Adoption of digital technologies and backshoring decisions: is there a link?

The present paper assesses whether the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies can be related to backshoring. It does so by -firstly- investigating the implementation of such technologies by industrial firms with foreign production plants, the experiences and intentions of these firms regarding the location of production activities, and -secondly- by analyzing backshoring cases among them.It finds that backshoring is a rare phenomenon, and it is questionable whether there is a correlation, left alone causality, between the adoption of digital technologies in home-based manufacturing sites and backshoring hitherto. And while the future may hold more backshoring movements in store, they may not be primarily due to the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies at home-based plants. Instead, other (foreign) location-specific factors seem to have greater weight in the decision-making processes around backshoring operations. I.e., deteriorating sales forecasts in offshore places where firms have production activities, increases in institutional uncertainty in such places, rationalization of global production apparatuses, and/or a lack of possibilities to deploy foreign manufacturing activities and output for third markets. Also against the backdrop of events like the outbreak of Covid19 and the uncertainty-raising effect it has on international business, the trade-off between producing off-shore or bringing manufacturing activities back home is not likely to depend on technology adoption levels at home and abroad either.

How Venture Capital Firms Choose Syndication Partners: The Moderating Effects of Institutional Uncertainty and Investment Preference

ABSTRACT This study investigates how venture capital firms (VCs) choose syndication partners. Exponential random graph models of Chinese VC syndication networks from 2006 to 2013 show that the homophily mechanism does not always determine VCs’ partner selection. In selecting partners, VCs have to strike a balance between reducing uncertainty and mobilizing heterogeneous resources. Therefore, decisions about partners depend on institutional uncertainty and VCs’ investment preferences. While VCs that focus on traditional business in an immature market are more likely to form homogeneous syndications, their peers that prefer to invest in innovative companies and that can rely on a stable market tend to syndicate with heterogeneous partners.

The matter of mental transformation of logos

The article dwells upon a vital matter of the logos’ mental transformation in metamodern logic, which determined its novelty. The article aims to conceptualize the concept of “logos” within the “depth sociology” (sociology of imagination) and study the socio-psychological process of its change in the current socio-crisis conditions. As the methodological basis of the research, the author suggests the psychoanalytic approach and rich scientific heritage of G. Durand, whose 100th anniversary would be celebrated on May 1, 2021, by the world scientific community. In the world, he is known as a sociologist and researcher of forms and functions of imagination, the author of the concept, theory and scientific method of “depth sociology” (sociology of imagination). The study also used general scientific and psychoanalytic methods of cognition and an interdisciplinary approach, which paved the way for the use of culturological and hermeneutic analysis methods. At the same time, other elements of culturological and sociological cases have been adopted, borrowing concepts and perspectives for explaining socio-psychological phenomena that have a complex psychological nature. Based on the theoretical analysis results, a generalized description of the logos is presented within the framework of its conceptualization in the topic of depth sociology, which to some extent reveals the psychological nature and meaning of the concept. The author proposes a modification of the paradigmatic model of logos variability. The socio-psychological process of its transformation is studied based on G. Durand’s construction. Based on the results of the analysis of the logos state in the current social crisis, the paper shows fragments of its varieties and probabilistic mechanisms of variability. Simultaneously, the institutional uncertainty of the modern geopolitical future in the world creates a basis for pressure on the “two-story” (socio-psychological) topic, where the prospect of further research will be the problem of synchronicity (according to C.-G. Jung).

Emerging Market Multinational Family Business Groups and the Use of Family Managers in Foreign Subsidiaries

Little is known about the internationalization behavior of Emerging Market Family Business Groups (EFBGs) and their strategic usage of family managers in foreign subsidiaries facing uncertainty due to institutional differences. Informed by the resource-based view of the firm and by institutional theory, we hypothesize that family managers are an EFBGs-specific resource used to mitigate institutional uncertainty caused by larger institutional distances occurring between home and host countries. Moreover, family managers are used differently depending on the regional focus of the EFBGs, which further strengthens the critical role that family manager’s play in management and control across the business groups. We employ 5-year panel data on Taiwanese EFBGs, and our results indicate that family managers tend to be assigned by EFBGs with stronger operations outside the home region, and in foreign subsidiaries where strong differences in regulative and cognitive institution may exist. We contribute to the continuing understanding of family ownership in the management of EFBGs, and the research of internationalization of firms on managing foreign subsidiaries.

All-or-Nothing, or Something – Proportional Liability in Private Law

Judges and juries often make factual decisions even if the facts are disputed and there is no clear-cut evidence available. Despite this common state of uncertainty, verdicts are thought of as having clear winners and losers––either the plaintiff wins and receives a full remedy, or the defendant wins and the plaintiff gets nothing. In private disputes, factfinders base their binary factual determinations on the preponderance of the evidence. There are, however, several doctrines that allow for partial remedy, discounted by the probability that the facts support the plaintiff’s case, given the available evidence (proportional liability). This Article offers a general theory for proportional liability in private law. It identifies three types of factual uncertainty—mutual uncertainty, unilateral uncertainty, and institutional uncertainty—and shows that legal economists should support proportional liability when the state of uncertainty is shared by the parties and the court (mutual uncertainty), and they should adopt an all-or-nothing rule whenever the information is observable but unverifiable (institutional uncertainty). In cases where one party holds private information (unilateral uncertainty), proportional liability is sometimes, but not always, superior to an all-or-nothing rule.

Indonesian Islamists' Information Agenda in early 2021: Islamism at a Crossroads

The author analyses the problems of Islamist media activities in Indonesia in the first months of 2021. It is assumed that by the end of 2020, a new stage in the history of Indonesian radical Islam began. The prohibition of the Front of the Defenders of Islam and the arrest of its leader Muhammad Rizieq Shihab institutionalised the situation of organisational and ideological uncertainty in radical Islam. It is assumed that “Salam Online” at the early 2021 monopolised the promotion of Islamists opinion in society, when other media minimised their activity. The FPI formally ceased its activities, the Islamists, temporarily lost their leader and the ability to operate using a legal public organisation. The situation of institutional uncertainty did not affect the activity of the Islamist media. In general, the author believes that Islamist media chosen the tactic of waiting, since the prospects for the consolidation of the Islamist political discourse and the possible trajectories of the development of Islamic radicalism remain uncertain.