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In Africa, poverty and food insecurity is pervasive due to intertwined factors including, declining crop yields, land degradation and inadequate policy and institutional support. With ever-increasing populations, climate change effects will be intensified, and a major crisis is inevitable unless measures to sustain land resources are urgently taken. This paper aims to argue that vibrant rural institutions are necessary to ensure food security and environmental protection, consequently contributing to climate change resilience.

The paper demonstrates the role of institutions by evaluating two types of institutions and their impacts the “status quo” and “hybrid” institutions using case studies from the African Highlands Initiative in Uganda and International Forestry Resources and Institutions in Kenya. It further discusses a model that highlights factors affecting smallholder investment in natural resources management and how these can be used to strengthen local institutions in building their resilience against climate change effects.

Weak grassroots institutions characterized by low capacity, failure to exploit collective capital and poor knowledge sharing and access to information, are common barriers to sustainable land management and improved food security.

Case studies from Uganda and IFRI in Kenya barriers in data collection instruments and language.

In Africa, poverty and food insecurity is pervasive due to intertwined factors including, declining crop yields, land degradation and inadequate policy and institutional support. With ever increasing populations, climate change effects will be intensified, and a major crisis is inevitable unless measures to sustain land resources are urgently taken.

In Africa, poverty and food insecurity is pervasive due to intertwined factors including, declining crop yields, land degradation and inadequate policy and institutional support. With ever-increasing populations, climate change effects will be intensified, and a major crisis is inevitable unless measures to sustain land resources are urgently taken.

The paper further discusses a model that highlights factors affecting smallholder investment in natural resources management and how these can be used to strengthen local institutions in building their resilience against climate change effects.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) research and practice has expanded and evolved rapidly in recent years, little is known about how MNC subsidiaries develop their CSR strategies and how they reconcile global and local demands and pressures from both institutions and stakeholders. The paper aims to understand how institutions and stakeholder pressures interact at both national and international levels and how these interactions shape MNC subsidiaries' CSR in Bangladesh.

Multiple case studies were used to investigate the CSR practices of 10 MNC subsidiaries operating in Bangladesh. To collect data, twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted. For supplementing primary data, secondary data from annual reports and websites were collected.

The article demonstrates that the practice of CSR in Bangladesh is a result of pressures exerted by parent companies, international institutions and international stakeholders. The article reveals how lack of pressure from local stakeholders and institutions enables subsidiaries to gain traction and use their agency to apply globalised CSR conceptualisations not necessarily applicable to the localised context.

The study has synthesised existing approaches to develop a multilevel framework for understanding how the intricate interactions between institutions and stakeholders from different levels (i.e. national and international levels) determine the trajectory of CSR adopted by subsidiaries in developing countries. This interaction undoubtedly plays a key role in determining the types of CSR strategy being enacted, the potential agency of different actors to shape change and the extent to which such pressures are likely to lead to CSR strategies that actually reflect and respond to the needs of local stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how CALIMERA set out to help ordinary citizens right across Europe to join e‐Europe through the digital services provided by their local cultural institutions and to extend the European research area by sharing knowledge and exchanging best practice with those countries providing strong potential for beneficial research partnerships with Europe in the local cultural services area.

During its 18‐month duration (December 2003 to May 2005) CALIMERA monitored technical developments and solutions emerging from IST and national research and assessed their potential as widely transferable technologies for use by local institutions and citizens. It also aimed to co‐ordinate and sensitise the stakeholders including professional networks, national and local authorities and solution providers, contributing strongly to increased knowledge and confidence for national strategic bodies in designing and implementing IST strategies for local cultural services.

The results of CALIMERA: portal web site www.calimera.org 42 country reports; state‐of‐the‐art report on national and local policies; policy toolkit for cross‐domain working; best practice guidelines; policy and best practice forum; impact measurement recommendations; business models report; solutions noticeboard http://solutions.calimera.org; training guidelines; research road‐map; community mapping model; usability guidelines. Originality/value – The extensive portfolio of guidance, evidence and tools for policy makers and professional practitioners developed by CALIMERA will contribute to enabling local cultural institutions to play the important role necessary for achieving a new citizen‐centred and culturally aware Europe

This study empirically investigates the influence of students' brand attitudes and perceptions of brand fit on their study intention vis-à-vis international brand alliances and individual brands after alliance.

Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used in data analysis, and a questionnaire was administered to a sample of sub-degree business management students recruited from a self-financing higher education institution in Hong Kong.

The results indicate that students' prior attitudes towards the brands of foreign and local institutions and their perceptions of brand fit positively affect their study intention, providing evidence that post-attitudes towards individual brands fully mediate the relationship between attitudes towards international brand alliances and study intention towards individual institutions.

International brand alliances between higher education institutions are becoming increasingly important. In Hong Kong, despite the emerging trend of collaboration between foreign and local universities, an evaluation of the effect of international brand alliances on study intention has been seriously overlooked.

The purpose of this paper is twofold to examine the factors that contribute to local bias of venture capital in China and to explore the relationship between local bias and performance of venture capital institutions.

Local bias was measured in line with the model developed by Cumming and Dai (2010). Regression techniques were performed for our long-term cross-sectional data to analyse the potential determinants of local bias. This is followed by the Probit model to test the relationship between local preference and successful exit.

The overall finding indicated that local bias in China increased over time. The stiff competition among venture capital institutions reduced local bias, but the enhanced innovation capabilities of a particular geographical area amplified local bias because of the knowledge spillover effect. Finally, the results suggested that venture capital institutions with less local bias enjoy a greater likelihood of making successful exits.

This study used successful venture capital exit as a proxy for venture capital institution’s performance because of the unavailability of information such as internal rate of return. Future research should try to adopt other way of measuring venture capital institution’s performance.

This study sheds light on the various possible causes of local bias that the policymakers need to be aware of. Despite the rapid rise of China’s venture capital market in recent years, venture capital institutions have yet to make inroads into the local high-tech industry. This study implies to the policymakers that to reverse this trend, they should formulate policies that foster the long-term performance of venture capital institutions, mitigate the severity of local bias and raise the competitiveness of the Chinese venture capital market.

Because of data limitations, there is currently lack of prior empirical research on local bias of Chinese venture capital institutions based on large-scale data. This study intends to fill the gap.

The paper aims to identify and analyze the actors and their interrelationships in realizing local content objectives in African oil- and gas-producing nations.

The paper includes content analysis of relevant research papers and reports within the oil and gas industry, local content and industrial networks published between 2000 and 2014.

The study developed a framework that integrates the literature on local content with the industrial network theory. The framework classifies the various critical actors for achieving local content, proposing that achieving local content requires the development of business network links and a resource alignment among local companies and institutions and foreign companies and institutions, in addition to multinational oil companies.

The framework of this study contributes to an emerging theory on local content by integrating the industrial network theory, which provides specific frameworks for analyzing embedded business environments, along with the previous economic and legal-based studies of local content achievement.

The way the relevant actors organize their resources and business networks provides potential for local content in an emerging oil and gas industry in Africa.

The paper is one of the few to integrate studies of local content with the industrial network theory. The literature review provides a summary window of the research on the subject over a 14-year period.

Most studies in electronic government (e-government) sustainability focus on the role of specific actors (stakeholders such as government employees or citizens) in sustaining an e-government project. However, such actors may not have sufficient resources to support e-government sustainability by themselves and must collaborate across different departments and stakeholders to sustain e-government projects. This paper aims to take a social systems theory perspective on sustainable local e-government, where actors cooperate and coordinate in a social system to leverage resources for e-government sustainability in local government contexts in developing countries.

This paper is an interpretive study of two local e-government case studies based on in-depth interviews with local government information technology (IT) managers, local leaders and staff. Data analysis based on constructivist grounded theory is used to understand the role of a social system in sustaining e-government systems in local governments in developing countries.

The original social system theory was developed for industry initiatives and adapted for public organisations in this paper. The unique characteristics of the public sector and e-government innovation are used to identify new components of the social system related to local e-government. Local e-government is sustained through a collaboration between actors in a social system to leverage resources and reduce challenges.

While this is an exploratory study, the cases show that the use of a social system theory consisting of institutional, management, social and economic components requires multiple lenses for investigation. This is a challenging process because it requires different areas of knowledge to carry out the research. The challenges may influence the overall outcome of this study. In addition, the two cases may generate limited insight and experiences as this study was carried out within two local governments in Indonesia. The findings may not provide a strong basis for generalization to other contexts.

This study offers guidance to local government IT departments to improve collaboration in a social system between local actors (such as political, managers and staff) while implementing and using e-government systems.

Sustainable local e-government requires all actors to coordinate and cooperate in a social system to reduce financial, political and technical challenges.

This paper offers new insight into how a local government collaborates in a social system to realize sustainable e-government systems. Collaborating in a social system reduces common challenges and leverages resources to support e-government sustainability.

This study aims to examine the international joint venture (IJV) partnership strategy in Europe from an institutional perspective. A firm operating in a foreign country via an IJV can partner with a local firm from the host country, a firm from the same home country or a firm from a third country. This study takes the first step in examining the determinants of these partner choices.

This study tests hypotheses based on a data set of 637 IJVs in Europe.

Foreign firms are less likely to operate in a partnership with a firm from the home country or from a third country (compared to operate in a partnership with a local firm) when the host country institutions are weaker or institutional distance is larger. Also, foreign firms’ disinclination to operate in a partnership with a firm from the home/third country when the host country institutions are weaker or institutional distance is larger will diminish with greater host-country experience.

This study provides important insights for firms for evaluating partner choice and potential collaborations in the European region with heterogenous institutions.

The partner choice among the above three forms has been neglected in the literature. This study first conceptualized that the institutional profile of the host country and institutional distance between the host country and the home country can determine the partner choice.

The purpose of this study is to discuss how enhancing the role of local institutions (LI) and incorporating indigenous knowledge (IK) in climate change adaptation planning can improve adoption and scaling success of climate-smart agriculture innovations.

A review of relevant literature from sub-Saharan Africa was used to answer the study research questions.

Embracing IK and LI in climate change adaptation projects can enhance adoption and scaling success of climate-smart agriculture innovations in smallholder farming. Such efforts will improve: information gathering and dissemination, mobilization of resources, establishment of useful networks with relevant stakeholders, capacity building farmers on various fronts and provision of leadership in climate adaptation programs.

Fully embracing IK and LI can improve the scaling of climate-smart innovations only if development partners recognize IK systems that are to be transformed and build on them instead of trying to replace them. Also, participatory approaches in scaling innovations will enhance input from rural people in climate change adaptation programs.

Development interventions aimed at taking proven effective climate-smart innovations to scale must, therefore, engage local communities and their indigenous institutions as active stakeholders in designing, planning and implementation of their climate adaptation programs.

This paper aims to explore subsidiaries’ behavioural responses to volatile institutional pressures in the local context of the emerging Nigerian market.

The authors built on institutional and contingency theory to analyse previous literature on developed markets and apply it to African contexts. The authors used a context-specific volatile local context model to show how porous formal and strong informal institutions constitute international business (IB) as a contested terrain in the host country. The authors also used a qualitative methodology, involving multiple actors, to investigate this phenomenon in practice.

The findings indicated different types of institutional pressures shaping volatile local contexts, which together or separately impact subsidiaries, depending on their degree of exposure. Subsidiaries behaviourally respond to cope with these pressures through inclusive negotiations involving their home and host countries’ networks.

Previous research has imposed developed markets’ norms on emerging African markets, regardless of their volatility. As subsidiaries’ responses to local contexts in emerging African markets are poorly understood, the authors developed a volatile local context model, showing how IB becomes a contested terrain in host countries and the authors proposed a model that differentiates between informal institutions. The authors highlighted the impact of contextual pressures on subsidiaries, according to their levels of exposure to the local context. The authors concluded that committed alignment with a local context is necessary for presenting an effective contingent response to its volatilities.