Qualitative Research

This chapter presents a conceptual discussion about investigating management issues relating to global business operations. Current global business operations provide an opportunity to conduct Ex Cultura research. This term represents the situation where researchers conduct investigations beyond their own culture. A Grounded Theory approach within a qualitative perspective is proposed so that newly emerging themes may be identified. These themes may not be known before hand because of the Ex Cultura environment. Two methods are suggested; the first method, Personal Construct Theory and the RepGrid technique, documents what the research participant thinks about a particular research question. The other method, Narrative Inquiry and the Long Interview technique, documents what a research participant has done relative to a research question. Both methods document the research participant’s interpretation of their personal experiences. Further, the methods support Ex Cultura research into management issues involved in global business operations.

Knowledge Management and Its Challenges in Global Business

Knowledge Management (KM) is an organization-wide, strategic change management initiative dealing with people, processes, and Information Communication Technology (ICT) to achieve a competitive advantage through learning, productivity improvement, and innovation. Based on the current literature review of KM and its challenges in global business, a general framework for KM in terms of leadership, organization, and ICT is proposed. The role of leadership includes developing an international strategy for KM, executing strategic change management, practicing a mix of transformational and transactional leadership style, and developing KM performance metrics. The organizational parameters include learning, processes, culture, and organizational structure. ICT plays a crucial role in the learning and processes to acquire, store, share, and apply knowledge. Some of the KM challenges in global business include global leadership competencies and strategy, project-based flexible global virtual teams, global knowledge integration, and working with ICT gaps across different economies.

Work-Groups Conflict at PetroTech-Italy, S.R.L.

Field experts take numerous approaches to modeling how culture influences groups in dealing with interpersonal conflict and its dynamics. Researchers investigate cultural traits that may predict a range of cultural conflict behaviors. In addition, anecdotal evidence shows that researchers continue to take up a constructivist approach of identifying the centrality of cultural influence that causes work related conflicts. This study attempts to determine the different types and levels of conflicts within a multicultural workforce by considering various factors such as ethnicity and geographic and lingual diversities within the global context. The scope is to find possible solutions to reduce and/or eliminate group related and, to a certain extent, individual conflicts within the work place, which have become a matter of concern for any international organization. The findings reveal systematic conflicts between and within work-groups and suggest that regardless of type, relationship, and process, conflicts are detrimental to the operation and total outcome. Those conflicts have a negative impact on performance in the production, especially when they escalate. Displays of interpersonal hostility (yelling, name-calling, throwing things at people and making derogatory inferences about others’ own cultures) prevent productive work in all groups, which are inefficient and do not seem motivated to complete their tasks. Increased bickering and hostile behaviour inhibits talking about and working on the immediate task. To a certain extent, the situation could be described as a “toxic working environment.” A key finding reveals through interviews and participative and non-intrusive observations demonstrated that members of these work-groups are psychologically distressed when there are frequent arguments about interpersonal issues. Consequently, the intrinsic problems which escalate over a five year period, together with extrinsic economic problems due to the global economic downturn, cause the company to have high cost of labor and material. With less than expected sales and, operational destruction due to distress about going concern, PTI is put to challenge. Hence, PTI faces a serious test in solving the existing group conflicts. Failure to improve the working relationships could jeopardize the strategic going concern of the company.

The Role of Market Orientation in Internationalization of SMEs

A rapidly changing business environment generates a growing demand for enterprises to understand their markets. Knowledge about markets is a strategic resource and enterprises are advised to invest in understanding their markets, competitors, and customers. Market orientation is widely studied as a concept describing how enterprises generate and respond to market knowledge. Market orientation is a cultural factor which we analyze in the framework of organizational culture. We examine market orientation as a cultural factor, as adopting a new type of culture inside and outside an organization can be particularly challenging for Small- and Medium-Enterprises (SMEs). SMEs have not been considered as very active participants in global business, where market knowledge is of utmost importance. For example, Keskin (2006) finds that market orientation is an antecedent of learning orientation in SMEs and market intelligence guides their learning processes. This chapter examines both theoretically and empirically how market orientation as a cultural factor is related to the internationalization processes of SMEs. This hopefully helps us to understand how SMEs can develop their businesses to a global level. We will present a qualitative study of four Finnish SMEs representing different phases of internationalization. Finally, discussion on the results and future research directions will be presented.

Optimizing International Joint Venture (IJV) Ownership Structures

This chapter portrays a quantitative framework regarding entry mode choice and ownership structures by measuring performance under given ownership structures as the degree of efficiency in technology transfer, and knowledge exchange in the form of a residual productivity growth variable. This method has been shown to be a proxy for or an indirect measure of transaction costs, in that ownership structures are validated by the growth in technology/knowledge-based productivity that they caused. In the process, the chapter discusses hierarchical entry modes and adjustment of ownership structures with respect to minimizing transaction costs incurred in the transfer and internalization of complementary assets, both tangible and intangible. Previous research has dealt with subsidiary performance mainly in terms of financial measures (e.g., profitability, ROA, ROE, ROI), instability, and lifespan. By contrast, this chapter extends existing research by providing a specific quantitative framework for optimizing technology/knowledge-based productivity growth. The second important contribution of the chapter is the linkage of the quantitative results to their applicability and potential for implementation in Japanese equity-based subsidiaries in Latin America over the lifetime of the subsidiaries. Other factors important in the implementation and internalization of new technologies and knowledge have also been analyzed quantitatively and linked to case studies qualitatively. The chapter further analyzes adaptations to regional contexts and parent companies of nationalities other than Japanese. Therefore, the model presented in the chapter addresses IJV ownership structures which are optimal to productivity growth linked to new technologies and knowledge and by adaptation of variables, and discusses results for emerging markets in Latin America, such as Peru, Colombia, and the newly industrialized Brazil. The chapter also highlights advantages and disadvantages of forming IJVs with a local partner of different levels of technological sophistication, and the degree of managerial and equity involvement to allow the local partner.

Making Agile Development and Offshoring Practice Successful on Global Software Development Project

Two significant trends have been gaining momentum in software development: the utilization of Agile development methodologies, and the continuing trend of companies to outsource development work offshore. These two trends have changed the way companies develop software and business applications. This chapter seeks to evaluate how a company can successfully manage both trends in conjunction with each other on global business. The primary question addressed is whether the benefits derived from Agile development methodologies and the savings from outsourced software development efforts cancel each other out when applied together, or whether they create a synergy greater than the sum of the parts. In order to answer this question, this chapter intends to examine several relevant business practices and industry experiences. From lessons learned, we identify factors which seem to influence a successful combination of Agile methodology and offshoring in global software development projects.

Measuring the Effects of Advertising Polysemy on Branding

In the advertising research literature, polysemy is defined as different interpretations for the same advertising message. The multiple ad-interpretations can be attributable to complexities and diversities in culture and/or consumers’ own demographics, perceptions, attitudes, lifestyles, values, behavior, and psychographics. We provide a bipolar and dichotomous perspective on advertising polysemy as positive and negative polysemy with research and practice examples from the print advertisements for alcoholic beverages and corporate social responsibility to explain the conditions that lead to the emergence of positive and negative polysemic contexts for the same message. Furthermore, the study explores how polysemy leads to better branding. The research investigates the concept of polysemy and the generation of idiosyncratic meanings, and examines the impact of advertising polysemy on consumer-based brand equity. The research proposes and measures the advertising polysemy and consumer-based brand equity conceptual framework supported by accommodation theory, consumer response theory, and theory of hierarchy of effects, leading to stronger ad-evoked feelings, ad and brand attitudes, and consumer-based brand equity.

Globalization and Human Resources Management

As a result of globalization, many firms have begun to compete on a worldwide basis. This situation has led Human Resources Management (HRM) to gain more importance in the global arena and “international HRM” field. Over the past few decades, international HRM has gained considerable attention from both academicians and practitioners. The increasing globalization of business has required organizations to manage their workforces effectively. Managing a foreign workforce can differ drastically from managing a domestic one. HRM in the international context requires managing diverse workforces originating from different nationalities with various cultures. Therefore, workforce diversity has become increasingly important for organizations that plan to expand into global markets and target different consumer groups. Organizations can adopt different approaches for managing their workforces and every function of HRM systems should be designed consistent to the workforce diversity of the organization. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the concept of international HRM and diverse workforce in global organizations. Additionally, the importance of managing diverse workforces effectively in global organizations in the context of HRM functions and the role of HRM in this process will be discussed briefly.

Promoting Global Virtual Teams Across the Globe

This chapter presents a preliminary understanding of cross-cultural challenges and synergistic experiences of multicultural students engaged in Global Virtual Teams (GVTs). In this case study, we introduce the GVT structure as a novel learning platform which utilizes Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) tools as part of its virtual-based learning. We administer the case study with 30 students (n=30) in the United of Emirates (UAE) who engage in GVTs across the globe—encompassing 26 universities and 22 countries. Qualitative data is collected in the form of documents—reflective reports of the students’ experiential learning over a 10-week period. We content analyse the reports based on the thematic analysis with two distinctive categories—cultural challenges and cultural synergies based on the first seven weeks of the experiential learning process. In this study, we find that students experienced challenges such as managing technical difficulty, language barriers, deteriorating motivations, geographical distance, time differences, and non-committed and unresponsive attitude. However, students also experience synergies from the GVTs such as strong relationships and continued friendships, formation of emergent leadership, learned diverse managerial styles and competencies skills, varied use of varied CMC tools, and international exposure to diverse cultures without the need to travel abroad.

Networking Through Cultures

Transnational communication is a natural effect escorting activities of research teams throughout the world. We understand this phenomenon not as a new-born process mediated by technologies, but the process of cross-border dissemination of opinions, information, ideas, and toolkits. We also recognize that while so-called “new” information and communications technologies (ICTs) have created their own specific problems and concerns, it should be remembered that all forms of communication are capable of causing tensions and latent conflicts (Cupach, 1997; Ribeiro, 1998). The study concerns networking and ICT-mediated collaboration in transnational research teams with Russian participation affected by cultural differences. The core interest lies in investigation of communicative strategies and effects of visual and interactive techniques, including video-conferencing, participatory social media, podcasting, and others--and, to collaboratively construct, interpret, and theorize participants’ accounts of cooperation.