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The authors discuss a large system transformation project they designed and implemented in Slovenia at the start of its independence in the early 1990s. Post-mortem insights are useful for practitioners who embark on similarly broad transformation processes. Design issues are discussed such as structuring the pre-contracting phase to guarantee inclusive stakeholder representation and participation throughout the transformation process and how intervention design needs to allow for experimentation and multi-stakeholder alliance building. Application of action research and action learning in a risk-averse environment typical of central governments helped create a sense of ownership, control, and collective accountability in the partner country.

This article examines access to finance for SMEs in the Baltic States and the South Caucasus countries following the financial crisis of 2007 and is set within the context of the rule of law for businesses.

The article uses the cross-sectional dataset from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) for 2009 to examine access to finance for SMEs and the court system in the Baltic States and the South Caucasus countries. An ordered probit estimation technique is used to model access to finance and the court system in the Baltic States and the South Caucasus countries. The analysis draws upon institutional theory to explain access to finance for SMEs.

The results show variations from one Baltic State and South Caucasus country to another in relation to fairness, speed of justice and enforcement of court decisions. The analysis suggests that if access to finance is not an obstacle to business operations and the court system is fair, impartial and uncorrupted, it determines the likelihood of strength in entrepreneurship. Additionally, the results show that, within the Baltic region, businesses experiencing constraints in accessing finance are more likely to have females as their top managers. However, for the South Caucasus region, there was no gender difference.

This research is based on evidence from the Baltic States and the South Caucasus region. However, the findings are relevant to discussions on the importance of the context of entrepreneurship, and more specifically, the rule of law. The institutional theory provides an explanation for coercive, normative and mimetic institutional isomorphism in the context of access to finance for SMEs. Coercive institutional isomorphism exerts a dependence on access to finance for SMEs. In coercive institutional isomorphism, formal and informal pressures are exerted by external organisations such as governments, legal regulatory authorities, banks and other lending institutions. These formal and informal pressures are imposed to ensure compliance as a dependency for successful access to finance goal.

This research creates awareness among entrepreneurs, potential entrepreneurs, business practitioners and society that reducing obstacles to access finance and a fair court system improve entrepreneurial venture formation. This has the potential to create employment, advance business development and improve economic development.

This paper makes an original contribution by emphasising the significance of access to finance and a fair court system in encouraging stronger entrepreneurship. The institutional framework provides a definition for coercive institutional isomorphism to show how external forces exert a dependence pressure towards access to finance for SMEs.

This paper places what has happened to income inequality in rich countries over recent decades alongside trends in median and low incomes in real terms, taken as incomplete but valuable indicators of the evolution of living standards for “ordinary working families” and the poor. The findings demonstrate first just how varied country experiences have been, with some much more successful than others in generating rising real incomes around the middle and toward the bottom of the distribution. This variation is seen to be only modestly related to the extent to which income inequality rose, which itself is more varied across the rich countries than is often appreciated. The extent to which economic growth is transmitted to the middle and lower parts of the distribution is seen to depend on a range of factors of which inequality is only one. Sources of real income growth around the middle have also varied across countries, though transfers are consistently key toward the bottom. The diversity of rich country experiences should serve as an important corrective to a now-common “grand narrative” about inequality and stagnation based on the experience of the USA.

Competitively multipolar international system demands bilateral and multilateral partnerships. Joint innovation signals close partnerships. Regional proximity of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to the European Union (EU) defines its research and development objectives. These objectives are additionally subjected to the USA’s geopolitical strategy in this geographical area. Hence, CEE’s limited resources require limited resources make international innovation cooperation. This paper aims to analyse whether and how CEE countries make international innovation cooperation decisions.

This paper used Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) database of total patent applications filed to the patent cooperation treaty (PCT) with co-applicants from abroad, where co-patents with at least one foreign inventor present a measure of international innovation partnership. A vector autoregression analysis and impulse response function were used to analyse international innovation partnership choices of eight CEE OECD countries for the period 1990–2018.

Innovation with the EU is of collaborative nature, commonly displaying complementary properties with the rest of the examined innovation partners, while co-patenting with the Russia and China act as substitutes or complements. Co-patenting with Russia is the most versatile, displaying both properties of collaboration and competition. Some countries exhibit complementarity in co-patenting activities with multiple partners. The significance levels of these relationships vary, indicating varying degrees of impact. Overall, these findings highlight the complex dynamics of co-patenting activities and the influence of different partners on countries’ collaborative innovation strategies.

In addition to significant relationships, insignificant relationships as well as those that could bring about greater synergy are flagged in the paper. Those relationships portray possible direction into which national funds could be channelled to incite cooperation between different sectors and countries, especially as innovation partnerships are not always successful and require a long time period to materialise.

By examining bilateral innovation partnerships, this study provides an insight into the strategic political and economic spheres of influence in the CEE region.

Recently, authors have determined varieties in the development of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within Europe. This chapter examines similarities and differences in sustainability and related CSR developments in two contrasting European countries, namely Germany (industrialized society) and Croatia (transitional society). It has been argued that sustainable development is an industrial phenomenon common among Western European countries and the USA, often marked as post-industrial societies, and usually not observed in post-socialist and transitional societies which are confronted with an inner need for economic, political, and overall (re)structuring. Concerning differences within Europe, the concept of sustainable development in general and CSR concepts, in particular, have been described in the literature as less advanced in Eastern European countries than in Western European countries. Taking into account socio-cultural influences on the way CSR is understood and practiced, this study discusses this assumption and also addresses the question whether CSR is differently developed and not implicitly less developed.

As an illustrative example, a small empirical study was conducted to examine whether consumers in Croatia are actually less prepared for CSR, and, on the other hand, whether they just focus on different dimensions of CSR than consumers in Germany. In more detail, it examined differences in participants’ attitudes, social norms, and perceived level of control with regard to sustainable fashion consumption between German and Croatian consumers.

The study’s findings support the assumption of previous studies that consumers’ lack of interest in CSR and knowledge deficits in this regard are likely to be a barrier for CSR development in Croatia. Yet, it also illustrates that the CSR development in Eastern European countries should not automatically be seen as less advanced but in some parts just as different. Findings from the study on differences with regard to the importance of different sustainability dimensions, namely the social and environmental dimension of CSR, support the assumption that the way CSR is understood and practiced differs due to socio-cultural differences.

As the understanding and development of CSR seem to depend on the socio-cultural context, further research is needed to examine which concepts are present in Croatia concerning sustainability and CSR.

The findings provide information on the current status of CSR development and sustainable development in two differently governed nations of the EU, namely Germany and Croatia. Resulting practical implications for CSR strategies of companies and interventions to support CSR development and sustainable consumption patterns in both countries are discussed.

Comparative CSR studies, especially within Europe, are in general rare and in particular, this study is one of a so far very limited number of studies on CSR in Eastern Europe.

This paper aims to examine the impact of political uncertainty and instability caused by the 2011 Egyptian revolution on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of Egyptian firms. The study provides empirical evidence to support the link between political instability, financial performance, stock market uncertainty and CSR in the post-revolution context of Egypt.

Data on CSR practices in Egypt were collected through a survey of Egyptian firms and content analysis of annual reports from publicly traded firms. The final survey sample consisted of 99 listed Egyptian companies. Structural equation modeling was performed to examine the relationship between the variables of this study.

The results of the study show that political instability is perceived to have a significant positive effect on the CSR practices of Egyptian firms. The results also reveal that the financial performance of firms is perceived not to be affected by the political instability after the 2011 Revolution as opposed to stock market uncertainty, which is perceived to be significantly affected. However, financial performance and stock market uncertainty have a significant positive influence on the CSR practices of Egyptian firms.

This paper capitalizes institutional theory to capture the complex interactions between organizations and their external institutional environments. Previous studies tackling CSR in unstable political environments in the African context focused on countries with prolonged periods of violent conflict and on more localized forms of conflicts. Yet, little is known about CSR during the occurrence of different types of political instabilities in other African countries.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Chinese pharmaceutical sector through three levels: policy level, enterprise level, and technology level.

The authors explore the environmental impacts, which include political, social, and economic factors, study enterprise‐level strategies on international technology transfer and carry out a trend analysis on the technology development in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry.

The results indicate that China is emerging in the biopharmaceutical industry. While there are several steps to be taken at different levels, including policy, enterprise, and technology, the country is presenting a potential for the future. The paper outlines the gaps in each area.

The paper provides a very good outline against which any emerging economy could review its potential in the pharmaceutical industry.

Effective operations management systems (OMS) measurement remains a critical issue for theorists and practising managers (Neely, 2005; Bititci et al., 2012). Traditional labor efficiency measures sufficed when all that was made could be sold or when mass production systems filled warehouses with stock and the OMS had little relationship with “the consumer.” Modern manufacturing systems require a different form of flow optimization (beyond labor efficiency) measurement (Schmenner, 2015). The essential unit of measure for all OMS designs is the optimal use of time for process value adding and the flow of materials into and from the conversion process. Timely flow, therefore, satisfies the needs of multiple organizational stakeholders including cash flow (accounting), consumer reaction times (marketing) and the general steady state flow of materials (sales and supply chain). The purpose of this paper is to present the results of testing a new performance measure of operations flow effectiveness (OFE) with ten purposively selected cases.

The paper is theory building using ten, purposively selected, longitudinal case studies drawn from the UK high-value manufacturing (HVM) sector using a pluralist methodology of interviews, observation and secondary data.

The OFE measure provides a holistic view of material flow through the input-process-output cycles of a firm. The measure highlights OMS design weaknesses and flow inhibitors that reduce cash flow using a time-based approach to measuring OMS performance. The study validates the OFE measure and has identified six key design elements that enable high flow performance.

The paper tests a new process-focused flow performance measure. The measure supports a holistic approach to the manufacturing enterprise and allows different OMS designs to be evaluated so that organizational learning may be enacted to support performance improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges and opportunities for the transition to a knowledge-based economy in the Arab region.

Both descriptive and comparative approaches are used, together with the framework and definition of “knowledge-based economy” often used in the international literature to examine the challenges and opportunities for a transition to a knowledge-based economy in the Arab region.

The findings support the hypothesis concerning the challenges and opportunities for transition to a knowledge-based economy in the Arab region. This transition is seriously impeded by several political, social, economic, institutional and organisational obstacles and impediments. Overcoming the major challenges hindering the transition to knowledge-based economies will involve changing the economic structure by shifting from (rent-seeking) natural resources-based (oil) economies to knowledge-based economies in the Arab region.

This paper is valuable because it fills the gap in the Arab literature by presenting a more comprehensive analysis and investigating the challenges and opportunities for the transition, which previous literature has failed to adequately discuss. Moreover, the paper supports the efforts aimed at enhancing knowledge-based economies in the Arab region. The findings imply that it is essential for the Arab region to overcome challenges by implementing sound strategies for their transition to knowledge economies and improving and enhancing appropriate investments in human capital, effective institutions, relevant technologies and innovative and competitive enterprises to facilitate such a transition.