Decades of research on market entry modes: What do we really know about external antecedents of entry mode choice?

The choice of a mode of market entry is a critical component of the internationalization strategy, and numerous empirical studies have focused on this topic. Prior research, however, has provided mixed empirical evidence and thus, is difficult to interpret and review.This study examines the external antecedents of the choice of entry mode by meta-analyzing data from 72 independent primary studies. We focus on the decision between wholly owned subsidiaries and cooperative entry modes. For each variable, hypotheses about the theoretically expected direction of effect are posited and tested.We find a strong positive relationship between power distance as a cultural trait of the firm's home country and the propensity to establish a wholly owned subsidiary. On the other hand, we find a negative association between country risk, legal restrictions, market growth, and market size and the preference for wholly owned subsidiaries. We extensively discuss the implications of the meta-analytical results and investigate moderating effects of industry type and the time of the study. The relationship between income level of the host country and entry mode depends, to some degree, on the industry type. Service companies exhibit a negative relationship between income level and wholly owned subsidiaries, while manufacturing companies show a positive relationship.     

The Dynamic Pivot Mechanism

We consider truthful implementation of the socially efficient allocation in an independent private‐value environment in which agents receive private information over time. We propose a suitable generalization of the pivot mechanism, based on the marginal contribution of each agent. In the dynamic pivot mechanism, the ex post incentive and ex post participation constraints are satisfied for all agents after all histories. In an environment with diverse preferences it is the unique mechanism satisfying ex post incentive, ex post participation, and efficient exit conditions. We develop the dynamic pivot mechanism in detail for a repeated auction of a single object in which each bidder learns over time her true valuation of the object. The dynamic pivot mechanism here is equivalent to a modified second price auction.     

Asylum Legislation and Asylum Applications: A Geographical Analysis of Belgian Asylum Policy by Country of Origin (1992‐2003)

In many European countries a traditional policy and legal response to an undesirable increase of asylum applications has been the change of asylum law and procedures. By making it more difficult to obtain asylum and refugee status, the attractiveness as a possible country of asylum is believed to diminish. In the period from 1992 to 2003 three major revisions of the Belgian asylum procedure were enacted. When speaking in absolute figures these changes resulted in a certain decrease in the number of asylum applications filed. However, upon a closer examination of the number of asylum applications per country of origin, the effects appeared to be quite differential. Hence, factors other than geographical ones, such as the location of the country of origin or distance, must be decisive for the effect of a change in legislation on the number of asylum claimants coming from one particular country. Nevertheless, it has been possible to distinguish seven clusters of countries of origin where similar developments in patterns of asylum applications and shifts therein, depending on changes in asylum law, can be seen.     

Comparison of multiple imputation and two-phase logistic regression to analyse two-phase case–control studies with rich phase 1: a simulation study

Two-phase case–control studies cope with the problem of confounding by obtaining required additional information for a subset (phase 2) of all individuals (phase 1). Nowadays, studies with rich phase 1 data are available where only few unmeasured confounders need to be obtained in phase 2. The extended conditional maximum likelihood (ECML) approach in two-phase logistic regression is a novel method to analyse such data. Alternatively, two-phase case–control studies can be analysed by multiple imputation (MI), where phase 2 information for individuals included in phase 1 is treated as missing. We conducted a simulation of two-phase studies, where we compared the performance of ECML and MI in typical scenarios with rich phase 1. Regarding exposure effect, MI was less biased and more precise than ECML. Furthermore, ECML was sensitive against misspecification of the participation model. We therefore recommend MI to analyse two-phase case–control studies in situations with rich phase 1 data.     

Predicting ecstasy use among young people at risk: a prospective study of initially ecstasy-naive subjects

Our aim is to identify predictors of first-time ecstasy use in a prospective study among young people at risk. As part of the multidisciplinary Netherlands XTC Toxicity Study (NeXT), we monitored 188 subjects aged > or = 18 who were ecstasy-naive at baseline but seemed likely to start taking ecstasy in the near future. After an 11- to 26-month follow-up period, 160 respondents remained (85.1%; mean age 21.0 years, 58.1% females): 65 who took ecstasy at least once (ecstasy users) and 95 non-users. At baseline and four times during follow-up, respondents completed self-report questionnaires. Cox regression analysis was used to examine the effects of baseline respondent characteristics on incident ecstasy use. Development of peer group ecstasy use was analyzed by logistic regression. Intention to use ecstasy, low education, and current weekly cannabis use independently increased the hazard rate for first ecstasy use. Although ecstasy use among peers at baseline was not a predictor, the proportion of ecstasy users with ecstasy-using peers increased markedly during the study. Our results suggest that targeted prevention activities should focus in particular on young people who have strong intentions to take ecstasy, especially if they are also regular smokers of cannabis.     

Container Scheduling: Complexity and Algorithms

We consider the transport of containers through a fleet of ships. Each ship has a capacity constraint limiting the total number of containers it can carry and each ship visits a given set of ports following a predetermined route. Each container has a release date at its origination port, and a due date at its destination port. A container has a size 1 or size 2; size 1 represents a 1 TEU (20‐foot equivalent unit) and size 2 represents 2 TEUs. The delivery time of a container is defined as the time when the ship that carries the container arrives at its destination port. We consider the problem of minimizing the maximum tardiness over all containers. We consider three scenarios with regard to the routes of the ships, namely, the ships having (i) identical, (ii) nested, and (iii) arbitrary routes. For each scenario, we consider different settings for origination ports, release dates, sizes of containers, and number of ports; we determine the computational complexity of various cases. We also provide a simple heuristic for some cases, with its worst case analysis. Finally, we discuss the relationship of our problems with other scheduling problems that are known to be open.     

Socio-political,cultural and economic preferences and behaviour of the social and cultural specialists and the technocrats. Social class or education?

Do the social and cultural specialists differ from the technocrats and other social classes with respect to their socio-political, cultural and economic preferences and behaviour? If they do, is this attributable to their level and field of education? The social and cultural specialists are assumed to form ?new’ social class and the technocrats ?old’ social class. A typical social class should differentiate itself with respect to moral attitudes, socio-political behaviour and lifestyle forms. To reveal whether these assumed classes are indeed typical classes, we have studied a variety of socio-political, cultural and economic preferences and behaviour of members of these social classes using the Family Survey of the Dutch Population (FSDP) 1992, 1998, 2000 and 2003. To unravel the net differences between the social and cultural specialists and the technocrats, we controlled for the field of study, the level of education and background factors. Taking these control factors into consideration, the social and cultural specialists differentiate themselves substantially from the technocrats in their socio-political and especially economic preferences and behaviour. With respect to their cultural preferences and behaviour, they do not differ significantly from the technocrats.     

Regulations,policies and practices concerning work stress in five European countries

Abstract

A comparative inventory of regulations, policies and practices in The Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Germany and France with regard to the prevention of work stress was carried out. In each country data were collected by means of interviews with key informants and through exploring relevant documents and literature. It was found that Sweden, The Netherlands and the UK—those countries with framework legislation in the field of health and safety—recognize stress as an important health and safety topic, whereas Germany and France do not yet recognize stress as an important policy issue. However, even in the first group of countries less attention is being paid towards psychosocial work characteristics when compared with traditional health and safety issues, such as noise, machine safety and toxic agents. There is a clear lack of well-documented (national) ‘examples of good preventive practice’, even in Sweden and The Netherlands. Recommendations are being formulated concerning type of legislation, guidance and information, monitoring and risk assessment, costs and benefits, examples of good practice and European networking.