Business

O presente estudo tem como objetivo investigar o nivel de compliance dos requisitos de divulgacao de fatores de risco das empresas brasileiras listadas na B3 - Brasil, Bolsa, Balcao no segmento Novo Mercado, conforme requerido pela CVM atraves da Instrucao Normativa no 552/2014. Foi realizado por meio de pesquisa documental nos Formularios de Referencia. O tratamento dos dados foi realizado atraves de estatistica descritiva a fim de analisar o nivel de disclosure dos fatores de risco. Conforme os resultados encontrados, o indice de disclosure geral apresentou uma variacao de 0,77 a 0,98, evidenciando assim que as 122 empresas participantes da amostra divulgaram em seus formularios de referencia informacoes necessarias para a mitigacao de riscos aos stakeholders . A pesquisa mostrou tambem que dentre os setores de atuacao componentes da amostra, o de Tecnologia da Informacao apresentou o menor indice de disclosure 62,8% das. Os achados tambem indicam o mais elevado nivel de disclosur...

As part of their study on quality improvement initiatives in U.S. hospitals, the Economic and Social Research Institute and The Severyn Group conducted in-depth site visits at four top-performing hospitals from around the country to identify the factors that drive and challenge these institutions in their realization of quality goals. El Camino Hospital, located in Mountain View, Calif., was one of the hospitals selected for the study. The researchers determined that El Camino's success is primarily the result of two factors-an internal environment that constantly focuses on quality and a set of practical tools that promote good outcomes and quality improvement on a daily basis. Elements of these factors include strong leadership, high-quality nursing and physician staff, leading-edge technology and information systems, and sophisticated data analysis and performance monitoring systems. Click here to see the overview report.

Support for this research was provided by The Commonwealth Fund. The views presented here are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Commonwealth Fund or its directors, officers, or staff. Copies of this report are available from The Commonwealth Fund by calling its toll-free publications line at 1-888-777-2744 and ordering publication number 565. The complete report can also be found on the Fund's website at www.cmwf.org. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of The Commonwealth Fund. They would like to thank the people with whom they met in each of the states profiled in this report who were generous with their time and provided valuable information about the state coverage programs. The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) is a nonprofit organization that conducts research and policy analysis in health care and in the reform of social services. ESRI specializes in studies aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of social programs, improving the way health care services are organized and delivered, and making quality health care accessible and affordable. Rutgers Center for State Health Policy (CSHP) informs, supports, and stimulates sound and creative state health policy in New Jersey and around the nation. CSHP provides impartial policy analysis, research, training, facilitation, and consultation on important state health policy issues.

This brief assesses a temporary but important new federal subsidy for laid-off workers and dependents. Most working-age Americans and their families obtain health care coverage at the workplace and often lose it when they leave or lose their job. 1 The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986 (COBRA) addressed this gap by requiring sizeable group health plans to continue jobbased coverage for people losing eligibility. 2 COBRA enrollees have to pay the average cost of the employer plan, however, which deters enrollment. 3 In February 2009, Congress reduced this barrier to COBRA take-up by enacting a new, temporary federal subsidy of 65 percent of premium for job losers under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). 4 The ARRA subsidies have increased participation in COBRA, but to different extents in different populations. The first impact was a doubling of take-up, as reported by Hewitt Associates in

Many firms that employ low-wage workers cannot afford to offer an employee health plan, and many of the uninsured work for such firms. This article makes the case for an employer tax credit, administered by the Internal Revenue Service, as a way to extend health coverage to uninsured workers and their families. The permanent, fixeddollar, refundable credit would be available to all low-wage employers (those with average wages of $10 per hour and less), including those already offering coverage. The credit would be graduated depending on average wage: the maximum credit would equal 50% of the cost of a standard benefit package; the minimum would equal 30% of the package. It also would vary by family size and could be used to cover part-time and temporary workers. Participating employers would be required to pay at least 50% of the health insurance premium, proof of which would be shown on firms' tax returns. The paper provides justification for this approach. It closes with a discussion of strengths and weaknesses of this approach and alternative design features.

We are indebted to Dennis Hänsel, Thomas Weber, and Christian Wilde for their excellent computational assistance and their comments, which greatly helped us to improve the paper. Furthermore, we owe a debt to Mark Carey and René Stulz for their detailed and very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. We also gratefully acknowledge financial support by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and by the Center for Financial Studies at Frankfurt's Goethe University. In addition, we thank Andreas Jobst for helping us to set up the database and to discuss the intricacies of ABS markets, and Ralf Elsas for helpful comments. We are also indebted to market experts from major banks and agencies for their support and comments, in particular M. Hermann (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation [HSBC]), T. Weinelt (Commerzbank), S. Nicolaus and R. Froitzheim (Deutsche Bank), T. Althaus (Standard & Poor's [S&P]), S. Bund (Fitch), C. Benkert (JPMorgan), T. Klotz (Moody's), J. Wasmund (DWS Investment), C.-R. Wagenknecht and B. Specht (Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein [DrKW]). Furthermore, we have received numerous helpful suggestions during the 2004 NBER Conference on Risk in Financial Institutions in Woodstock, Vermont. We are particularly indebted to our discussant, Patricia Jackson, and to Gary Gorton, Phillipe Jorion, Hashem Pesaran, and Til Schuermann for their valuable comments and suggestions.

We study the relationship between choice homophily in instrumental relationships and individual performance in knowledge-intensive organizations. Although homophily should make it easier for people to get access to some colleagues, it may also lead to neglecting relationships with other colleagues, reducing the diversity of information people access through their network. Using data on instrumental ties between bonus-eligible employees in the equity sales and trading division of a global investment bank, we show that the relationship between an employee’s choice of similar colleagues and the employee’s performance is contingent on the position this employee occupies in the formal and informal hierarchy of the bank. More specifically, homophily is negatively associated with performance for bankers in the higher levels of the formal and informal hierarchy whereas the association is either positive or nonexistent for lower hierarchical levels.

This conceptual article builds on existing research on network analysis to examine the possibility that the self‐organizing tendencies of communication networks may endogenously affect the likelihood of informal communication between interdependent teams in new product development organizations. Although informal communication between teams emerges out of those teams' effort to coordinate their task interdependencies, the presence of common third parties in the communication network may shape the behavior of teams in ways that makes this communication network depart from the underlying network of technical interdependencies between the teams. In some cases, the presence of a common third party may reinforce the predisposition of interdependent teams to exchange information. In others, it may drive teams to enter exchanges without an apparent technical need to do so. Finally, and more importantly, the presence of a common third party may induce interdependent teams to neglect exc...

Network models of social control suggest that informal ties between managers can have an important role in helping these managers to catalyze cooperation in their task environment. By enhancing the managers' ability to coordinate their behavior towards third parties, networks can help them pose concerted demands on such parties, increasing the social pressure to cooperate for reluctant players and reducing behavioral uncertainty for cooperative ones. An analysis of project teams within the Italian subsidiary of a multinational high-technology firm shows that the intensity of communication among the managers coordinating a team increased the probability and the level of cooperation between managers and other team members, as well as between those team members. This paper examines the effect of informal communication between managers on their ability to elicit cooperation from people in their immediate task environment. While informal ties between interdependent actors have been often associated with their propensity to cooperate with one another , less attention has been paid to the effects of such informal ties on those actors' ability to elicit cooperation from third parties in their task environment. The topic is particularly relevant for managers, since securing cooperative behavior from other people is a crucial part of their role . In this paper, I argue that, by enabling managers to take concerted actions towards third parties, informal ties between those managers enhance their ability to elicit cooperative behavior from those parties. Drawing on network theories of social control and influence , I identify social mechanisms behind the effects of informal ties between managers on their ability to promote third-party cooperation and formulate hypotheses that specify observable outcomes of these effects. I test these hypotheses using data from project teams within the Italian subsidiary of a multinational high-technology firm.

This paper investigates how the structure of the informal communication network that results from efforts to coordinate task interdependence between design teams in complex product development projects moderates the effect of task interdependence on interteam communication. Drawing on theoretical mechanisms from the social network and knowledge transfer literature, as well as on recent empirical advances in exponential random graphs models of social networks, we examine how the presence of a common third party in the communication network affects the likelihood of technical communication between interdependent teams designing the components of a large commercial aircraft engine. Although task interdependence has a strong and significant effect on the likelihood of communication between teams, this effect is moderated by the presence of common third parties. The nature of this moderation depends on the position of the common third party within the triadic communication structure. Whe...

Research on social capital has stressed the advantages that networks can bring to managers and other economic actors. The enthusiasm with this "bright side" of social capital, however, neglects the fact that social bonds may at times have detrimental effects for a manager. This paper tries to correct the optimistic bias by looking at the "dark side" of social capital. Continuing benefits from social capital require that managers can adapt the composition of this social capital to the shifting demands of their task environment. This often implies the ability to create new ties while lessening the salience of some of the old bonds-if not severing them altogether. Available evidence, however, suggests that this ability may be encumbered by the same relationships purportedly responsible for the prior success of the manager. When and how this may happen is the central question we address in this paper. We argue that strong ties to cohesive contacts limit the manager's ability keep control on the composition of his network and jeopardize his adaptability to changing task environments. We test our ideas with data on managers operating in a special unit of a European high-technology firm.

Numerous new organizational forms have been proposed for ensuring the continuous strategic renewal of a firm. In essence, these forms are distinguished by: (1) their emphasis on bottom‐up entrepreneurship, and (2) their reliance on a co‐operative network that allows these entrepreneurial units to share their competencies with one another. One of the key behaviours required for the success of such an organization is employee empowerment. We argue in this paper that the legitimacy of corporate leadership during the restructuring of a traditional bureaucratic organization is crucial to its eventual transformation to one of the new organizational forms. The current wisdom of a two‐stage transformation process, where an authoritarian restructuring precedes the more participative revitalization, is thus challenged. The transformation may get stalled after the restructuring stage because of top management’s inability to empower the firm’s employees at will, having lost their trust during r...

The importance of an actor's network to his/her private benefits is well explored. Less well understood are the positive externalities of an actor's social capital-that is, whether it spills over and improves the outcomes of those to whom he or she is connected, creating broader, not just private, benefits. This study examines how investment bankers add value to one another in the course of everyday work. Our concern is with a banker's second-order social capital. The main question is whether being connected to a broker matters to the ability of a focal actor to add value to those around him/her. We argue and find that the importance of connecting to a broker is contingent on the broker's seniority relative to the focal actor. Networks of contacts who are of higher rank and/or the focal actor's leader positively contribute to the ability of the focal actor to add value. Second-order social capital does matter, when contacts are senior brokers.

The emergence of interorganizational networks is shaped by an endogenous dynamic between embedded organizational action and the social structure that emerges from that action. Organizations enter ties to access critical resources, but they rely on signals from the emerging network to decide with whom to form partnerships. Consistent with this image, the authors show that the probability of a new alliance between specific organizations increases with their interdependence, but also with their prior mutual alliances, common third parties, and centrality in the alliance network. The structural differentiation of the emerging network mitigates the effect of interdependence and enhances the effect of network centrality on new alliance formation.

This paper argues that the effect of dense social ties, or network closure, on a knowledge worker's performance depends on the predominant role this worker plays with his or her exchange partners in the relationships affected by that closure. Using data on informal exchanges among investment bankers in the equities division of a large financial services firm operating in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Americas in 2001, we find that network closure in relationships in which the banker acts as an acquirer of information increases his or her performance, whereas closure in relationships in which the banker acts as a provider of information decreases it. We also find that these effects are moderated by the bankers' ability to employ alternative means (such as formal authority) to induce the cooperation of exchange partners in their acquirer role, as well as by the extent to which the bankers can benefit from being free from the control of exchange partners in their provid...

When flowing through Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana, India, the Musi River picks up (partially) treated and untreated sewage from the city. Downstream of the city, farmers use this water for the irrigation of rice and vegetables. Treatment of the river water before it is used for irrigation would address the resulting risks for health and the environment. To keep the costs and operational efforts low for the farmers, the use of constructed wetlands is viewed as a suitable option. Towards this end, the paper investigates the interests and perceptions of government stakeholders and famers on the treatment of wastewater for irrigation and further explores the consumer willingness to pay a higher price for cleaner produced vegetables. Full cost recovery from farmers and consumers cannot be expected, if mass scale treatment of irrigation water is implemented.

On March 29, 2022, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was admitted to the East African Community as a new member. The country's civil wars and existing terrorist groups in its Eastern parts pose a major national security concern to Tanzania and the region. The paper analyzes the existing quantitative data that describes trade volume between the DRC and the EAC with a focus on Tanzania's benefit and national security concerns of the DRC's membership. It analyzes the existing literature and Armed Conflict Location and Data (ACLED) tool to identify national security threats to Tanzania and the bloc at large. It finds, among others, that DRC's membership is likely to have a positive effect on the EAC trade, as the bloc is expected to be a cheaper source for DRC's imports compared to the rest of the world. In turn, the DRC is likely to export even more primary commodities to the region, but some EAC countries may benefit more than others in this. It also points to security dynamics.

This study examines the relationship between government total health expenditure and the economic determinants for the demand of healthcare in Nigeria, covering the period 1990-2015. The main source of data utilized is from CBN Statistical Bulletin 2015 and World Development Indicators 2016. By employing the use of the multiple regression model as the main statistical tool of analysis, the study established that there exists a positive relationship between government total health expenditure and the economic determinants for the demand of healthcare in Nigeria except one of the variables which is aged dependency ratio that has a negative relationship with government total health expenditure. Based on the findings, the study recommends that there is need for the inclusion of health care facilities and skilled health personnel in the government health expenditure, to build centres across the country to care for the dependent aged in the society. Also, the enlightenment on health issue...

Technologies have revolutionized the way campaigns are developed in the digital medium, and how customers search for information and buy products or services. At the same time, the development of technologies has led to an exponential growth of information, a proliferation of data sources, and the emergence of new tools to support the process of building campaigns targeted at customers. In this context, there is a challenge to surmise that technologies can be the solution to improve communication and information dissemination through the development of digital marketing platforms. The platforms automate campaigns, by using and accessing information stored in the tourism and hospitality organizations' Data Warehouse, to perform data analysis that include data mining techniques, bringing this way economic benefits for these organizations. The present article proposes a methodological framework for the development of a Marketing Intelligence Automation system, with the objective to facilitate the management of an integrated marketing strategy for online channels of hospitality and tourism organizations.

This study aims to examine the factors that can affect the level of sustainability reporting on Islamic companies listed on the Jakarta Islamic Index. Sampling using purposive sampling. The number of observations that are of concern to this study are 55 observations from 2017 to 2021. The data were analyzed using linear regression analysis. Empirical test results show that profitability affects the sustainability report, leverage affects the sustainability report, company size affects the sustainability report and firm value affects the sustainability report.

In Data Storage as a Service (STaaS) cloud computing environment, the equipment used for business operations can be leased from a single service provider along with the application, and the related business data can be stored on equipment provided by the same service provider. This type of arrangement can help a company save on hardware and software infrastructure costs, but storing the company's data on the service provider's equipment raises the possibility that important business information may be improperly disclosed to others (1). Some researchers have suggested that user data stored on a service-provider's equipment must be encrypted (2). Encrypting data prior to storage is a common method of data protection, and service providers may be able to build firewalls to ensure that the decryption keys associated with encrypted user data are not disclosed to outsiders. However, if the decryption key and the encrypted data are held by the same service provider, it raises ...

The study was conducted during 2019-2021 to document the existing value chains of green gram in Bundelkhand region of India. The cost of production estimation showed crop to be profitable for farmers (1:2.61 BC ratio), however, poor uptake (10.9%) of improved varieties among farmers was recorded. An array of value chains actors and their inter linkages were engaged in furthering green gram from producers to consumers through four prominent channels. In addition, a number if enabling factors were observed to support green gram production in the region. Results indicated that producers added highest value to green gram (Rs. 2942.58/q to Rs. 3343.62/q), followed by processors (Rs. 1392.00/q to 2193.65/q) across all marketing channels. Processing component added highest share (29.28 to 35.55%) in total marketing cost across all the channels. Share of producer in consumer rupee for split grains (63.14%) and whole grains (72.78%) was lowest in marketing channel 4 wherein maximum actors we...

To increase consumers' conservation of energy and other resources, government agencies, utilities, and energy-related businesses can complement regulatory and market-based policies with simple and effective behavioral interventions grounded in extensive behavioral science research. In this article, we review 13 behavioral tools that we find especially promising. Collectively, these tools help meet four behavioral objectives: getting people's attention; engaging people's desire to contribute to the social good; making complex information more accessible; and facilitating accurate assessment of risks, costs, and benefits.

To develop effective protected area policies, scholars and practitioners must better understand the mechanisms through which protected areas affect social and environmental outcomes. With strong evidence about mechanisms, the key elements of success can be strengthened, and the key elements of failure can be eliminated or repaired. Unfortunately, empirical evidence about these mechanisms is limited, and little guidance for quantifying them exists. This essay assesses what mechanisms have been hypothesized, what empirical evidence exists for their relative contributions and what advances have been made in the past decade for estimating mechanism causal effects from non-experimental data. The essay concludes with a proposed agenda for building an evidence base about protected area mechanisms.

Payments for environmental services (PES) are often viewed as a way to simultaneously improve conservation outcomes and the wellbeing of rural households who receive the payments. However, evidence for such win-win outcomes has been elusive. We add to the growing literature on conservation program impacts by using primary household survey data to evaluate the socioeconomic impacts of participation in Costa Rica's PES program. Despite the substantial cash transfers to voluntary participants in this program, we do not detect any evidence of impacts on their wealth or self-reported well-being using a quasiexperimental design. These results are consistent with the common claim that voluntary PES do not harm participants, but they beg the question of why landowners participate if they do not benefit. Landowners in our sample voluntarily renewed their contracts after five years in the program and thus are unlikely to have underestimated their costs of participation. They apparently did not invest additional income from the program in farm inputs such as cattle or hired labor, since both decreased as a result of participation. Nor do we find evidence that participation encouraged moves off-farm. Instead, semi-structured interviews suggest that participants joined the program to secure their property rights and contribute to the public good of forest conservation. Thus, in order to understand the social impacts of PES, we need to look beyond simple economic rationales and material outcomes.

O presente trabalho discute o desenvolvimento e projeto de três produtos pecuários e respectivos processos de manufatura - os produtos são fabricados de materiais compostos végeto-poliméricos obtidos de uma combinação de resíduos de filmes plásticos e fibras vegetais. Este artigo se refere a um projeto de inovação tecnológica do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Programa de Formação de Recursos Humanos em Áreas Estratégicas (CNPq-RHAE). As atividades de pesquisa foram realizadas em parceria entre duas universidades federais brasileiras e um fabricante de embalagens plásticas flexíveis e possibilitou a elaboração de um plano para implantar uma nova unidade de negócios. Por fim, a nova unidade fabril está alinhada com a Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos (Lei Federal nº 12.305/2010), permitindo agregar valor aos resíduos industriais para produzir novos produtos pecuários. This paper discusses the development and design of three cattle raising products a...

Malaysia is known as a laggard in adopting environmental and social elements in projecting economies towards greener growth pathways. Accordingly, Malaysia should address this issue by directing efforts towards low-carbon and inclusive green economies rather than simply growing the economy faster. The service sector is regarded as the largest GDP contributor to economic growth. However, it demonstrates the relatively slower pace of green practices and thinking in Malaysian financial institutions. This study aims to examine the role of seven green human resource management practices as independent variables and environmental knowledge in explaining the pro-environmental behavior of employees. PLS-SEM was utilized to ascertain the causal effect between the variables, and the results were based on a survey collected from employees (N=366) in six Malaysia Development Financial Institutions (DFIs). The findings indicate that four out of seven independent variables have a positive direct effect on employee proenvironmental behavior (R² = 68.4 percent). On the other hand, the results suggest that environmental knowledge is not an important mediator or moderator in enhancing employee behavior within this study context. However, it is worth taking into consideration that this knowledge, if utilized properly through proper implementation of organizational green practices, will enhance employee pro-environmental behavior. In other words, the significant determinants should be improved, and the non-significant determinants should be looked closely upon and strategized properly to create the same positive impact on environmental behavior. This study has extended the research on employees in six Malaysian DFIs by examining the influence of the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity core constructs. These examinations resonate with the necessity to understand whether the constructs together with personal norms of the Norm Activation Model can

The Covid-19 pandemic led to dramatic consumer purchasing behaviour shifts when many nations declared the closure of all physical stores to stop the virus from spreading. As a result, consumers' purchasing behaviour has changed from brick-and-mortar to online shopping. This research examines the influencing factors that affect online consumers’ purchasing behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic. This research measures four independent variables: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, product price and trust. Two hundred thirty-eight online questionnaires were collected and analysed using the SPSS software. Each variable significantly affected online consumers’ purchasing behaviour among young adults. The most significant variable is perceived ease of use, which has positively and significantly influenced online consumers' purchasing behaviour. The findings of this study are needful for online marketers to understand online consumer purchasing behaviour during the Covid-...

Yo-Yo Machines are playful communication devices designed to help people feel socially connected while physically separated. Our response to a U.K. call for projects using previous research to create an impact during the pandemic, YoYo Machines make a long line of work on peripheral and emotional awareness available to the public in the form of devices they can build at home. By following simple online instructions (yoyomachines.io), people can make a pair of devices and send one to a friend or loved one—the devices are connected by the Internet, allowing simple communication at a distance

In the e-tailing context, little is known about ethical determinants of consumers' perceptions of the credibility of a retailer's website (i.e., website credibility). Thus, this study examines the impact of ethical issues (i.e., privacy, security, fulfilment, and non-deception) on website credibility and its subsequent influence on consumers' attitudes toward site and behavioural intentions. Results show that fulfilment and non-deception are related positively to website credibility, which ultimately influences consumers' attitudes toward retailer's website. However, security and privacy were not significant predictors of website credibility. Attitude toward the website is significantly related to purchase intent, revisit intent, and positive word-of-mouth.

of the Master’s Thesis Author: Niklas Tirkkonen Name of the Thesis: Integration of end-user research to mobile service development Date: 24.11.2008 Number of pages: 8 + 88 Department: Department of Electrical and Communications Engineering Professorship: S-38 Networking Technology Supervisor: Prof. Heikki Hämmäinen Instructor: Hannu Verkasalo Lic. Sc. (Tech.) Emerging data collection methods and end-user research processes can contribute to mobile service development. Controlled research platforms in which end-users, multidisciplinary research teams, and companies meet are suitable in experimenting with new business models, studying service adoption and measuring actual usage. Aggregated usage and survey data provide multiple data points than can be integrated to service development. This thesis constructs a framework of integrating end-user research to mobile service development. A living laboratory research platform provides a testing environment for prototype services and busines...

Australia's financial system is undergoing a period of substantial structural change. A number of interrelated factors are implicated: changes in the competitive forces within the sector, the introduction of new technology, and changing consumer demands. While these changes may have had positive impacts on most consumers, they have had a number of negative impacts, particularly for low-income consumers of financial services and for people located in rural and remote communities.

Late in 2000, I and others undertook some discussions with Dr David Cousins of the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) about research that could be conducted under the auspices of the ACCC on consumer and competition issues and Indigenous Australians. Subsequently, a number of organisations were invited to provide proposals to the ACCC to undertake such research for an initial 12-month period.

This study examines how capital expenditure (capex) affects Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting and how corporate governance moderates this effect. We use data from non-financial firms in the FTSE All Share index from 2012 to 2021 and measure ESG disclosure with the Bloomberg ESG Disclosure Score, capex with logarithm of the ratio of capital expenditure to total assets, and corporate governance with a composite index based on Board Size, Independent Board, Board Diversity, and Audit Committee Non-Executives. We also examine the non-linear and threshold effects of capex on ESG disclosure with spline regression models. We find that capex is positively linked to ESG disclosure and that this association is robust for firms with better corporate governance. Our findings imply that capex improves ESG performance and impact and that corporate governance enables ESG communication to stakeholders. Our research advances the existing literature by revealing the link between c...

online) publishes high-quality articles in all areas of business, finance, accounting, economics, management, marketing and related fields. Theoretical, empirical and applied manuscripts are welcome for publication consideration. The Journal is published five times per year by the Institute for Business and Finance Research, LLC. All papers submitted to the Journal are double-blind reviewed. The Journal is distributed in print and through EBOSCOHost, ProQuest ABI/Inform and SSRN. The Journal is listed in Cabell's directories. The Journal is also indexed in the American Economic Association's Econlit, e-JEL and JEL on CD, Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and Colciencias. The views presented in the Journal represent opinions of the respective authors. The views presented do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editors, editorial board or staff of the Institute for Business and Finance Research, LLC. The Institute actively reviews articles submitted for possible publication. However, the Institute does not warrant the correctness of information provided in the articles or the suitability of information in the articles for any purpose. This Journal is the result of the collective work of many individuals. The Editors thank the members of the Editorial Board, ad-hoc reviewers and individuals that have submitted their research to the Journal for publication consideration.

The lack of valid and reliable measures of firm-level vertical and horizontal internationalization is impeding the development and testing of hypothesized relationships between these respective dimensions of internationalization and a range of important MNE characteristics, actions, and effects. Through a series of qualitative and quantitative studies using data collected from senior MNE executives (total N=3,146), we develop and validate a scale to measure both vertical and horizontal firm-level internationalization. Subscales for each type of internationalization prove to be unidimensional, reliable, temporally stable, and to have predictive, cross-cultural, crosssectoral, and discriminant validity.

Tables 3.1 Definitions of cheating, broadly defined, and examples 3.2 Corruption perception index (CPI) and bribe payer's index (BPI) 3.3 Cheating at work in relation to Hofstede's dimensions 3.4 Sabotage and learning 4.1 National values orientations and expectations for stakeholders, aims and time frames in six nations 4.2 Congruence between national values and case study observations 6.1 General advantages of a City of London location 6.2 The importance of close proximity to other firms 8.1 The seven managerial challenges 9.1 Company profiles 9.2 Expatriate profiles 9.3 Performance management (PM) components 10.1 Composition of firms interviewed 11.1 FDI inflows by origin; number of observations in each panel 11.2 Regression results, one-way FE and POLS 12.1 Multidimensional framework for investigating broad themes -an example viii List of Figures 2.1 Framework for classifying internationalization theories 2.2 Trajectories of case firms within the framework 3.1 Power distance in relation to individualism and masculinity 4.1 Broad analytical model of factors underlying strategic decisions 6.1 The London financial services cluster 7.1 International entrepreneurship and network dynamics: a conceptual framework 7.2 AccentUK 7.3 Contactpoint 7.4 Finewaters 9.1 Model of cross-cultural training and performance management 10.1 Knowledge transfer intensity and relationship development 12.1 Rigour and relevance in international business ix This is the thirteenth volume to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in the series of selected papers from the annual conference of the Academy of International Business (AIB), United Kingdom Chapter. The 32nd Annual Conference, on which this volume is based, was held at the School of Management, University of Bath on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 April 2005, organized by the joint conference chairs, Eleanor Morgan and Felicia Fai. The conference achieved a new record in terms of the number of submissions and in terms of the overall quality of papers presented: 79 papers were accepted for the conference sessions and 24 students presented their research to panels of experts at the doctoral colloquium. The study of international business in the UK has, rather fittingly, become increasingly international in recent years. This was clearly evident at the Bath conference, where there were over 170 participants, of which 58 delegates (staff and research students) came from academic institutions in 21 countries outside the UK; indeed the challenges faced by those involved in international business, whether as academics or as practitioners, are universal. John Dunning, in a powerful contribution at the conference, highlighted ways in which international business links to the major economic and welfare challenges faced in the world. In drawing this volume together, the editors have focused on managerial issues; each of the chapters connects to these challenges in some way, while addressing issues that affect management in the process of wealth creation. Research in the field of international business is conducted on a number of levels, from the micro to the macro. As international business comes to occupy a progressively greater role in the creation of wealth, so its impacts and potential impacts on social and welfare issues necessarily become greater. Thus, cultural difference matters within multinational firms as well as between countries, for business as well as economic performance and development. The internationalization of industries that customarily have been domestically focused, notably the service industries, is important for growth. The quality of entrepreneurship and management is critical for the performance of these firms and the countries that they unite through their activities. Issues such as these, and many more, are investigated in this stimulating volume arising from an outstanding conference. A further selection of the best papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of Management International x Foreword

The literature on innovation has been both rich and varied in approach and has provided much insight into the process of, and difficulties contained within, innovation. A number of important concepts including those of path dependency, technological trajectories, together with the plethora of articles concerned with organizational learning, involving the contribution and limitations of tacit knowledge, have helped us to understand the nature of innovation. As important as these strands of literature are, we suggest that a key weakness in much of the literature on innovation is that it does not deal sufficiently with the contextual issues concerning the changing paradigms of manufacturing and the profound impact that these developments have had upon the innovation process. We offer the concept of strategic resonance as a missing ingredient within some firms who are now faced with conditions of hyper competition where ongoing innovation is a key requirement. The concept of strategic resonance is not offered as a prescriptive panacea but it is suggested that firms need to understand and remove the blockages to strategic resonance as part of their innovation development processes.