Despite increased discourse on Guanxi, studies surrounding its relevance across different regions of China have not been undertaken. Whilst Guanxi may enable individuals to improve their business, avoid taxes and acquire resources; some have argued that its significance is declining as markets become more commercially developed. This school of thought considers Guanxi as an outdated model that promotes corruption, detracts business from the free-market and plays a limited role today. This study seeks to examine the pivotal role or absence of Guanxi across 17 provinces to determine whether or not Guanxi holds and still exists in modern day China.
The paper aims to identify the significance of humanitarian supply chain management considering multiple factors and variables. Primarily, it focuses on quality dimensions of information sharing such as timeliness, accuracy, completeness, credibility and adequacy. A review approach is adopted. Articles were selected from 2000 to 2019. It shows different challenges (externalities, humanitarian personal skills, understanding and lack of communication and understanding). It also provides a framework for reducing the difficulties linked with disaster relief operations. The article is the first to contribute to the literature on supply chain agility and supply chain sustainability. Its inclusion of different information quality parameters and its direct relationship with assessing supply chain agility and sustainability also serves as a novel approach in the humanitarian supply chain management. It shows that technical understanding, collaborative efforts, information and communication are crucial for ensuring supply chain agility and supply chain sustainability.
Past researches have well-documented the area of employee job satisfaction and performance in a conventional setting, but limited research has been done in exploring the factors that affect job satisfaction and performance of employees working in multicultural environments. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to fill this gap by identifying and examining different factors affecting job satisfaction and performance of the expatriate's faculty working in a multicultural environment. Data was collected from 258 expatriate faculty members working in three public universities of Saudi Arabia. Structural equation modelling was used with Amos 18 to analyse the data. Findings revealed that multicultural leadership style and organisational culture played a vital role in boosting expatriate faculty job satisfaction and performance. Furthermore, the findings explained that the organisational culture and a multicultural leadership style worked together and enhanced organisational commitment, which also further enhanced job satisfaction and performance of the expatriate faculty working in a multicultural environment. This study also suggested that the role of organisational culture is twofold, as it explained that organisational culture (supportive culture) influenced organisational commitment, as well as expatriate faculty job satisfaction. In addition, internal locus of control positively influenced expatriate faculty job satisfaction.
In international management research, cross-cultural qualitative studies are often faced with linguistic diversity, subtle cultural nuances and contextual ambiguity, all of which can complicate data interpretation and interrater reliability. This paper proposes that Artificial Intelligence, and particularly Large Language Models can provide vital support in addressing these challenges by aiding culture-sensitive coding. We develop a step-by-step process model in which Large Language Models are integrated into the interrater reliability workflow as collaborative partners rather than replacements for human coders. By leveraging the scalability, linguistic versatility and pattern-recognition capabilities of Large Language Models, researchers can achieve greater coding consistency, reduce cognitive overload and enhance sensitivity to cultural and contextual variations in qualitative data. Illustrated through a hypothetical example of cross-cultural networking behaviour, the model demonstrates how AI-assisted coding can amplify human judgment in iterative coding cycles, offering a more robust and inclusive approach to interrater reliability. In doing so, this paper advances methodological practice by showing how human-machine collaboration can refine culture-sensitive analysis and strengthen the validity of qualitative research in international management.
This multilevel study investigated the effect of national institutional environments on the relationship between corporate responsibility practices and financial performance in multiple European countries, controlling for firm-level predictors. By doing so, we demonstrate that neither institutional theory nor stakeholder theory is adequate to investigate results in a multilevel study, which is becoming the norm of the 21st century business world. As such, we develop the multilevel-pressures theory designed to handle the demands of multilevel analyses. It synthesises the essences of these two theories and expands upon them. To test our multilevel hypotheses, we conducted a survey of 2622 firms from 18 European countries representing different institutional contexts in terms of societal governance, European Union integration, and economic conditions. Hierarchical linear modelling results indicated that, consistent with multilevel-pressures theory, national institutional contexts exert multilevel moderating effects on the relationships between investor, local community and environmental corporate responsibility practices and firms' financial performance.
How the effectual and causal network strategies of internationally experienced firms evolve throughout the entry process into a new foreign market has received little attention in the literature. We address this limitation through a longitudinal and comparative exploratory case study of the network strategies of two internationally experienced Norwegian firms entering the same foreign market, China. One of the firms is a small and specialised firm that entered China through a low commitment mode of entry, while the other is a large and vertically integrated firm that entered China through a high commitment mode of entry. We find that in the initial entry stage the firms adopted different network strategies that were deeply anchored in their past experiences, while convergence towards a mainly causal network strategy tailored to their Chinese networks is observed in the post-entry stage. Based on the data, we infer that this convergence stems from the firms strengthening their network-specific experience and position, enabling them both to manage external resources more actively to further penetrate the Chinese market in the post-entry stage.
In this Research Note, it is argued that a plurality of relations can only insufficiently be tested with correlational methods such as regression analyses or structural equation models. Configurational thinking - as in Qualitative Comparative Analysis - promises to broaden our understanding by shifting the focus away from isolated variables and towards a case-oriented, holistic perspective. Contributions of configurational thinking are primarily embedded in breaking some basic assumptions of correlational methods, i.e., the linearity of effects, symmetry between constructs as well as unifinality, while emphasising causal complexity. By employing an illustrative application using job embeddedness theory, it is demonstrated how configurational thinking augments our comprehension of expatriates' job embeddedness in international assignments. It elucidates that different paths can potentially lead to identical outcomes, such as turnover or retention abroad. In order to advance the field of International Business, this Research Note eventually calls for methodological pluralism to align empirical investigations with existing theories. Additionally, it showcases the explanatory power associated with approaches that accept multiple causal paths leading to the same outcome (equifinality).
While recognising the importance of organisational culture for new ventures, research into its characteristics and how the country context influences it has been scarce. Finding persistent cross-country differences in entrepreneurial outcomes, studying the manifestations of organisational culture across countries might help explain these differences. Drawing on 84 interviews with founding CEOs, employees and investors in Germany and China, this study identifies different types of organisational culture grouped along the dimensions of the competing values framework. The study finds the types of organisational culture to be shaped strongly by internal relationships and external societal pressure, resulting in different organisational cultures per country. German interviewees focus on rational and people-oriented cultures, while Chinese interviewees combine contradictions such as stability and change, or flat hierarchies and a strong leader. This study adds to research on organisational culture and entrepreneurship by explicating organisational culture in a cross-country comparison of new ventures.
This paper examines the relationship between family ownership and investment decisions, and the effect that a family CEO has on these decisions. Efficiency in the allocation of capital investments has an impact on economic growth and productive capacity. We find that family control acts as a monitoring tool that enhances investment, bringing it to an optimal level. We also show that a family CEO with blood ties improves investment decisions in a family firm. This study confirms the positive effect of managerial ability on investment decisions in family firms and supports the moderating role of family CEOs in achieving optimal investment decisions under able managers. The results provide a valuable refinement to family-firm literature by analysing the role of family CEOs in moderating the influence of able managers. As far as we know, this is the first paper that addresses investment decisions, managerial ability and family CEOs in family firms.
This study examines the effect of acquisitions worldwide on R&D intensity of acquiring firms. Acquisitions on one hand could help acquirers with accessing innovation capabilities of target firms. On the other hand, R&D intensity of acquirers decreases after acquisitions because of integration problems between the acquirer and the target. The results do not show strong evidence that R&D intensity significantly changes after acquisitions in general. Industry relatedness and the listing status of targets do not seem to matter in regards to acquirers’ future R&D intensity, either. However, R&D intensity appears to be influenced by whether or not acquirers operate in industries with high R&D intensity. Moreover, R&D intensity of acquirers increases after cross-border acquisitions when cultural distance is high and the income level is similar between the acquirer and the target countries. An increase in R&D intensity is more pronounced when acquirers are not American firms.
