We compare the influence of entry mode choice on subsidiary performance in two developmentally-differentiated regions of a developing host country. Analysis of 113 subsidiaries located in two provinces of China indicates that wholly owned subsidiaries outperform joint ventures in the developed region, whereas joint ventures outperform wholly owned subsidiaries in the less developed region. However, the smaller performance gap between wholly owned subsidiaries and joint ventures in the developed region indicates that the magnitude of influence of entry mode choices on performance varies across subnational regions. Firms must therefore be more discriminating in formulating entry strategies to regionally heterogeneous countries.

This paper provides an analysis of human resource development and knowledge capital management relations practices used by hotels and resorts in 2007. The study examined the employment instruments used, methods of employee recruitment, selection, staff turnover trends, remuneration policies, attitudes to knowledge capital and the application of service quality measurement. The findings indicate that larger foreign-owned organisations have adopted more innovative approaches than smaller Australian-owned hotels and resorts, while skill shortages and generational attitude changes have driven more inventive retention strategies in both groups. It was also found that in spite of the adoption of more enlightened human resource strategies, staff turnover, particularly casual staff turnover, remains problematic and could negatively impact upon customer satisfaction.

This research investigates whether the importance of information scope for decision making mediates the relations between dimensions of strategic orientation, perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) and organisational effectiveness in the retail pharmacy industry. Data from a survey of NSW pharmacies was analysed using structural equation modelling. Although two dimensions of strategic orientation – product-market development and market scope – were positively associated with information scope, the direct organisational benefits and mediating role of broad scope information were disconfirmed and no link between information scope and PEU was found. The results suggest the need for rethinking theoretical models of information scope. Implications for retail pharmacies and organisations interested in the effectiveness of those businesses are discussed.

This study seeks to explore the effects of interdepartmental conflict on bonding social capital within a department and bridging social capital between departments. Two-period data were collected from 213 respondents in 71 high-tech and manufacturing firms in Taiwan. These respondents work in research and development departments and cooperate with marketing departments. The results indicate that intergroup task and emotional conflicts promote bonding social capital within the research and development department. Up to a moderate level, task conflict subsequently promotes the development of structural and relational bridging social capital; however, an increase in task conflict above a moderate level becomes detrimental to structural and relational bridging social capital. Intergroup emotional conflict does not influence bridging social capital. Furthermore, intergroup conflict is unrelated to cognitive bridging social capital. The results provide insights into intergroup interactions, offering a novel means for managers to increase group social capital using the levels of conflict that naturally occur between departments.

Allowing employees to work at home for at least part of the week is a management concept said to be rapidly gaining popularity. There is evidence that employees working at home are more productive, satisfied and committed, and that homeworking allows organisations to reduce office overheads, recruit from a wider pool, and retain valued workers. This paper examines the spread of homeworking and its telecommunications-based variant teleworking in Australia. A survey of human resource managers in Western Australia shows that, while 28 percent of large organisations have homeworkers, they are generally few in number and permitted only on an informal basis. Factors inhibiting use of homeworking include a lack of awareness and support amongst senior and middle managers, concerns over issues such as security and occupational health, and unsupportive organisational cultures. It is concluded that, contrary to media reporting, home-working and teleworking are not likely to become widespread in Australia in the near future.

The debate on how firms govern their inter-organizational relationships to foster their business performance is far from being settled. While several arguments suggest both transactional and relational mechanisms may act as complementary or substitutive forces, this paper explores and demonstrates how both mechanisms can be jointly exploited to enhance performance. Adopting the context of the US equity underwriting market, this paper reveals that an issuer adopting a transactional governance mechanism to manage its inter-organizational relationships with underwriters obtains a lower cost offering (cost performance) but may not entail price premium (price performance) of that offering. In contrast, an issuer taking a relational governance mechanism has superior price performance but worse cost performance. Nevertheless, this paper uncovers that an issuer adopting a synthesized mechanism obtains better cost performance and price performance by leveraging the advantages from both of the transactional and relational mechanisms.

Research on identity threat has predominantly focused on the consequences of threat to some ascribed or involuntary identities, while overlooking individuals' responses to occupational identity threat. Integrating identity theory with identity threat literature, we argue that encountering occupational identity threat promotes negative emotion and feedback-seeking behavior, and negative emotion further mediates the relationship between occupational identity threat and feedback-seeking behavior. Moreover, individuals' performance self-esteem strengthens both the direct effect of occupational identity threat on negative emotion, and the indirect effect of occupational identity threat on feedback-seeking behavior through negative emotion. The results from two experimental studies and one field study provide support for these predictions. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

In the diversity arena, women and their heterogeneity as visible ethnic minority migrants at work are under researched. Our qualitative empirical research reveals, and compares, how visible ethnic women migrants (VEWM) experience their journey to professional success in Iceland and New Zealand. These island nations rank in the top six of the Global Gender Gap Index, have women Prime Ministers, and increasing demographic diversity. The findings reveal that for VEWM success is a continuous journey with many different challenges. VEWM reject the notion of success as accumulation of things or titles, emphasizing instead how success is experienced. For VEWM in Iceland, success means independent hard work and aligning with other women. VEWM in New Zealand experience success through religion and giving back to the community. These differences are explored and theorized, contributing to an expanding literature of migrant complexities, beyond monolithic representations of gender at work.

Integrative and distributive negotiation strategies are a key paradigm of practice, teaching, and research. Are these US-formulated negotiation prototypes valid in the rest of the world? Adopting a cross-cultural view, we analyze a sample of 214 foreigners who detailed the negotiation behavior they faced in Italy (134) and in the United States (80). Implementing latent class analysis, we identify three clusters of negotiation prototypes. Our findings show how the Country is a predictor for cluster membership, and peculiar cultural traits of the two groups contribute to explain the differences in negotiation strategies. Three prototypes emerged: a typically distributive, an emotional integrative (mostly Italian), and an impersonal integrative (mostly American). Results show how the handling of emotions is a crucial part of the interaction for Italian negotiators, regardless of their orientation toward negotiation strategies, implying a cultural influence toward handling emotions in negotiations.

Traditional approaches to leadership assert that leadership is a definite quality of leaders. In contrast, the social constructionist approach conceptualises leadership as a quality of observers. The goal of this paper is to show how this philosophical base can be used to create a teaching strategy for leadership. In this strategy, there are three learning objectives: understanding the philosophical approach; revealing students’ lay theories of leadership; and, skill development. The lessons revolve around understanding how leadership perceptions form so that students appreciate how they are influenced and, in turn, how they might influence other people's perceptions of themselves.

Studies up to great extent have focused on investigating the possible consequences of supervisor incivility in organizations; however, surprisingly very little research has concentrated on its antecedents. Drawing on affective event theory, the aim of this study is to identify how role overload may cause the supervisor behavior uncivil toward their subordinates in the project environment by examining the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and moderating effect of time consciousness. Data were collected from both supervisors and their immediate subordinates from project-based organizations of Pakistan. After data consolidation, the final sample was 296 supervisor–subordinate dyads. The results revealed that supervisor role overload and emotional exhaustion is positively related with supervisor incivility and emotional exhaustion mediates this relationship. Time consciousness moderates the link between supervisor role overload and emotional exhaustion. The practical and theoretical implications of our findings are provided.

Drawing on goal orientation theory, in this study, we examine how an individual's motivational approach relates to the use of two common emotional labor strategies: surface acting and deep acting. In addition, we examine the role of self-efficacy as a mediating mechanism through which different goal orientations are related to different emotional labor strategies. To test our hypotheses, 262 U.S. full-time working adults from a variety of service occupations were surveyed. Consistent with the predictions of goal orientation theory, our results show that learning-oriented service employees tend to use deep acting, while performance-oriented service employees use both emotional labor strategies. Our findings also show that emotional labor self-efficacy plays a mediating role in the relationship between motivational approach and emotional labor strategy use.

In this paper, we report the frequency that family business research has been published by year and by discipline in top-tier journals as listed in the Journal Quality List (JQL) (Harzing 2008) to argue that family business research has reached a tipping point threshold. We suggest that the acceptance of family business research in top-tier journals is the tipping point that will enamor the field to a wider researcher audience and thereby further contribute to paradigmatic development.

This paper uses a strategy—structure—performance-based model of marketing channel relationship structure to conduct an empirical examination of the involvement of four external stakeholder groups in manufacturing firms' product innovation. The results show that firms' stakeholder orientation (strategy), involvement of stakeholders in product innovation (structure) and quality of stakeholder relationships (performance) are intrinsically linked. Also, the way in which multiple stakeholder groups were involved in manufacturing firms' product innovation was more similar than different.

In recent times, an increasing number of writers have noted the important contribution that the management competency movement is making to contemporary organisations. However, there is widespread evidence to suggest that a comprehensive framework for understanding managerial competencies has not yet been established in Australia. This paper reports the results of a survey on a sample of 234 managers drawn from private and public sector organisations into the perceived importance of 99 managerial competency elements. Findings indicate a substantial number of competency elements are perceived to be generic across occupations and situations, but they also indicate in some instances differing levels of importance attached to these competencies across hierarchical levels and between sectors. Evidence of a range of significant competency groupings is presented along with a proposed framework to interpret competency elements. Additionally, this study provides assistance in developing a platform for further research into the competency field.

Organizations often face the challenge of institutional complexity, which involves incompatible prescriptions from multiple institutional logics. To deal with this challenge, prior researchers have proposed several strategies to tackle conflicts within and between organizations. The success of these solutions fundamentally hinges on achieving clarity. However, while clarity often brings further conflicts for both internal and external stakeholders, I argue that ambiguity logic is an alternative approach to deal with institutional complexity as it creates space for negotiations and potential solutions. As such, this paper proposes five research propositions that examine when ambiguous language and behavior can be better used to deal with institutional complexity. In general, the use of ambiguity logic is associated with power. Specifically, ambiguity logic is better applied in organizations when power is more evenly distributed among the stakeholders.

As a new management reform adapting the development of the times, electronic human resource management (E-HRM) covers all possible integration mechanisms and contents between HRM and Information Technologies. E-HRM promotes employees' subject status with the network characteristics of openness and cooperation. Taking the theory of work adjustment as the instruction, this research studies the adaptive process induced by reconstructing the sense of matching when employees experience the reform, along with the influence of E-HRM on employee's initiative behavior from the perspective of job crafting. In total, 706 employees and their supervisors were investigated with matched questionnaire survey. The results show that: (1) E-HRM can stimulate employees' personal initiative behavior; (2) task crating, relational crafting and cognitive crafting as three dimensions of employees' job crafting, mediate the effect of E-HRM on personal initiative behavior and (3) the self-development motivation of employees' internet use plays a positive moderating role, steering self-oriented job crafting in the positive direction which conforms to the organizations' expectation.

In business processes, gaining customer satisfaction is vital for online retailing. In this way, it is necessary to identify the important factors for attracting and retaining customers in online retailing. Many factors are involved in efficient customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Their efficient implementation needs a deep focus on key customers, proper organization, knowledge management, technology, market, sales, ordering, support, and many other factors. Therefore, this paper examines the effective factors (including innovation management, market knowledge, competitive intelligence, entrepreneurship management, stakeholder management, project management, and business project management) on the efficiency of the CRM systems for online retailing. The data were collected from Digikala employees in Iran. Based on Morgan's table (Table A2 (Appendix)), 248 samples were randomly selected, and questionnaires were sent to employees, where 234 were fully answered. Research data and assumptions were evaluated using SPSS and PLS software. Research findings showed that innovation management (ß = .390, t = 6.426, p < .001), market knowledge (ß = .296, t = 4.864, p < .001), and competitive intelligence (ß = .115, t = 2.190, p < .005) directly impact the efficient CRM systems for online retailing. Stakeholder management (ß = .283, t = 9.713, p < .001), project management (ß = .229, t = 5.458, p < .001), and business project management (ß = .544, t = 11.351, p < .001) are also effective through the mediator variable of entrepreneurial management (ß = .143, t = 2.314, p < .005) on the efficient CRM systems for online retailing.

The increasing globalisation, the multiculturality of workplaces and the current challenges for organisations generated the need for researchers to support them to manage the workforce. Although the relevance of employee voice for these themes, a lack of shared understanding about this topic results in fragmented literature across and within research fields that limits theoretical advancement and deep comprehension of the phenomenon. Our first aim is to offer a literature review of employee voice by combining systematic and bibliometric methods; the second aim is to understand voice's main issues and implications by considering different research streams. The results present an integrated framework of the leading intellectual knowledge and reveal the main research focuses on voice in domestic contexts. The discussion underlines the cultural issue and context as critical elements for future research by proposing avenues for scholars and some implications for organisations to benefit from the contributions of their members.