International Business Commons^™

Gender-Based Characteristics Of Micro, Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises In An Emerging Country: Is This A Man’S World?, Angelica Maria Sanchez-Riofrio, Nathaniel C. Lupton, Segundo Camino-Mogro, Álvaro Acosta-Ávila

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Purpose: Worldwide, Ecuador is one of the countries with the most entrepreneurial activity from micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). However, the effect of adopting the US dollar (dollarization), over which the central bank has no control, combined with being mainly an exporter of primary products, as well as strategic currency devaluation by neighboring economies, has created a difficult situation, especially for Ecuadorian women’s MSMEs. This paper aims to study the relationship between female ownership and Ecuadorian MSMEs’ financial, economic and social outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors compile a near-population panel of 617,804 firm-year observations representing an unbalanced panel of 112,917 …

Undersea Cables: The Ultimate Geopolitical Chokepoint, Bert Chapman

FORCES Initiative: Strategy, Security, and Social Systems

This work provides historical and contemporary overviews of this critical geopolitical problem, describes the policy actors addressing this in the U.S. and selected other countries, and provides maps and information on many undersea cable work routes. These cables are chokepoints with one dictionary defining chokepoints as “a strategic narrow route providing passage through or to another region."

Economic Benefits Of Cross-Strait Tensions, Jason Seedall

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

This research explores the economic benefits experienced by Taiwan due to the cross-strait tensions between the island and mainland China as well as how it affects the future of economic and political relationships between Taiwan, China, and the United States.

Signature Pedagogy For Entrepreneurship Education: An Emerging Perspective, Ashley Gess, Eleonora Brivio, Gianluca De Leo

International Journal for Business Education

Entrepreneurial ways of thinking and doing intersect with the knowledge and skills that a global citizen needs to thrive. There is a robust body of scholarship that identifies core entrepreneurial skills however there is a dearth of evidence addressing how to successfully teach entrepreneurship. Using the lens of experiential learning, this qualitative study examines the surface, deep, and implicit structures of professional entrepreneurial culture toward revealing a meaningful, authentic pedagogical approach for entrepreneurship education. In order to achieve this outcome, researchers utilized a semi-structured comparable multiple-case study design to engage 19 incubated entrepreneurs in focus group interviews. A replication strategy …

Stimulating Intrapreneurial Intentions With Digital Business Training In The Vet Sector: The Potential Of Massive Open Online Courses, Christian Friedl

International Journal for Business Education

It has become imperative to stimulate and support employees to behave entrepreneurially within organizations (intrapreneurship). However, little is known about how digital, massive, and scalable business education and training formats such as massive open online course (MOOCs) can contribute to vocational and educational training (VET) in general, and to nurture intrapreneurial behavior and corresponding intentions in specific. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential effect of a MOOC on intrapreneurial intentions of learners.
Data were acquired from 412 employees taking a MOOC on intrapreneurship for constructs embedded in the theory of planned behavior, tailored to the …

Cultivating Financial Literacy Through Secondary School Economics Education: Access To Powerful Knowledge, Emanuel Mizzi

International Journal for Business Education

‘Powerful knowledge’ is disciplinary knowledge that when learned, empowers students to make decisions in a way that will influence their lives in a positive way (Young, 2008). In this paper, the researcher employs this construct to explore the financial literacy education arising from studying secondary school economics. It emerges from the author’s research aimed at exploring teaching and learning in secondary school Maltese economics classrooms. The underlying conceptual framework for this study is critical realism. The study design consisted of interviewing and observing 14 economics teachers, together with four focus groups interviews with students. Data were analyzed by employing thematic …

Project-Based Pedagogy: The Client's Perspective, Wayne Aho, Wendy Cagle, Jon Marvel, Michael Smith, Edward Wright

International Journal for Business Education

Project-based experiential business education seeks to provide students with lessons that are meaningful, practical, and enduring. While previous research has sought to understand how students and faculty members react to such educational experiences, it is also important to understand the perceptions of the business clients who engage with programs employing project-based education. The aim of this study was to better understand the experiences of business clients with whom students engaged as part of an undergraduate business capstone course. Two hundred fifty-three previous clients were surveyed with a 22.4% response rate. Responses were subjected to content analysis to cluster replies into …

Practice Enterprises In Times Of Distance Learning: The Impact And Consequences Of The Covid-19 Pandemic To The Collaboration Of Practice Enterprises, Theresa Feuchter, Gernot Dreisiebner, Elisabeth Riebenbauer, Ph.D., Michaela Stock

International Journal for Business Education

The aim of this paper is to outline the consequences which arise from the digital transformation of the multidimensional teaching and learning setting of practice enterprises and to discuss how digital collaboration of students can be supported during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an evolutionary moment also in the field of education, one can consider the experiences of COVID-19 as a catalyst for digital transformation and distance learning in education. How digital collaboration can be fostered in times of distance learning is shown by using the example of business simulations such as practice enterprises (PE). While previously this multidimensional teaching and …

Promoting Employer Desired Competencies Through A Multiphased "Workgroup" Project, Ashly Smith

International Journal for Business Education

Employers and business leaders have long been advocating for the importance of career readiness skills like critical thinking/problem solving, information literacy, teamwork/collaboration, professionalism/work ethic, and oral/written communication (NACE, 2019; Partnership, 2008). While faculty and students see value in projects that develop these skills, such projects can be some of the most challenging to incorporate effectively into business courses (Chapman et al., 2010; Detmering & Johnson, 2012; Lee et al., 2016; Marks & O’Connor, 2013). This article reports on a multi-phase group project that aims to strengthen a selection of these employer-desired skills while ameliorating student concerns about the research process …

Internships As Clinical Rotations In Business: Enhancing Access And Options, Faye W. Gilbert, Jason Harkins, Pankaj Agrrawal, Taylor Ashley

International Journal for Business Education

Internships are high impact practices that offer work experiences and provide advantages for participating undergraduate students and for the talent acquisition efforts of firms. While research consistently documents the benefits of internships as a transformative experience, access and outcomes may vary for students and for underserved populations. Limitations of internships can include lack of access to enough positions as well as inadequate interactions between undergraduate students, firms, and faculty members in business programs. The purpose of this article is to describe an approach to enhancing access to internships on a larger scale with greater variety. Protocols found in clinical rotations …

A Critical Discourse Analysis To Explain The Failure Of Bop Strategies, Nancy E. Landrum

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Purpose – This paper aims to highlight differences between business and non-business literature regarding base of the pyramid (BoP) and subsistence contexts and reveal discourse’s powerful role in influencing goals, solutions and outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses critical discourse analysis to review a convenience sample of business versus non-business literature on the BoP and subsistence contexts.

Findings – Discourse used in business literature on the BoP is oriented toward hegemonic Western capitalist approaches that result in the depletion of resources, resource inequalities, poverty and increased consumption, dependence and environmental degradation and, therefore, cannot alleviate poverty.

Research limitations/implications – There …

The Coronavirus Pandemic And International Trade, E. Wesley F. Peterson

Cornhusker Economics

The Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted economic activities around the world. Many businesses had to cease operations and furlough or lay off their workers. The World Bank (2021) has reported that global economic output fell by 3.4% in 2020. The good news is that the massive infusion of financial support from many governments in high-income countries meant that the worst economic effects of the pandemic were mitigated, and a rapid recovery has begun to make up for the pandemic-related losses. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the global economy will grow by 5.9% in 2021 recovering the 2020 losses and …

The Global Chinese Consumer, Rane Xue, Xiaolei Gu

Asian Management Insights

At the forefront of growth in the luxury goods market.

Linkages Between Share Pledging, Stock Price Risk And Profitability: Evidence From The P.R. China, Fengchao Li, Xing Zhang, Jaime Ortiz

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Share pledging has become popular as a method of loan collateral among Chinese shareholders. Our research used a sample of Chinese listed firms between 2008–2018 and produced two main findings. Firstly, we found a negative association between stock price risk and firm profitability. Our second finding was that the interaction effect of share pledging and stock price risk is greater on firm profitability than the effect of stock price risk itself. We examined the role of share pledging by modeling pooled OLS and fixed effects using share pledging behavior, controlling shareholders’ share pledging and the share pledging ratio to reinforce …

Exchange Rate Pass-Through Into Japanese Import Prices: Evidence At Both Bilateral And Product Levels, Channary Khun, Sokchea Lim, Hem Basnet

American Business Review

This study investigates the degree of the exchange rate pass-through to Japanese bilateral import prices at the product level for major Japan's trading partners (US, EU, and Asian NIEs) for a period (1998:1-2010:12) dubbed as Japan's lost decade and marked by a gradual the exchange rate appreciation against the US dollar. By considering both country and product dimensions in a unified framework, this study makes one of the first attempts to analyze the responsiveness of Japanese import prices to exchange rate movement. The empirical analysis suggests a declining exchange rate pass-through to Japanese import prices at the bilateral level in …

Chinese-U.S. Leadership: A Case Study Of A U.S. Manufacturing Company In China, Mengting Gong

Dissertations

The purpose of this case study is to gain a better understanding of the way in which some Chinese managers describe their leadership approaches and why they accept and use U.S. leadership approaches in a U.S. manufacturing company in China. Within the single-case (embedded) research design, in-depth interviews and existing data are two main methods of the researcher’s data collection. A purposeful sample (N = 8) of managers from the corporation served as participants. After collecting relevant qualitative data, two rounds of coding occurred. In the first round, initial coding was comprised of identifying codes from the transcripts. For the …

The Multi-Skilled Multi-Period Workforce Assignment Problem, Haibo Wang, Bahram Alidaee, Jaime Ortiz, Wei Wang

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Seasonal business operations hire workers depending on environmental conditions and market prices. For example, during the growing and harvest seasons, agricultural businesses employ multiple workers to perform activities such as tilling soil, sowing seed, spreading fertiliser, spraying pesticides, removing weeds, and threshing crops. This study proposes two mixed-integer programming (MIP) models with an effective heuristic to solve the problem of simultaneously assigning multiple multi-skilled workers to the numerous tasks that require different skill sets during single-and multiple-period operations. The multi-skilled workforce management (MSWM) problem is NP hard in the strong sense, and it seems unlikely that large-sized realistic instances could …

J Mich Dent Assoc September 2021

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

Every month, The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association brings news, information, and features about Michigan dentistry to our state's oral health community and the MDA's 6,200+ members. No publication reaches more Michigan dentists!

In this issue, the reader will find the following original content:

• A cover story with “Reports from the Dental School Deans”, Dr. Mert Aksu and Dr. Laurie McCauley.
• A feature article from the Journal’s DEI series, “Building a Culturally Competent Practice”.
• A feature article, “Disability Insurance: 10 Things You Need to Know”.
• News you need, Editorial and regular department articles on MDA Foundation activities, Dentistry and …

From Delhi To Mumbai, Apple Seeks A Bigger Slice Of The Pie, Taylor Greer, Brent Cassidy, Mike Williams, Nick Hill, Chandler Burger, Adam Pedraza, Steven Wehde, Caleb Fortney

Symposium of Student Scholars

From Delhi to Mumbai, Apple Seeks a Bigger Slice of The Pie in India:

An International Marketing Case Study

Mike Williams, Adam Pedraza, Taylor Greer, Brent Cassidy, Nick Hill, Chandler Burger, Steven Wehde, and Caleb Fortney

Abstract

Apple Inc., headquartered in the United States, is the world’s largest technology company with revenues of $265 billion as of 2018 (Johnson, 2012). Apple has been trying to compete in India’s smartphone market, the world’s fastest-growing and second-largest smartphone market globally, accounting for nearly 30 million purchases per quarter (Sheth, 2019). Despite its success in the U.S., Apple has not been able to …

Zara: Facing Fast Fashion Challenges In China. An International Marketing Case Study, Daniela Schaich Graniel, Alexxus Finnell, Caitlin Hopkins, Candace Salters, Elimay Baez, Larissa Hernandez, Madison Mcintyre, Raven Lee

Symposium of Student Scholars

Zara, one of the largest international fashion companies, was founded in Spain in 1974. It has a brand value of $18.4 billion and global revenues of $ 28.22 billion in 2018. Zara entered China in 2006 to compete in its $5.58 billion fast fashion market (Ge, 2018). China is an attractive emerging market with a GDP of $13.6 trillion, growing at 5.9% (World Bank, 2019). Zara’s fast fashion typically appeals to young college students and the middle class with income ranging from $7,250 to $62,500, representing about 39% of the population (Cyrill, 2019). In China, Zara targeted young women entering …