Learning in foreign and domestic value chains: the role of opportunities and capabilities

We suggest that the benefits of learning in international value chains for firms’ innovation performance are heterogeneous and depend on the specific source of learning (customers, suppliers, or competitors), whether these sources are based in countries that are technologically advanced or less advanced (learning opportunities), on technology leadership (learning capabilities) on the part of the focal firm, and on the simultaneous learning that occurs from domestic firms. Using direct survey evidence on learning and innovation by German firms, we confirm that technology leaders benefit from advanced foreign customer and supplier learning, that technology laggards benefit from less advanced foreign customer learning and advanced foreign competitor learning, and that both leaders and laggards benefit from domestic customer learning. The findings suggest a tradeoff between the opportunities to learn from foreign or domestic customers.

The Speech Art of Request and Refusal in English as a Foreign Language: Hotel Front Desk’s Linguistic Politeness

The subject matter discussed in this paper is how hotel front desk receptionists handle requests and refusals in their interactions with customers when they use English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The method of this research is descriptive with a qualitative approach, examining the interactions of front desk employees who work at Hotel Surya Duri, Indonesia. The sample is seven people who are given a discourse completion test which questions them on how they deal five different scenarios dealing with requests and refusals. Results showed that employees perform independent research largely on how to deal with customer requests, but overall do not adequately master how to engage with foreign customer requests and refusals in EFL. This study suggests that concerned parties may benefit training current employees in foreign language communication training.

The Role of Exporters’ Emotional Intelligence in Building Foreign Customer Relationships

Despite the critical importance of emotional intelligence in effectively interacting with other people, its role has been overlooked in scholarly research on cross-border interorganizational relationships. Drawing on emotion regulation theory, the authors propose a model that conceptualizes links among exporters’ emotional intelligence, key behavioral dimensions characterizing the atmosphere of the relationship with import buyers, and the resulting relational performance. They test the model with data collected from 262 Greek exporters using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that higher levels of exporter emotional intelligence enhance communication and social bonding with the importer while diminishing distance and conflict in their working relationship. Relational performance is positively influenced by communication and social bonding but negatively affected by distance and conflict. The results also reveal the moderating effect of both opportunism and interpartner incompatibility on the association between the exporter’s emotional intelligence and the behavioral atmosphere of the relationship with import buyers.

Cause-related marketing

Purpose Cause-related marketing (CRM) focuses on the use of marketing tools to publicize a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Drawing on legitimacy theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of CRM-led CSR in international business-to-business (B2B) markets. In particular, the authors examine the relationship between supplier CRM-led philanthropic CSR reputation and foreign customer business engagement in an international B2B setting. The authors also test how the foreign customer’s host-country sustainable development level moderates this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The authors collect and analyze dyadic data from multiple sources including: dyadic data from a supplier and its 90 foreign customers; the supplier’s internal company records; and publically available data. Findings The authors find that supplier CRM-led philanthropic CSR reputation positively affects foreign customer business engagement. Furthermore, the authors find that this positive relationship is stronger when host-country environments are characterized by achieving higher level of environmental well-being development. In contrast, this positive relationship is weaker when the foreign customer host-country environment is characterized by achieving higher level of economic well-being development. Originality/value The authors examine that impacts of CRM-led CSR in international B2B markets and differentiate the contingent roles of foreign customer host-country sustainable development in moderating such impacts.

Optimization Implementation of Foreign Customer Information Submission System (SIPINA)

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QUANTITATIVE CALCULATION OF THE QUALITY OF TEACHING AS A PROJECT MANAGEMENT FACTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONTRACT

One of the most problematic places in the implementation of international contracts is inefficient project management. The choice of inappropriate methodology for managing the educational project, irrational allocation of resources, untimely monitoring quality of the provided services can lead not only to the loss of an existing contract, but also to the reduction of the university's reputation in the international arena in conditions of competitive struggle in the educational services market. In turn, this minimizes the probability of concluding of new contracts. An innovative methodology for managing projects for the provision of educational services to a foreign customer has been developed. A general calculation of the quantitative assessment of a quality of the provision of an educational service is applied in this methodology. In order to significantly reduce the calculation time was created a universal computational program that allows processing of large data blocks with visualization of results in a two-dimensional coordinate system. The methodology was implemented in the NUOS workflow. The obtained results make possible to control the quality of rendering educational services to a foreign customer with minimum expenses of human resources and make adjustments to the educational process quickly if it necessary.

INNOVATIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGY FOR GLOBAL EDUCATIONAL MARKET

Innovative project management methodology for the provision of educational services to the foreign customer was developed. In this methodology is applied the general calculation of a quantitative assessment of the quality of teaching. To significantly reduce the time for calculations, the universal computing program has been created, which allows to process extensive data blocks with the visualization of the results in the two-dimensional coordinate system. This methodology was implemented to working process of Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding. The results made it possible to quickly make adjustments in the educational process in order to improve the quality of educational services for the international customer.