Toward Experimental International Business

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that the time is ripe to establish a powerful tradition in Experimental International Business (IB). Probably due to what the Arjen van Witteloostuijn refers to as the external validity myth, experimental laboratory designs are underutilized in IB, which implies that the internal validity miracle of randomized experimentation goes largely unnoticed in this domain of the broader management discipline. Design/methodology/approach – In the following pages, the author explains why the author believes this implies a missed opportunity, providing arguments and examples along the way. Findings – Although an Experimental Management tradition has never really gained momentum, to the author, the lab experimental design has a very bright future in IB (and management at large). To facilitate the development of an Experimental IB tradition, initiating web-based tools would be highly instrumental. This will not only boost further progress in IB research, but will also increase the effectiveness and playfulness of IB teaching. Originality/value – Given the high potential of an Experimental IB, the Cross-Cultural and Strategic Management journal will offer a platform for such exciting and intriguing laboratory work, cumulatively contributing to the establishment of an Experimental IB tradition.

Culture’s causes: the next challenge

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that in cross-cultural and strategic management, we must pay attention to the processes creating and maintaining culture. How can everyday interactions give rise to national, “deep” cultures, recognizable across centuries, or organizational cultures, recognizable across decades? Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper using the evidence provided by research about cultural patterns, and using sociological status-power theory to explain the causation of these patterns. Emergence, also called self-organization, is introduced as mechanism connecting individual-level causation with resulting system-level patterns. Cases are used to illustrate points. Findings – Simulation gaming and computational social simulation are introduced. These methods allow “growing” a system, thus allowing to experiment with potential interventions and their unanticipated effects. Research limitations/implications – This essay could have major implications for research, adding new methods to survey-based and case-based studies, and achieving a new synthesis. Strategic management today almost invariably involves cross-cultural elements. As a result, cross-cultural understanding is now strategically important. Practical implications – The suggestions in this essay could lead to new collaborations in the study of culture and organizational processes. Examples include team formation, negotiation, mergers and acquisitions, trans-national collaboration, incentive systems and job interviews. Social implications – The suggestions in this essay could contribute to our ability of proactively steering processes in organizations. In particular, they can provide a check to the notion that a control measure necessarily results in its intended effect. Originality/value – The synthesis of biological, sociological and cross-cultural psychological viewpoints with design-oriented method, using games or social simulations as research instruments, is original in the field.

The panacea of culture: the changing fortunes and careers of China’s Dongba priests

Purpose – On the background of China’s turn to a market economy and a consumer-driven society, the purpose of this paper is to recount the fortunes of the age-old religion of the Naxi people and their farmer-priests, the dongba. Design/methodology/approach – Detailed ethnography, including participant observation, the collection of life histories and interviews. Findings – The might of the tourist industry dominates the changes in the profession of the dongba priests, from a faith-based practice to a tourist-driven service; aided by a confluence of interests of relevant stakeholders: the Chinese state, the provincial governments, the Naxi elite. At the core is the transformation, in Chinese terms, from a superstitious religion to culture heritage. Research limitations/implications – Like all case studies and common to ethnographic-based research, the small scale of the research poses questions of generalizability. Practical implications – Shedding light on a little known aspect of the world’s largest economy is of high relevance to business and management scholars. Social implications – The transformation of the dongba demonstrates how major societal changes that happen within a couple of decades affect a society and its economy and a central career track within it. Originality/value – The case study testifies to the encounter of a major modern industry: tourism, with an archaic religion in a remote corner of China, and the transformation of the latter as result.

Effects of learning orientation and team embeddedness on mobility

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of learning orientation (LO) and team embeddedness (TE) on the turnover intention of team members within the context of both culturally diverse and uniform teams. Design/methodology/approach – A structural model was adopted to test the hypotheses with the help of data collected from a survey of 324 foreign and local students of an international university located in Taiwan. To compare the effects of TE and LO in the context of culturally diverse teams (CDT), a multi-group structural equation modeling was employed to investigate individual team behavior. Findings – The LO of team members in a culturally diverse context will positively influence their intention to leave the team. However, such an intention can be reduced by strengthening members’ TE along with the LO. Nonetheless, the direct effect of LO on team turnover intention in the context of same-culture teams was found to be insignificant, leaving TE as the only critical mediator in this case. Furthermore, capability validation, sought by performance-orientated individuals, was found to be an important factor worthy of special consideration for those in a single-culture team context. Originality/value – This study provides evidence regarding the applicability of the concept of job embeddedness to team relationships and the link between goal orientation and team mobility in a multi-cultural setting. Such an approach is helpful for determining ways to strengthen and stabilize team resources in the context of CDT.

Cross-country technology gap in Latin America

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the total factor productivity (TFP) gap between the USA and eight Latin American countries for the period of 1970-2000. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides an explicit application of TFP estimation by employing a growth accounting approach (Solow Residual) in the presence of non-constant returns to scale and a non-parametric approach (DEA – Malmquist Index) while relaxing the scale-related constraint. A macro-based economic model of innovator and follower countries is employed to explore the linkage between technology gaps and innovations, labor productivity, trade openness, foreign direct investment, and adult workforce illiteracy rates. A pooled model and a fixed effects model are used to determine the factors of the technology gap between the innovator and the follower countries. Findings – The results show that the labor productivity gap, adult work force illiteracy rates, patent filing gap, and trade openness are significant determinants of the technology gap between innovator and follower country. Practical implications – Latin American countries would benefit from the technology diffusion from an innovator country; but a minimum threshold of human capital, such as adult workforce illiteracy rates and patent filing has to be met. The authors find government policies on trade openness also have large effects on technology limitations in foreign countries. Originality/value – This paper is of value to researchers, policy makers, and economic development specialists trying to improve the rate of technology adoption and innovation.

Non-financial performance measures and the BSC of multinational companies with multi-cultural environment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of financial and non-financial performance measurement practices, including the use of the balanced scorecard (BSC) and the impact of the cultural values on the use of performance measurement systems (PMSs), in multinational companies (MNCs) operating in the Middle East with a special attention to the Saudi Arabian subsidiaries. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected using a survey mailed to 180 randomly selected Saudi manufacturing subsidiaries in different industrial cities to collect data on their PMSs including the use of the BSC. Findings – Financial measures are more widely used by most of the companies included in the sample due to the fact they are common, well known, and the most familiar performance measures in the business practice and they are more standardized measures which can be easily understood, implemented, and quantified. Moreover, the use of the non-financial measures was at a very low rate compared with the use of financial measures. The reasons were the difficulty in finding objective measures of the effect of social factors and the avoidance of any disclosure of social problems that are existed in the society. Research limitations/implications – Several variables were not included in this study such as corporate culture, use of information technology, the use of mass number of expatriates in the KSA with completely different cultural values, and several other environmental factors, which might have a significant impact on the choice of multiple performance measures. Practical implications – From a practical standpoint, this study demonstrates that increasing levels of external environmental factors and exposure to American best practices could act as forces to adapt more updated and sophisticated PMSs in the Middle East. Moreover, it will contribute to the knowledge of PMSs in the emerging countries, particularly in Middle East countries. Social implications – Social variables have significant impact on the productivity of employees and they should be incorporated into the performance indictors in objective and practical models. Originality/value – This study illustrates how MNCs in the Middle East are adapting and applying the PMS and the effect of culture on the use of non-financial measures.

Relationship of budget participation conflict and job performance of South Korean managers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of budget participation conflict (BPC) on job performance and the mediating effect of job satisfaction and job tenure on this relationship in a South Korean setting. BPC is defined as the difference between a manager’s actual budget participation and the same manager’s preferred level of budget participation. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data, analyzed using path analysis, were used to measure the direct effect of BPC on performance, and the indirect effects between BPC and performance running through job satisfaction and job tenure. Findings – Findings suggest that BPC does not directly impact job performance. Overall, this study suggests that BPC has a negative impact on job satisfaction and that job satisfaction in turn can significantly influence job performance. The authors also find some marginal effect of job satisfaction on job tenure, implying that increasing satisfaction can marginally increase job tenure. Research limitations/implications – Limitations of this study are those usually found in cross-sectional survey research. Originality/value – Despite its limitations, this study has both academic and practical implications. The study adds to the job performance literature in an Asian country which has not been widely researched. The study also finds that managers’ job performance and job satisfaction can be improved by minimizing BPC. Future research should study other variables that influence job performance of South Korean managers.

Antecedents of attitudes toward the website

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the moderating role of the cultural dimensions of long-term orientation (LTO) and individualism (IND) on the relationships between satisfaction online, message involvement (MI) and perceived usefulness (PU) of the web site on attitude toward the web site. Design/methodology/approach – The authors chose a between-subjects experimental design, using culture (Spanish vs British) as the independent variable. Two versions of a web site for a fictitious tourist destination were created – one written in Spanish and the other in English. The sample comprised 491 users. Findings – The findings indicate that the LTO dimension moderates the relationship between satisfaction online and PU on attitude toward the web site. The relationships between MI and attitude toward the web site could not be confirmed. Research limitations/implications – The main limitation of this study is the comparison of only two cultures, Spain vs the UK. Practical implications – The key implication is that if marketers and web site designers can better understand how national cultural differences moderate the attitude formation and change process among tourists, this will enable them to market their destinations and services more effectively. National cultural differences explain the differences found in the effect of satisfaction and PU on attitude toward the web site. Originality/value – This study is one of the few analyzing the moderating effect of LTO and IND on three antecedents of attitude toward the web site. The original cultural values established by Hofstede (2001) were tested among the present sample to establish the extent to which they remain true today. To create an authentic browsing scenario for the experiment, a web site was specially designed for a fictitious tourist destination, with its own domain name (buyada.org). Subjects were invited to browse the site freely while carrying out the task assigned to them. This approach contributed added value to the research by simulating the real behavior of tourists who are faced with a range of choices when putting together a tourism package for a given destination.

Global psychology: implications for cross-cultural research and management

Purpose – Psychology, both as science and practice, has been largely developed in one cultural area of the world: Europe and North America. As a result, the discipline is culture-bound, limited in its origins, concepts, and empirical findings to only this small portion of the world. The discipline is also culture-blind, largely ignoring the influence of the role of culture in shaping the development and display of human behaviour. These limitations have resulted in the dominant position of a Western Academic Scientific Psychology (WASP) in relation to other cultural perspectives on human behaviour. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on concepts and strategies in psychology (particularly cross-cultural and intercultural psychology) to propose some remedies to problems arising from the dominant WASP position. For example, of what relevance is such a limited perspective to understanding human activity in other cultures; and how can such a limited understanding serve the purpose of effective intercultural interactions? Findings – The eventual goal is to achieve a global psychology that incorporates concepts and findings from societies and cultures from all parts of the world, one that will permit a valid understanding of people within their cultures, and permit effective intercultural across cultures. Originality/value – The paper presents some criticisms of the dominant western psychology (WASP), and proposes that the achievement of a more global psychology may be within reach if some concepts and methods now available in psychology from both the dominant western sources and from those working in the rest of the world are used.

National context and organizational performance across three sectors

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of diffusional pressures as they relate to organizational performance (OP) across public, private, and not-for-profit sectors in two different national contexts. Design/methodology/approach – A review is conducted of institutional forces in the environment of two nations; one highly developed and the other developing to identify isomorphic pressures in each of the countries. An organizational performance assessment (OPA) tool is used to analyze the differences in the performance of the three sectors in the two national contexts identified. The research relies on Pearson correlation, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and MANCOVA statistical applications to validate the assessment instrument and shed light on differences across nations and sectors that can be attributed to organizational diffusion as a result of institutional pressures that exist in the countries in which the organizations are embedded. Findings – The findings indicate there is greater need to adapt to local ways of doing things when working cross-nationally within developing countries than with those that are developed where management practices are more alike than dissimilar. The results of the study suggest that when managing organizations cross-nationally, in the more developed nations organizations will perform more effectively and more alike than when working with organizations in less developed countries where the conditions for the diffusion of organizational practices are weaker. Research limitations/implications – The research focussed on two countries for comparative purposes. Due to sampling limitations, the findings are more relevant to the sectors the authors studied within countries than between the countries per se. It is recommended further research be conducted using larger samples across many national cultures. While relying on broad societal institutional dynamics, the study design does not permit the analysis of the effects of specific contextual characteristics on OP. Such an undertaking is undoubtedly a “next step” that the authors recommend. Practical implications – The extant literature finds that managing systems cross-nationally requires adaptation to local national contexts. Where there is less economic and technological development, less opportunity for free market competition (capitalism), educational opportunities, and shared standards from which the performance of organizations are judged, the more unlikely organizations will employ commonly applied management practices. A new tool is introduced that can be used to further research on OP cross-nationally. Originality/value – The study provides empirical evidence to demonstrate that in nations where stronger diffusional pressures exist, fewer differences will be found among the performance of the three sectors. Additionally, the effectiveness of organizations in these national contexts will be greater. While research among the three sectors has identified performance differences, such differences are less likely to be discernible in developed nations due to isomorphic pressures. The study is especially relevant to those who manage global organizations cross-nationally. It introduces a new tool to measure OP across national boundaries.