International Business Commons^™

The Effect Of Cultural Intelligence On Employee Performance In International Hospitality Industries: A Case From The Hotel Sector In Egypt, Hadia Fakhreldin

Business Administration

This study highlights the importance of cultural intelligence in international business. Employees with high levels of cultural intelligence (CI) achieve high performance levels, therefore CI should be a screening criteria and a training goal within multinational companies. A five stars hotel is chosen as the field for testing/examining the theoretical framework identified in the literature. The cultural intelligence level of employees in this hotel is first determined through a questionnaire technique using a valid and reliable test (the Cultural Quotient Scale). Then the performance of these employees is identified through examining selected criteria in their performance review. To verify the …

Offshoring, Outsourcing, And Strategy In The Global Firm, Stephen Tallman

Management Faculty Publications

Offshore outsourcing of many of the activities of the firm has become a major issue of concern in welfare economics, politics, business management, and international business scholarship. From both practical and scholarly perspectives, though, we must recognize that this is not a new phenomenon, and that neither outsourcing nor offshoring is necessarily the problem that has been represented in the popular and scholarly press (Contractor et al., 2010: Engardio, 2006). The production of goods in locations other than those in which they are sold has been an established strategy of multinational firms for decades--as has the subset of situations in …

The Way We Think: Ethics, Health And The Environment In International Business, David Nathan Smith

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Breaches of ethics and social responsibility in domestic and international business are typically thought to be anchored in such phenomena as greed, dishonesty and conflict of interest. While these forces are frequently at work in international business transactions, there is often another major force at work when failures of ethics and social responsibility occur. This article addresses the question of what is it about the way that transnational company managers and government officials think or don’t think that leads to breaches of ethics and social responsibility – breaches that often result in major health, environmental and social tragedies. The article …

From Federations To Global Factories: Assessing The Contribution Of The Subsidiary Middle Manager In Today’S Mne, Donal O'Brien, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Pat Gibbons

Articles

The evolution of MNEs (Multinational Enterprises) from rigid and hierarchical structures to more distributed authority and autonomy led to the theoretical justification for conceptualising them as a federative rather than unitary organisations (Ghoshal and Bartlett, 1990). Fundamental to the Federative MNE is the suggestion that subsidiary units, through their own actions, can modify the power base and influence MNE strategy ‘from below’ (Andersson et al., 2007). Considerable research highlights the potential of subsidiary units for knowledge creation and initiative (Birkinshaw, 1997, Rugman and Verbeke, 2001, Williams, 2009), but to date it has failed to confirm that MNEs actually operate as …

The Role Of The Middle Manager In The Strategy Development Process Of The Multinational Subsidiary, Donal O'Brien, Pamela Sharkey Scott

Conference Papers

As multinational corporations (MNC) strive for long term competitiveness in complex business environments the Strategic Development Process has emerged as a potential source of competitive advantage (Grant, 2003). Despite this recognition there is limited knowledge of the strategy development process and the contributors to strategy development at the subsidiary level of the MNC. The essence of strategy development is contributing to competitive advantage through management activities (Papadakis et al, 1998), but much of the focus of research up to this point has been on the strategic relationship between subsidiary top management and corporate headquarters with little attention being paid to …

The Impact Of Westernization On Tongan Cultural Values Related To Business, Lucas Nelson Ross

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examined the impact of Westernization on Tongan cultural values (Collectivism I, Collectivism II, Power Distance, Future Orientation, and Uncertainty Avoidance) related to business. A Tongan version of the Project GLOBE Beta Questionnaire measuring cultural dimensions at the societal level was completed by 222 Tongans from the island groups of Vava’u, Ha’apai, and Niuatoputapu. One-way ANOVA and planned comparison results indicated significant differences for Collectivism II and Uncertainty Avoidance. Scores from Vava’u showed significantly less Collectivism II than Ha’apai, but not Niuatoputapu. Furthermore, scores from Vava’u showed significantly less Uncertainty Avoidance than Ha’apai and Niuatoputapu. No significant differences were …

Need For International Business Concepts In The Curriculum, David Seeley Jr.

International Journal for Business Education

With the continued increase in international business, business education has an obligation to reflect this trend. There are two methods for incorporating international business concepts into the curriculum: infusion and creation. Ideally, this obligation would be completed with a standalone course in international business. However, it can also be accomplished through incorporating international business concepts into current curriculum. Business programs need to include international aspects into the curriculum to help the students understand the economy in which they live.

Borderless Bits: Electronic Globalization And Its Social Consequences, Nikhilesh Dholakia

College of Business Faculty Publications

Globalization of services with the aid of electronic technologies - popularly called outsourcing or offshoring - has been accelerating. In this paper, the factors that drive electronic globalization - as distinct from factors that drive the general process of globalization - are discussed briefly. A simple model of a 2-firm USA-India dyad engaged in outsourcing relationships is presented to outline the economic basis for electronic globalization. By introducing wider political and cultural forces, progressively more complex views of the electronic globalization phenomenon are presented. Finally, the interplays of the economic, political, and cultural forces are explored to arrive at a …

Lost In Translation: Organizational Behavior Constructs Across Cultures – Hope As An Example, Bill Provaznik

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

This paper examines the differences in the conception of the Positive Organizational Behavioral construct of hope between a strongly individualistic culture like the United States, and strongly collectivistic cultures like China, the Philippines and Vietnam. The differences are explained by the varying conceptualizations of autonomy, interconnectedness and self between the two cultures. The insight from this comparison should serve both to help accommodate cultural level differences among employees as well as offer a further step in the refinement of the application of individualist/collectivist interpretations to western based managerial and psychological models as well as practices.

A Critical Analysis Of The International Business Degree At The University Of Rhode Island 2002-2006, Brett Glowacki

Senior Honors Projects

International business is a growing field. Corporations worldwide are seeking individuals with language and cross-cultural experience to complement their business skills. It is the job of colleges and universities to prepare students to enter the workforce with as solid an education as those institutions are capable of giving. After holding various internships, an on campus job, and studying abroad, I have come to the conclusion that the University of Rhode Island can do a better job of preparing its international business students for the corporate world. This report critically analyzes the International Business Degree at URI based upon first-hand experience. …

Planning Your Global Strategy, Carol M. Sanchez, Steve Goldberg

Peer Reviewed Articles

Sound planning and due diligence are important for both domestic and international strategic initiatives. However, in an international setting there are additional cultural, legal, and logistical considerations. In this article, we discuss considerations before doing business internationally. We address how a company knows it’s ready to go international, special expertise required to go international, how to obtain that expertise, factors that should be considered in choosing a foreign market, finding an overseas partner, legal and tax issues considerations and, finally, how to get paid.

[Introduction To] Cooperative Strategy: Managing Alliances, Networks, And Joint Ventures, Stephen Tallman

Bookshelf

Strategic alliances are increasingly common, as many organizations look towards various partnering arrangements. This second edition of Cooperative Strategy extends the first edition's clear and comprehensive survey of strategic alliances. Presenting different disciplinary perspectives (economics, strategy, organization theory) and numerous examples from the corporate world. The text has been thoroughly revised and updated, taking account of new theoretical models, and its coverage of case studies has been extended. It will be ideal for business students and managers alike wishing to understand the challenges of managing alliances.

Internationalization, Globalization, And Capability-Based Strategy, Stephen Tallman, Karin Fladmoe-Lindquist

Management Faculty Publications

Current trends appear to suggest that globally integrated strategies are the wave of the future for many industries, but no theoretically sound, firm-level model explains this situation. International business models explain industry trends from economic perspectives, and organizational theory is beginning to examine the organizing principles of multinational firms, but a gap exists in explaining the strategic motivations of multinational firms as they expand and integrate worldwide. This article develops a capability-driven, as opposed to market-driven, framework of multinational strategy. This contingent framework explains the organizational consequences of international expansion and global integration depending on the capability types, capability strategies, …

Performance Improvement In International Environments: Designing Individual Performance Interventions To Fit National Cultures, Carol M. Sanchez

Peer Reviewed Articles

This article examines how internationalization might affect the design of individual performance improvement approaches in organizations. It begins by examining knowledge that has been learned principally from the North American context of what improves an individual's performance. Then, we discuss motivators, attitudes. and behaviors of workers and how they may vary among workers in different national cultural contexts. In short, we examine individual performance improvement for its cross‐border effectiveness, using various models of national cultural differences. By doing this, we hope to provide an understanding of how performance improvement systems might require modification to fit with non‐North American work environments.

Trust And Ethics In International Business Negotiations: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, Mohammad Niamat Elahee

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The growing interdependence in the global economic and political arena is resulting in accelerated growth in cross-national commercial relationships. Since some form of negotiation precedes most commercial activities and relationships, the topic of cross-cultural negotiation is of crucial importance to academicians, practitioners, and policy formulators. Despite its importance, research on cross-cultural business negotiation has not been very systematic and most of the empirical studies lack the explanatory power that is necessary for theory building. This study attempts to overcome this shortcoming by systematically linking different dimensions of national culture with different types of negotiation behavior.

This dissertation studies the relationship …

[Introduction To] Transnational Marriages In The Steel Industry: Experience And Lessons For Global Business, Kim Sae-Young, Garth L. Mangum, Stephen Tallman

Bookshelf

Drawing upon case studies of firms in the steel industry, the authors show that companies competing internationally can pool their strengths to offset their individual weaknesses, enabling them to build economically successful entities more easily than if each company tried to go it alone in competition with rivals. In doing so they show how the world steel industry emerged into a group of international joint ventures and how in each of these transnational marriages the whole became greater than the sum of its parts. Among the authors' main points are: cultural conflicts are minimized by economic success but magnified by …

The Computer And The Mud Hut: Notes On Multinational Enterprise In Developing Countries, A. A. Fatouros

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.