Historical Research on International Business, Management and Strategy

History matters. Recently, there has been an increase of interest in the use of historical research in the fields of international business, management and strategy; however, the use of this approach is still underexplored when compared to the use of more quantitative methodologies. Historical research seeks the identification, location, evaluation, and synthesis of data from the past to unveil previous events and, also, to relate them to both present and future, contributing to the understanding and explanation of theories. This chapter reviews the foundations of the historical research method in international business, management, and strategy and proposes a framework to guide historical research in these fields. Contrariwise to the traditional argument that history is theory resistant, at least from an independent-dependent and a context-invariant standpoint that so often characterizes economic approaches, historical research can contribute to a better understanding of the business phenomena.

Laws of Nature and Individuals

Individuals (like the Earth or a biological species) are often the subject of generalizations of various special sciences. The traditional argument is that there can't be laws about such individuals, since the law statements would have to contain local predicates (refer essentially to a particular time, place, object, or event). Marc Lange argues that, despite local predication, there can be laws about individuals. This paper argues, on the contrary, that there can be no such laws – not because of local predication, but because the laws would discriminate among material systems on non-qualitative grounds. I rely on the principle that qualitatively identical systems under one set of laws must evolve in the same manner. If there could be laws about individuals, nothing would guarantee that the principle is satisfied. My argument is illustrated by a thought experiment inspired by Strawson's massive reduplication argument.

Rethinking Verb Second and Nominative case assignment

Cimbrian is a German(ic) VO heritage language that does not display the linear V2 restriction: the DP subject can show up before the finite verb together with other constituents, while German-like verb-subject inversion only obtains with clitic pronouns. In recent literature on Cimbrian, pronominal subject inversion has been taken as a traditional argument in favour of mandatory V-to-C movement (assuming a split-C configuration). Building on this assumption, the syntax of the enclitic expletive subject, -da/-ta, (which shows up whenever the DP subject does not raise in the C-domain) makes the Cimbrian data particularly relevant, since it casts light on the correlation between V2 and Nominative case licensing. The stance in this chapter is that Nominative case in Cimbrian is assigned by C—as generally assumed for Germanic V2 languages—but in an idiosyncratic way: (i) it applies within the C domain, i.e. FinP; (ii) expletive -da/-ta absorbs Nominative case and acts as a defective goal with respect to the ‘low’ subject. On the basis of the feature-spreading model in Ouali (2008), the phasal head C in Cimbrian is taken to ‘KEEP’ its relevant ϕ‎- and T-features, to assign Nominative case in [Spec,FinP], and to triggering mandatory V-movement.

Encountering evil: The Evil-god challenge from religious experience

It is often thought that religious experiences provide support for the cumulative case for the existence of the God of classical monotheism. In this paper, I formulate an Evil-god challenge that invites classical monotheists to explain why, based on evidence from religious experience, the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god (Good-god) is significantly more reasonable than the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, evil god (Evil-god). I demonstrate that religious experiences substantiate the existence of Evil-god more so than they do the existence of Good-god, and, consequently, that the traditional argument from religious experience fails: it should not be included in the cumulative case for the existence of Good-god.

The Politics of Central Bank Independence

This chapter reviews recent research on the political economy of monetary policymaking, both by economists and by political scientists. The traditional argument for central bank independence is the desire to counter inflationary biases. However, studies in political science suggest that governments may delegate monetary policy in order to detach it from political debates and power struggles. The recent financial crisis has changed the role of central banks, as evidenced by unconventional monetary and macro-prudential policy measures. Financial stability and unconventional monetary policies have stronger distributional consequences than conventional monetary policies, with implications for central bank independence. However, the authors’ results do not suggest that that has happened in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, nor has there been higher turnover of central bank governors.

The Diversification and Sophistication of Pakistan’s Exports: The Need for Structural Transformation

While export diversification is considered to foster export growth and enhance GDP growth rates, this diversification has not translated into higher exports for Pakistan. In addition to diversification, the country must undergo a structural transformation of its exports to upgrade to a more sophisticated export basket. This entails shifting its comparative advantage from primary to manufactured exports and, further, from a labor-intensive to a more capital-intensive productive structure. In order to explain Pakistan’s paradoxical situation, this paper analyzes Pakistan’s orientation in the ‘product space’ as it affects the process and rate of structural transformation. In addition, we assess the sophistication of Pakistan’s exports based on their complexity and technological sophistication. Our analysis refutes the traditional argument that diversification leads to greater exports and faster economic development. It also shows that the bulk of the country’s productive capabilities are concentrated in the periphery of the product space, which is very weakly connected to the tightly packed industrial core. The export basket is neither complex nor technologically sophisticated, producing low-tech undifferentiated products. It seems that Pakistan is left with few nearby options for structural transformation, leaving it without a path to other, more sophisticated areas in the core of the product space. We argue that accelerating the process of structural transformation will require revisiting industrial policy, strengthening the country’s institutions and strategic collaboration between the public and private sectors.

The Argument from Pain: A New Argument for Indirect Realism

The author puts forward and defends a new argument for indirect realism called the argument from pain. The argument is akin to a well-known traditional argument to the same end, the argument from hallucination. Like the latter, it contains one premise stating an analogy between veridical perceptions and certain other states and one premise stating that those states are states of acquaintance with sense-data. The crucial difference is that the states that are said to be analogous to veridical perceptions are pain-states instead of hallucinations. This difference makes the argument from pain immune to the standard objections against the argument from hallucination.

Time-inconsistency problem: less common than we think

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to make an empirical analysis concerning time-inconsistency problem (TIP) based on a sample of 12 countries for the period from 1993 to 2011. Design/methodology/approach – The existence of TIP only makes sense if there is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment and when there is a causal relationship indicating that with more inflation, unemployment is reduced (as suggested by the Phillips curve). Hence, TIP is observed by testing the existence of cointegration between inflation rate and unemployment rate series and analyzing the sign of the estimated coefficient of the cointegration vector. Findings – The findings indicate that the large majority of countries in the sample have policies that are consistent with long-term goals. Furthermore, it is possible to conjecture that the traditional argument that developing countries have weak institutions and thus present a fertile ground for TIP or that the adoption of inflation targeting (IT) can avoid TIP is not necessarily true. Originality/value – This study sheds light on four important issues. First, has the change in the mindset of the monetary policy management from the 1990s eliminated TIP? Second, is TIP a sickness only for developing countries? Third, is IT associated with TIP? Fourth, has the TIP increased around the world due to the subprime crisis? In short, this paper is an advance on the empirical literature on TIP and it is a very important overview for observing the present day conduct of the monetary policy through the international experience.

Can one simply say „no“ to solipsism?

This text is a part of a broader research of the problem of The Other in modern philosophy. Herefrom emerges a specific angle of view for the question of solipsism. In the first place, the principle impossibility of refutation of such a position is demonstrated, thereupon the author makes a short review of Sartre's analysis of the solipsism problem in Being and Nothingness, traditional argument from analogy and Wittgenstein's analysis in The Philosophical Investigations, and finally he analyzes the defensive and offensive variant of solipsism. Inversely, by virtue of impossibility solipsism confirmation, the motives that position and its consequences on practical sphere are analyzed, too. The author also poses the speech beginning question. It turns out that consequent solipsism shows the need for God?s prerogatives, but in practical situation its method is much more down the earth: The Other (alius) is firstly derogated to mere other (aliud) and thereafter to sameness - such Other is now well suited for asimilation. In the end, the author shows the contradictions of Gorgian formalistic solipsism. Nevertheless some positive aspects of solipsistic possibility are pointed out, too: solipsism is the transcendental condition of subjectivity in general and, just as The Transcendent Other, it is constituitve for subjectivity.