Dirk Michael Boehe

CSR in the Global Marketplace: Towards Sustainable Global Value Chains

Purpose – The main purpose of this article is to identify some emergent issues when sustainability is introduced into global value chains. These issues deal with the conditions under which a sustainable global value chain might gain international competitiveness.Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory research was conducted, based on a case study. The main players of the JOBEKs Global Value Chain were identified and interviews were carried out with representatives of these players. A thematic content analysis was developed, supported by Atlas TI software, using interview data and documents.Findings – Three main themes have emerged, which can be considered as underlying issues of an emerging concept that the authors call the “sustainable global value chain”. These are: bargaining power between the chains players; a differentiation strategy along the global value chain; and a collaborative awareness‐building process along the global value chain.Research limitations/implications – Although the finding...

Collaborate at home to win abroad: How does access to local network resources influence export behavior?

By drawing on the resource‐based view and on elements from social network theory, we use a sample of southern razilian small and medium‐sized furniture manufacturers to find evidence for the hypothesis that access to local network resources, facilitated by a firms membership in an industry association, strongly predicts the propensity to export. Likewise, we find that a firms local collaborative intensity is positively related to its export intensity and that both relations are moderated by the firms distance from the local networks center. This study contributes to the literature on how local collaboration may facilitate overcoming export barriers.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT IN EMERGING MARKET SUBSIDIARIES — THE INFLUENCE OF AUTONOMY AND INTERNAL MARKETS ON SUBSIDIARY ROLES

Emerging market subsidiaries constitute an increasingly important asset for the innovative activities of multinational corporations (MNCs). This study examines how different types of these subsidiaries may be integrated into global RD (2) subsidiaries which develop new products for global or other emerging markets have competitive relationships with peer MNC units. Likewise, the results provide some preliminary support for an instrument which measures competition among MNC unit. Based on a comprehensive classification framework, the study puts forward some recommendations for MNC technology management regarding how subsidiary product development units may extend their market scope and technological capabilities.

Supervisory styles: a contingency framework

While the contingent nature of doctoral supervision has been acknowledged, the literature on supervisory styles has yet to deliver a theory-based contingency framework. A contingency framework can assist supervisors and research students in identifying appropriate supervisory styles under varying circumstances. The conceptual study reported here develops a contingency framework of supervisory styles and thus identifies functional relationships between organisational, relationship and research task variables on the one hand, and the supervision process and product dimensions on the other. Drawing on the organisational behaviour stream of contingency theory and operating under the positivist paradigm, the framework assumes that no single supervisory style is effective in all situations. The paper contributes to the supervision and higher education literature by deriving theoretical propositions from the contingency framework and by providing practical guidelines for supervisors and research students.

CSR-based Differentiation Strategy of Export Firms From Developing Countries An Exploratory Study of the Strategy Tripod

This study investigates the influences of the strategy tripod, an established concept in the international business (IB) literature, on a corporate social responsibility (CSR)-based differentiation strategy for export firms. This strategy is conceived as consisting of product-level and firm-level CSR. Using a sample of 195 Brazilian export firms, the authors find that innovation capabilities, international market exposure, and institutional pressures significantly influence product-level CSR; however, the latter two factors influence firm-level CSR only through their mediating effects on product-level CSR. This study contributes to the existing CSR and IB literature in three ways. First, it integrates and systematizes the factors influencing CSR-based strategies into the three categories represented by the legs of the strategy tripod to help elucidate the previous research on the factors that drive CSR. Second, it suggests that exporters’ CSR strategies can be affected by social and environmental institutions based outside their home countries. Third, this study contributes to filling an important empirical gap in the research on CSR by focusing on export ventures from emerging countries.

In-house off-shoring of product development by MNCs

This paper deals with in-house off-shoring of product development activities, here defined as the cost and efficiency motivated shifting of product development projects within the network of multinational companies (MNC) to low and medium wage countries. The aim of the paper is to develop and test a succinct model which is based on transaction cost reasoning and which explains how and why different governance forms can be combined in order to reap efficiency gains in off-shoring. The results from a structural equations model suggest support for a configuration which positively associates in-house off-shoring with local outsourcing and negatively associates in-house off-shoring with local cooperation in product development. The results are moderated by size and age of the MNC subsidiary, suggesting that larger subsidiaries are more likely to become an offshore destination and to outsource part of their product development. I argue that this combination of governance forms increases scale, flexibility and speed to market while reducing costs and knowledge leakage hazards. The results imply that the internalization theory should be extended in order to take account of off-shoring and its distinctive characteristics.

Influências ambientais e inovação de produtos: estudo de casos em subsidiárias de multinacionais no Brasil

The objective of this study is to identify and understand the influences of the organizational environment on the process of product innovation as well as to propose a scheme to classify these different forms of influences. Product innovations are based on a firms technological capabilities which, in turn, result from organizational learning processes. Contrasting approaches which study internal learning processes, this article focuses on external stimuli for innovation from the subsidiarys organizational environment - namely, the task, institutional and corporate environment. Combining these three organizational environments results in a typology of eight different categories which we illustrate using case examples of subsidiaries located in Brazil. In addition, we explore the hypothesis that the mutual reinforcement of stimuli from several environment categories contribute to the sustainability of a subsidiarys innovative activities. Thus, observing changes in these three environments may help to explain why the subsidiarys innovative activities are reduced, eliminated or enhanced.

Experience, resources and export market performance: the pivotal role of international business network ties

Purpose Based on integrating learning, resource-based and social network theories, the purpose of this paper is to shed fresh light on the association between export experience and export performance by seeking to better understand the links between them, and assessing the boundary conditions, moderators, mediators, and non-linear relationships in greater depth. Design/methodology/approach This paper mobilizes a quantitative research design using a survey of Brazil-based exporters. The authors test the hypotheses proposed in this study by employing moderated mediation regression models. Findings The authors find support for a J-shape relationship between export experience and export market performance. In particular, the authors find that innovation and international marketing resources mediate the effect of export experience on export market performance, and the authors unveil that this mediation effect is contingent on the strength of international business network ties. Originality/value This study advances the export marketing literature by explaining how export experience drives export success in two ways: first, by clarifying the ambiguity in extant theoretical explanations and previous empirical findings regarding the shape of the relationship between export experience and export performance. Second, this study reconciles the disagreement as to whether superior export performance results from exporters’ existing resources or from their learning by exporting. Thus, the paper is valuable for scholars and export managers or policymakers alike by providing recommendations on how less experienced firms can overcome the initial period of weak export performance.

Desempenho de fusões e aquisições cross border: análise empírica do caso brasileiro

This study aims to investigate whether the cross-border acquisitions made by Brazilian companies over the past 15 years have improved their financial performance. Drawing on Institutional, Socio-cultural and Organizational Learning theories, this study develops and empirically tests several hypotheses on the determinants of M&A performance. The results demonstrate that the cross-border acquisitions of Brazilian companies improve their financial performance. Financial performance tends to be positive if the cultural distance between the countries of the acquiring and acquired companies is low to medium and if the institutional context in which the acquired company operates is developed. We also find that the relationship between the previous experience of acquiring companies in international M&As and the performance of a new cross-border operation follows an inverted U shape. These findings suggest that studies on international M&As should include the M&A experience of the acquiring firm as well as the institutional characteristics of its target countries.Adriana Bruscato Bortoluzzo, Maria Pia de Siqueira Garcia, Dirk Michael Boehe, Hsia Hua Sheng

Worldwide willingness to delegate and country labor quality

The purpose of this article is to examine how country workforce characteristics shape the willingness of managers to delegate authority to subordinates. Using data from worldwide surveys, we tested to what extent country-specific factors, such as workforce competence, motivation, and probity, shape the willingness of managers to grant decisional power to subordinates. The results show that the willingness to delegate across the 47 countries might be explained by a combined effect of workforce competence, motivation, and probity, labeled quality of country labor. It is argued that in countries where managers perceive that the labor quality is lower (lack of competence, motivation, and probity), the managerial willingness to hand over power to subordinates decreases. The findings of this study have both theoretical and practical implications for the managerial practice of firms doing business internationally. These findings will assist companies and managers to better understand why delegation might not work as expected in one country, whereas the same practice is both effective and indicated in other countries.