Gabriele Suder

Terrorism and the International Business Environment

This book was born from the editor’s conviction that a wide set of contributors should provide the economic and corporate sectors with guidelines, developed from rigorous research and case studies, to analyse those adjustments made necessary through international terrorism, as known since September 11th 2001. It argues that corporate asset protection and accurate business risk assessment is vital to the longevity, and resilience of business.

Towards An Understanding of Terrorism Risk in the MNE

Based on a literature review of terrorism and global business literature, this paper addresses those conditions that may lead to new considerations about risk and its management at policy and the MNE (multinational enterprise) level. How do MNEs adapt to the 09/11 ‐ type risk in strategic management that shapes choices made for internationalization and for international business operations? It is observed that MNEs increasingly enlarge the notion of political risk. We suggest the development of a strategic risk assessment that incorporates terrorism which in its threat, event and aftermath does not remain local or national, but influences investment, location, logistics, supply‐chain and other performance‐ linked decisions of the international value chain through an enlarged risk‐return evaluation. Using the OLI‐paradigm as a typology, we extend Dunning’s work by incorporating the terrorism dimension. We do so mainly through the analysis and distinction of the most vulnerable links in firms’ value chain in which adjustments need to be made in the face of terrorism threat, act and aftermath. This paper attempts to improve the understanding of international management in an era of global risk and uncertainty.

Learning and lobbying: Emerging market firms and corporate political activity in Europe

How do firms acquire the capabilities necessary to operate in the non-market environment? Though the field of non-market strategy has grown in prominence in the strategic management literature in recent years, most of the studies concern the political capabilities of developed country multinationals. This paper is an effort to explore the basis of the acquisition of corporate political capabilities by emerging market firms. It does so by adapting the concept to liability of foreignness and applying it to a non-market context. The non-market environment of the European Union is used here as the context.

International Business under Adversity

What is the role of international business in this dilemma? How and why do international corporations maximize value beyond core strategy and partners through corporate responsibility? This informative and accessible resource expands the readers’ understanding of the ways in which profit maximization, value creation and community benefit interconnect. How to respect the wider business settings and communities, the environment and encourage peace? Is this just another dream? This book clearly provides a starting point for upstream mitigation, in which collective action allows disruption to be avoided at its very roots. It shows the way into responsible business, as a downright condition for an enlightened self-interest for all parties to pursue.

Extreme case learning: the manager perspective on rare knowledge and capabilities development

International strategy is enhanced by organizations’ ability to learn in host markets; yet, it remains ambiguous how post-entry knowledge gaps between home – and host country shape MNE’s absorptive capacity. This article builds on the specific contributions of ‘extreme case’ internationalization to advance literature in this field. We foster the understanding of the role of rare knowledge and the mechanisms that link knowledge acquisition to absorptive capacity dynamics used in the internationalization path of multinational enterprises (MNEs). We opt for in-depth qualitative research into the post-entry phase of ‘extreme’ (thus particularly crude) international joint venture (IJV) investment, and analyze the perspective of managers from a developed economy MNE located in a high-risk, weak-institutions host country. The firm’s absorptive capacity and its interaction with external environments that are categorized into four distinct contexts are found to be contingent upon pro-active experiential learning, concurrent to managerial willingness and simultaneous organizational commitments to learning and to exploiting rare knowledge. We thus uncover managerial perceptions of a knowledge gap identified as host-country challenges and resulting managerial solutions, which reveal rare learning opportunities and knowledge exploitation dynamics. The capacity to compensate for knowledge gaps is a critical key within the design and consolidation of an alternative internationalization path for developed-country MNEs. This challenges the traditional risk–return–commitment dependencies in prior literature.

Strategic megabrand management: does global uncertainty affect brands? A post‐9/11 US/non‐US comparison of the 100 biggest brands

Purpose – The primary purpose of this study is to identify if and how international terrorism has altered the rank and value of brands, and whether the increasing uncertainty of globalizing risks need an adaptation of international brand management.Design/methodology/approach – The methodology for this study was exploratory and quantitative at the same time, and utilized longitudinal brand ranking and a cross‐sector and cross‐industry data in a comparative research design. Both descriptive and relational statistics are used to analyze the data.Findings – The key findings reveal that, in the five consecutive years after 9/11/2001, brands have experienced significant moderation in rank and value. A significant gap in the evolution of US and non‐US brands was found in this period of time. The evidence calls for brand management that reflects the risks that globalized at the same pace as brand reach.Research limitations/implications – The limitations to the study are that the findings cannot explore all possi...

Regional trade agreements: Non-market strategy in the context of business regionalization

Foreword (D. Baron) Part I: Theoretical Lenses on Mon-Market Strategy 1. Introduction: The evolution of non-market strategy in theory and practice (T.C. Lawton and T.S. Rajwani) 2. Political Knowledge and the Resource-Based View of the Firm (J-P Bonardi and R. Vanden Bergh) 3. An Institutional Perspective on Non-Market Strategies for a World in Flux (S. Feinberg, T.L. Hill, I. Sidki Darendeli) 4. How Regulatory Uncertainty Drives Integrated Market and Non-Market Strategy (A. Kingsley and R. Vanden Bergh) 5. A Politics and Public Policy Approach (D. Bach) 6. The Firm and International Relations Theory (S. McGuire) Part II: Non-Market Foundations and Structure 7. Corporate Social Responsibility (J.P. Doh and B. Littell) 8. Corporate Political Activity (A. John, T.S. Rajwani, T.C. Lawton) 9. Non-Market Strategies in Legal Arenas (A.A. Casarin) 10. Culture and International Investment (R. Mello) 11. Managing Business-Government Relationships Through Organizational Advocacy (H. Viney and P. Baines) Part III: Non-Market Impact and Performance 12. Environmental Performance and Non-Market Strategy: The impact of interorganizational ties (T. Graf and C.J. Kock) 13. Corporate Responsibility and Stakeholder Relationship Impact (C. Hillenbrand, K. Money, A. Ghobadian) 14. Strategic CSR, Value Creation and Competitive Advantage (J.G. Frynas) 15. Managing Non-Market Risk: Is it possible to manage the seemingly unmanageable? (J. Oetzel & C.H. Oh) 16. States, Markets, and the Undulating Governance of the Global Electric Power Supply Industry: Scholarship meets practice (S. Dorobantu and B. Zelner) Part IV: Non-Market Context and Challenges 17. Corporate Climate Change Adaptation: An emerging non-market strategy in an uncertain world (P. Tashman, M. Winn, J. Rivera) 18. Stakeholder Collaboration as a Catalyst for Development: Company-NPO partnerships in New Zealand (G. Eweje and N. Palakshappa) 19. Regional Trade Agreements: Non-market strategy in the context of business regionalization (G. Suder) 20. Wholly-Owned Foreign Subsidiary Government Relation-Based Strategies in the Philippines: regulatory distance and performance implications (G. White & T.A. Hemphill) 21. Non-Market Strategy in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Y. Akbar and M. Kisilowski) 22. Jeitinho Brasileiro: Adopting non-market strategies in Brazil (S. Perkins and I. Minefee) 23. Conclusion: Where next for non-market strategy? (T.C. Lawton and T.S. Rajwani)

Mind the gap: the role of HRM in creating, capturing and leveraging rare knowledge in hostile environments

Abstract Multinational enterprises (MNEs) have increasingly entered markets in less developed regions of the world afflicted with weak institutions and political conflict. Some are characterised by ‘extreme’ cases of institutional voids and terrorism, creating a hostile environment for the organisation and its people. This in-depth qualitative study of a service company, a European telecommunications joint venture in Afghanistan, seeks to shed light and build theory on the human resource management (HRM) dimension of managerial learning and knowledge acquisition in hostile environments, as part of the MNE’s organisational learning process. Specifically, we investigate how knowledge gaps can be addressed through supportive HR practices, and how knowledge classified as ‘rare’ can be captured and leveraged through HR interventions such as debriefing. We stipulate that HR practices and interventions adapted to hostile environments, together with expatriate willingness to learn and share new knowledge, play a critical role in the creation, capturing and leveraging of rare knowledge for subsequent use by the MNE in other hostile locations. The study has implications for international HRM and organisational resilience, under the proposition that competitive advantage can be gained through exploitation of rare knowledge acquired in hostile environments.

Managing managers: the evolving management story in context

The way organisations manage their managers is undergoing significant change. Despite this, it is a topic that has faced limited scholarly consideration. For decades, there was an evergrowing mountain of research on management that has moved our understanding forward, but much less attention has been paid to managers and less still to how they are themselves managed within organisations. This book attempts to fill this gap; it reviews the research conducted to date; and explores future research pathways. Our contribution is structured into 18 chapters; at the heart of each chapter is the notion that the world of managers has changed substantially since the ‘organization man’ of the 1950s. We have witnessed much excitement in the discussion about the future of management, with both pessimistic and optimistic views being put forward. Our attention was caught when, in the wake of delayering, downsizing, reengineering and the pursuit of leanness, the more gloomy perspective gained currency in the popular managerial literature. Some indeed have pronounced the end of management.

The business case for a free trade agreement between the European Union and Australia

ABSTRACT The free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the European Union holds the promise of strengthened political collaboration and increasing economic integration. Both Australia and the European Union note increasing bilateral trade and investment. Oftentimes, data does not take current trends in global-value-chain participation for intermediary goods and services movements into account. Behind this sit the cross-border strategies and activities of business entities, whether multinationals or large, small or medium-sized enterprises. This article provides an in-depth investigation of the premise stemming from an FTA for Australian business. What advantages can politics hope to support through a business perspective? What is the global-value-chain part of the story, and what are the business challenges ahead? How can economic policy help shape this FTA to foster a productive bilateral business environment in a geopolitical and geoeconomic context in which regionalisation has taken on new momentum? Specific focus is given to the analysis of the higher education sector and to agriculture. These are two of the leading sectors in this FTA debate. Generating business value means setting negotiation agendas to target tariff and non-tariff barriers to counterbalance ambiguity in the conditions that shape the global business environment.