Giovanna Magnani

The Performance Consequences of Manufacturing Outsourcing: Review and Recommendations for Future Research

Many manufacturing firms (e.g. Apple and Nike) now outsource some or all of their manufacturing activities to independent suppliers rather than continuing to undertake them in-house. Clearly these firms perceive this externalisation of production to be a performance-enhancing strategy, but what are the performance consequences in practice? In this chapter, we review and critique the extant academic literature on the performance consequences of manufacturing outsourcing, and note that the empirical findings have yielded mixed results. We argue that outsourcing has potential impacts upon a number of ‘performance’ outcomes, including inter alia financial performance, productivity/efficiency, sales/market share, costs of production, business performance and innovation. We further argue that many of the empirical studies have flawed designs, and make a series of methodological recommendations to guide future empirical work.

Theoretical Foundations of International Entrepreneurship: Strategic Management Studies

Entrepreneurial firms are considered as enterprises led by the entrepreneur-founder or managed by corporate entrepreneurs who have recognized and successfully exploited a business opportunity, assuming risk-taking, innovative, and proactive decisions. This strategy is pursued by means of the entrepreneurial process whereby opportunities, unique resources, and organizational assets are combined and converged to support each other.

Modeling in the Macroeconomics of Financial Markets

Since the stock price bubble of 1920 and the following 1929–1933 Great Depression, financial crises have become increasingly frequent and globalized. When in the late 2007 the Global Financial Crisis began to show the flawed characteristics of the US capitalist system while spreading throughout all other economies of the world, the ideas of the post-Keynesian School of Economics – a school of economic thought having its origins in The General Theory – and in particular, those of Hyman Minsky, became prominent. Minsky’s conception of “crisis-prone markets” has become fundamental not only to interpret the 2007 credit crunch – as well as a sort of “ignored prediction” – but also to elucidate the features of the post-modern capitalistic system and its evolution. This chapter begins with a review of Minsky’s thought on the inherently unstable nature of capitalism. It then examines Irving Fisher’s debt deflation model and its application to interpret financial crises and recessions. A reflection on the issues of finance-led capitalism in the neo-liberal era completes the first part of the chapter where it is argued that the Minskyian model, if integrated with the social structure of accumulation theory, is very relevant for interpreting the causes and the evolution of the 2007 crisis. The second part of the chapter progresses with the investigation around the constructs of risk and uncertainty, and their modeling in Economics and Business Studies.

Theoretical Foundations of International Entrepreneurship

The difficulty of considering International Entrepreneurship as an effective domain of academic research is reflected by the lack of a general and widely accepted definition of the subject. Nevertheless, the meaning and scope of the term ‘International Entrepreneurship’ has evolved during the last decade and academic interest in the topic has grown.

International Entrepreneurship: From Parent Disciplines to Developing Its Way

International entrepreneurship emerged relatively recently in the literature scenery, leveraging a set of parent disciplines. After almost 30 years, this field is still growing and achieving increasing autonomy from its parent streams of research. In this final chapter, we intend to outline the major traits of this discipline, particularly in the perspective of international entrepreneurial organizations. In doing this, we do not neglect neither overlook the role of the key decision makers, i.e., the entrepreneur(s). We acknowledge that among the building blocks of international entrepreneurship there are – first and foremost – people like entrepreneurs, who explore and exploit opportunities by means of organizations. We also acknowledge – and emphasize – that decision making in entrepreneurial firms happens in conditions of uncertainty. Finally, we discuss international entrepreneurship as a process in time, which is not confined solely at the start of a firm, neither at only one typology of organization. It spans over time over the life of firms and encompasses different organizations. If entrepreneurship extends its domain, we need to point out which are its distinctive features. We frame this discussion around some key topics: the context of entrepreneurial decisions (uncertainty); the decision makers; the international entrepreneurial organization: its relationship with time and space; the international entrepreneurial organization: learning, capabilities, exploration and exploitation of opportunities and its dynamics over time.

Theoretical Foundations of International Entrepreneurship: International Business Studies

Both entrepreneurship and international business are fields of research that have seen an increasing number of studies during the last few decades. Entrepreneurship and international business are strictly inter-related because entering and venturing into foreign markets are viewed as entrepreneurial activities for the firm (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; Zahra et al., 1999; Ibeh and Young, 2001; Zahra and George, 2002a). Internationalization is the growth of the firm out of its national boundaries and regards why and how growth in foreign markets happens.