Task-related and Partner-related Selection Criteria in UK International Joint Ventures

This paper identifies partner selection criteria in a sample of UK international joint ventures with Western European, US and Japanese partners. Rankings of selection criteria are derived for the sample using a typology that distinguishes between task-related and partner-related selection criteria. The most important task-related criteria are found to be access to knowledge of local market, access to distribution channels, access to links with major buyers and access to knowledge of local culture. The most important partner-related selection criteria are trust between the top management teams, relatedness of partner's business and reputation. A parsimonious set of selection criteria for the sample is provided by means of factor analysis. Hypotheses are tested on the relationship between the relative importance of selection criteria and a number of characteristics of the sample—partner nationality, industry of the joint ventures, joint-venture purpose, geographical location of the venture, initial approach for joint-venture formation and relative partner size. The greatest variation in the relative importance of selection criteria occurs with the geographic location of the joint venture.     

The Implementation of an International Market Servicing Strategy in UK Manufacturing Firms

This paper presents results from an empirical investigation into the impact of foreign market servicing strategies on the competitiveness of UK manufacturing firms in five industry sectors. Competitiveness is defined by performance, competitive potential and management process. Although the choice of foreign market servicing mode is highly constrained, there is a range of choice available to firms, although this choice is often reactive rather than proactive. The impact of market servicing switches on competitiveness is often profound, although it is not always positive. Moreover, these effects may be in different directions on the three components of competitiveness. Attention to foreign market servicing policies is crucial for achieving international competitiveness.     

Blazing new trails or opportunity lost? Evaluating research at the intersection of leadership and entrepreneurship

More than a decade ago, scholars formally conceptualized the potential synergy between leadership and entrepreneurship scholarship. Our work highlights research accomplishments occurring at the interface of these two intellectual areas as well as identifying untapped possibilities for continued research. We highlight how recent efforts have witnessed a mutual exchange of ideas that present opportunities benefiting both fields. Drawing from four key domains of entrepreneurship previously proposed to mutually inform future leadership research efforts, we make suggestions for integrating entrepreneurial opportunities, the roles of individual and entrepreneurial teams, the modes of organizing entrepreneurial ventures, and differing entrepreneurial environments with key trends important to leadership research, such as servant leadership and leader-member exchange theory. Overall, our work provides an assessment of the state of the art surrounding the coalescence of leadership and entrepreneurship research and sets an agenda for the next decade of research at this intersection.     

Interrogating institutionalisation and child welfare: the Irish case, 1939–1991*

ABSTRACT

The topic of institutionalisation and child welfare in Ireland has garnered increasing national and international public and scholarly attention over the past twenty years. This is not an Irish phenomenon. Governments internationally have utilised commissions to investigate a range of historical abuses against children and young adults, many in an institutional setting (see Age of Inquiry, http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/research/ageofinquiry/). One of the most recent shocking historical revelations opens the paper – the discovery of the burial of 796 children in a septic tank in a mother and baby home in Tuam, Co. Galway (http://www.mbhcoi.ie/MBH.nsf/page/index-en). Following this, the historical approach – a history of the present – is explained. A number of questions about the past use of institutions in Ireland are posed to help illuminate the importance of this issue to the present day. We consider the nature of institutionalisation and the development of law and policy prior to and after the Second World War. Our questions lead us to a discussion of three themes: the role of economics; parentage and gender; and the relationship between the State and the Church. We conclude with a commentary on why such interrogation of institutional care is important in the present.     

Social-ecological science in the humane metropolis

The Humane metropolis is a rubric to summarize and promote environmental and social quality in contemporary urban mosaics. Because cities, suburbs, and exurbs, as spatially extensive and connected socio-ecological systems, exhibit many negative features, the humane metropolis identifies a strategy to combat the ills and instill more positive and sustainable features and processes in urban systems. Because the humane metropolis as a program has arisen primarily from social motivations, there is the opportunity to articulate more explicitly the role that science can play in addressing the humane metropolis program and evaluating its success. A humane metropolis can be summarized as one that 1) protects and restores ecological services in cities and suburbs, 2) promotes physical and mental health and safety of residents, 3) enhances efficiency by conserving energy, matter, water, and time, 4) facilitates equity by being inclusive, as well as socially and environmentally just, and 5) maintains a sense of community and a sense of place. We clarify the nature of science as a contributor to the social program, pointing out the social values motivating science, and the role that scientific knowledge and metaphor play in linking science with the social program of the humane metropolis. We further identify roles that socio-ecological research can play in meeting the goals of the humane metropolis. We use examples of environmental history, watershed function and restoration, and environmental justice research and action from the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, Long-Term Ecological Research program. The humane metropolis as a social program benefits from scientific contributions that 1) expose hidden ecological processes in urban systems, 2) generate knowledge connecting people and institutions to the biophysical environment, 3) contribute to the civic dialog, and 4) bring scientific values to the prioritization and balancing of the goals of the humane metropolis.     

Compatibility of multiple goal programming and the maximize expected utility criterion

Assuming a decision maker accepts the basic axioms of von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theory and is therefore an expected utility maximizer, this paper argues that the domain of the decision variables in a multiobjective program should be altered in order to guarantee that it will be compatible with the maximize expected utility critierion. Stochastic dominance is employed to approximate this new domain, and for a certain class of decision problems it is shown that this approximation is very good.     

The Use of Native Categories in Management Research

This paper derives from the research project 'The Management of Cooperative Strategies', currently being undertaken by the authors. The authors are, respectively, a social anthropologist and an economist, who are trying to allow their different subject backgrounds to interact within the context of the research, and this paper is one result of this interaction. 'Native categories', or at least the idea of them under various other names, are an important notion within social anthropology, and this paper attempts to explore the usefulness, or otherwise, of the same idea within management research.     

Differentiating classroom climate concepts: Academic,management, and emotional environments

Abstract

Extensive research has validated the relationship between classroom climate and students’ social, motivational, and cognitive development. Despite improved methods of measurement, the construct itself is still nebulous and hard to delineate. One reason is that there are different dimensions to classroom climate. We examine the literature and suggest that there are three differentiable components: (1) academic, referring to pedagogical and curricular elements of the learning environment; (2) management, referring to discipline styles for maintaining order; and (3) emotional, the affective interactions within the classroom. While these components overlap, emotional climate is the least recognised or studied, and yet equally consequential. Based on our theoretical and empirical work we outline some of the characteristics of the emotional environment. We argue for the importance of treating emotional climate as a distinct aspect of classroom climate. As a concept, the emotional climate of the classroom is superordinate to other classroom climate domains, since it interfaces with the conventional academic and management elements of effective learning environments.     

Knowledge Accession and Knowledge Acquisition in Strategic Alliances: The Impact of Supplementary and Complementary Dimensions

This paper advances the concepts of knowledge accession and knowledge acquisition in strategic alliances by identifying supplementary and complementary dimensions to these knowledge transfer modes. Complementary knowledge transfer reflects the similarity of knowledge that the partners have and is conducted in pursuit of higher efficiency and productivity to enhance partner firms' existing competitiveness. Supplementary knowledge transfer occurs when partners each possess distinctive core competences and the information that is acquired or accessed increases the business scope of partners. As knowledge accession entails knowledge amalgamation that does not involve organizational learning, costs associated with the transfer process are lower and trust is easier to establish than in the case of knowledge acquisition. The paper reviews the implications of these transfer modes on trust building in alliances and their costs implications and presents a number of propositions for further exploration.