Overcoming the liability of foreignness without strong firm capabilities — the value of market-based resources

The concept of “liability of foreignness” — the costs of doing business abroad — has been known and discussed since the mid-1970s. At the core of these discussions is the role that firm capabilities play in overcoming or limiting these costs. This raises the question of how firms with inappropriate, limited or constrained capabilities relative to their host environment overcome the liability of foreignness. This paper focuses on the subsidiaries of “emerging multinationals” and how they manage the demands of a technologically and economically highly developed host country. A host location with sophisticated markets and well-developed institutional infrastructure may be a highly challenging environment for firms that have grown their organizational capabilities in less developed contexts. This paper explores that situation and considers how resources available on the market — for example through supplier inputs — assist subsidiaries to benefit from their presence in a munificent location. Despite the acknowledged limitations of a transaction-based approach, this paper presents evidence that purchasing knowledge provides an accessible strategy for overcoming some liabilities of foreignness.     

Marriage migration: just another case of positive assortative matching?

It is a stylized fact that marriage formation involves positive assortative matching on education. We also find this in the case of immigrants, even when they tend to “import” their spouses and potentially trade off education for other favorable characteristics. For Pakistanis, we find positive compensating differentials in terms of high education to youth having adopted host country norms, when marrying a marriage migrant. This indicates that Pakistani marriage migrants pay a premium to be able to marry and live in Denmark. For Turks, individuals having source country norms pay a premium in order to import a partner, indicating that unspoiled traditional norms are traded off for education.

What explains frontline workers' views on poverty? A comparison of three types of welfare sector institutions

The study analysed views on poverty among Finnish frontline workers in three welfare sector institutions. Two different institutional logics, universal and selective, and two sectors, the public and the voluntary, were represented. A nationwide survey among social security officials, municipal social workers and diaconal workers was utilised (N = 2,124). The methods applied included factor analysis, the examination of means and multivariate analysis of variance. Frontline workers were found to support structural reasons for poverty regardless of institutional affiliation. Analyses, however, also revealed significant differences between the institutions, but not of the kind expected. Social security officials, working in a universal institution, were less likely to endorse structural factors and more likely to endorse individualistic poverty explanations than were social and diaconal workers. Type of education and personal political ideology, respectively, were also found to be of significant importance for poverty perceptions, independent of institutional logic.     

Orchestras as “Ensembles of Possibility”: Understanding the Experience of Orchestral Musicians Through the Lens of Communities of Practice

This article examines the professional culture of a UK symphony orchestra and the ways the musicians perceive themselves as a Community of Practice (CoP). The study draws on data from semi-structured interviews. Findings illuminated aspects of a CoP among the musicians, including having a shared purpose, valuing their collective endeavor, and experiencing tension between individual and collective development. These elements provide insights for our understanding of CoP, and highlight critical aspects of musical and interpersonal interactions that emerging professional musicians and advanced students need to develop and skillfully balance if they are to operate effectively within an orchestral CoP.     

Enterprise policy evaluation: is there a 'new' way of doing it?

Given that most economies are now in recession, policymakers are looking to small firms to act as engines of economic growth; this has led to a revived interest in the role of enterprise policy. The 'new' enterprise policy is systemic, promoting and shaping externalities and capabilities. At its core are R&D, innovation and education. It encapsulates a shift from direct intervention towards creating an enabling environment for small firms and entrepreneurship. At present there is a research lacuna regarding the evaluation of such policies. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by making two key contributions. First, I demonstrate that traditional enterprise evaluation metrics are too narrow: they focus almost exclusively on private firm impacts, rather than broader societal impacts caused by the pervasive nature of 'new' enterprise policies. Second, I illustrate how logic models could be expanded to account for these broader impacts.     

Measuring Youth Living Conditions in Europe: A Multidimensional Cross-Country Approach

Social Indicators Research - Argentina and Brazil report the highest incidence of the fear of crime across Latin America. Although the spread of crime and victimization may explain these trends...