting policy implications that account for the possibilities of balancing conflicting social interests in the process of integration.

Originality/value

The paper applies a reconstruction of the intellectual history of the notion of the social market economy to the problem of designing a social order for the European Union with its underlying discourse on the constitutional status of a European social market economy.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 33 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 4000