The Theoretical Embedding Of Born Globals: Challenging Existing Internationalization Theories

This article examines the embedding of the phenomenon of Born Globals into three existing theories of the firm. The model of Born Globals deals with young companies that begin shortly after their foundation to internationalize. The Uppsala Internationalization Model helps to delimit the concept of Born Globals from existing internationalization models and to highlight their special features. The resource-based view takes up the integration of knowledge as the key resource of Born Globals and explains the underlying mechanism with which a company achieves a sustainable competitive advantage from a bundle of resources. The knowledge-based view is concerned with the generation of knowledge and explains the learning processes that are performed by the entrepreneur. A recurring theme could be identified and contains the following elements which interconnect the three theories of the firm with the concept of Born Globals - knowledge as a key resource, learning, and integration of knowledge into organizations

Covenant Violations, Loan Contracting, and Default Risk of Bank Borrowers

Are borrowers rewarded for repaying their loans? This paper investigates the consequences of covenant violations on subsequent loans to the same borrower using a hand-collected sample of US syndicated loans during the 1996 to 2010 period. We find that covenant violations have substantial negative effects for borrowers in subsequent loans. Our results show that the loan spread increases by 22 basis points in the loan following the violation. We also find that the new contract includes more financial covenants which are also more restrictive. Switching banks after a violation does not reduce these effects and even leads to a further increase in loan spreads. We also provide empirical evidence that borrowers who have violated covenants in the previous contract are significantly more likely to violate covenants again in the next loan. Moreover, they violate earlier compared to borrowers who have not violated covenants before. Most importantly, these borrowers also exhibit a substantially higher likelihood to default, particularly in the first 100 days after a violation. Our results suggest that there is an important role for covenants in monitoring borrowers and that covenant violations provide an early warning signal for a severe deterioration of borrower credit quality

Drivers of internationalization success:a conjoint choice experiment on German SME managers

Internationalization is a common growth strategy for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, SMEs face several challenges within the internationalization process. As SMEs are characterized by limited resources, managers are constantly involved in a decision-making process concerning the allocation of the SMEs' resources. Therefore, internationalization can be understood as a complex, multidimensional decision process. Based on a set of 2244 internationalization decisions made by German SME managers, the present study examines how eight strategic and structural factors drive the perceived international success of SMEs. When applying conjoint choice analysis, the results suggest that especially equity financing in the internationalization process, an appropriate market selection as well as proactive motives, and a long-term scope can drive SMEs' international success. Moreover, it becomes evident that strategic factors are more relevant for successful internationalization than structural factors

How Does De‐Globalization affect location decisions? A Study of managerial perceptions of risk and return

Our understanding of how managers take international location decisions is still scarce. Building on the microfoundations view, we explore managers’ perceptions of risk and return in a discrete choice experiment with 2,618 decisions in 2013 (a globalizing world) and 2017 (a de‐globalizing world). While managerial perceptions vary over time due to economic and political changes, such as the current de‐globalization trend, decision heuristics remain remarkably stable: locations perceived as least risky offer the highest expected returns. We also find that distance is a good proxy for managerial perceptions. Investigating the microfoundations of decision‐making we show that international experience, risk‐taking propensity and shareholder status affect heuristics. In sum, our study provides novel insights into the microfoundations of location decisions and extends the behavioral perspective on internationalization

Facilitating Conflict Resolution of Models for Automated Enterprise Architecture Documentation

Enterprise Architecture (EA) management relies on solid and up-to-date information about the current state of an EA. In current practices the manual collection of information is prevailing resulting in an error-prone, time-consuming, and expensive task. Recent research efforts seek to automate this task by integrating existing information sources in the organization to optimize the EA documentation process. While automation of EA documentation enables many advantages, the transformation of the collected information to an EA model remains an unresolved challenge since it cannot be automated completely. In particular, conflicts resulting from partial transformations require involvement of EA Stakeholders possibly not having a technical background. In this paper we propose an approach for the conflict resolution facilitating our long-term goal of automated EA documentation. We illustrate our approach using a productive Enterprise Service Bus from a leading organization of the fashion industry and evaluate our approach with expert interviews

War and Nationalism: How WW1 Battle Deaths Fueled Civilians’ Support for the Nazi Party

Can wars breed nationalism? We argue that civilians’ indirect exposure to war fatalities can trigger psychological processes that increase identification with their nation and ultimately strengthen support for nationalist parties. We test this argument in the context of the rise of the Nazi Party after World War 1 (WW1). To measure localized war exposure, we machine-coded information on 7.5 million German soldiers who were wounded or died in WW1. Our empirical strategy leverages battlefield dynamics that cause plausibly exogenous variation in the county-level casualty fatality rate—the share of dead soldiers among all casualties. We find that throughout the interwar period, electoral support for right-wing nationalist parties, including the Nazi Party, was 2.6 percentage points higher in counties with above-median casualty fatality rates. Consistent with our proposed mechanism, we find that this effect was driven by civilians rather than veterans and areas with a preexisting tradition of collective war commemoration.publishedVersio

Quantification of Volatile Acetone Oligomers Using Ion-Mobility Spectrometry

Background. Volatile acetone is a potential biomarker that is elevated in various disease states. Measuring acetone in exhaled breath is complicated by the fact that the molecule might be present as both monomers and dimers, but in inconsistent ratios. Ignoring the molecular form leads to incorrect measured concentrations. Our first goal was to evaluate the monomer-dimer ratio in ambient air, critically ill patients, and rats. Our second goal was to confirm the accuracy of the combined (monomer and dimer) analysis by comparison to a reference calibration system. Methods. Volatile acetone intensities from exhaled air of ten intubated, critically ill patients, and ten ventilated Sprague-Dawley rats were recorded using ion-mobility spectrometry. Acetone concentrations in ambient air in an intensive care unit and in a laboratory were determined over 24 hours. )e calibration reference was pure acetone vaporized by a gas generator at concentrations from 5 to 45 ppbv (parts per billion by volume). Results. Acetone concentrations in ambient laboratory air were only slightly greater (5.6 ppbv; 95% CI 5.1–6.2) than in ambient air in an intensive care unit (5.1 ppbv; 95% CI 4.4–5.5; p < 0.001). Exhaled acetone concentrations were only slightly greater in rats (10.3 ppbv; 95% CI 9.7–10.9) than in critically ill patients (9.5 ppbv; 95% CI 7.9–11.1; p < 0.001). Vaporization yielded acetone monomers (1.3–5.3 mV) and dimers (1.4–621 mV). Acetone concentrations (ppbv) and corresponding acetone monomer and dimer intensities (mV) revealed a high coefficient of determination (R2 � 0.96). )e calibration curve for acetone concentration (ppbv) and total acetone (monomers added to twice the dimers; mV) was described by the exponential growth 3-parameter model, with an R2 � 0.98. Conclusion. )e ratio of acetone monomer and dimer is inconsistent and varies in ambient air from place-to-place and across individual humans and rats. Monomers and dimers must therefore be considered when quantifying acetone. Combining the two accurately assesses total volatile acetone

How to Clear Polytrauma Patients for Fracture Fixation: Results of a systematic review of the literature

Introduction Early patient assessment is relevant for surgical decision making in severely injured patients and early definitive surgery is known to be beneficial in stable patients. The aim of this systematic review is to extract parameters indicative of risk factors for adverse outcome. Moreover, we aim to improve decision making and separate patients who would benefit from early versus staged definitive surgical fixation. Methods Following the PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review of peer-reviewed articles in English or German language published between (2000 and 2022) was performed. The primary outcome was the pathophysiological response to polytrauma including coagulopathy, shock/haemorrhage, hypothermia and soft tissue injury (trauma, brain injury, thoracic and abdominal trauma, and musculoskeletal injury) to determine the treatment strategy associated with the least amount of complications. Articles that had used quantitative parameters to distinguish between stable and unstable patients were summarized. Two authors screened articles and discrepancies were resolved by consensus. Quantitative values for relevant parameters indicative of an unstable polytrauma patient were obtained. Results The initial systematic search using MeSH criteria yielded 1550 publications deemed relevant to the following topics (coagulopathy (n = 37), haemorrhage/shock (n = 7), hypothermia (n = 11), soft tissue injury (n = 24)). Thresholds for stable, borderline, unstable and in extremis conditions were defined according to the existing literature as follows: Coagulopathy; International Normalized Ratio (INR) and viscoelastic methods (VEM)/Blood/shock; lactate, systolic blood pressure and haemoglobin, hypothermia; thresholds in degrees Celsius/Soft tissue trauma: traumatic brain injury, thoracic and abdominal trauma and musculoskeletal trauma. Conclusion In this systematic literature review, we summarize publications by focusing on different pathways that stimulate pathophysiological cascades and remote organ damage. We propose that these parameters can be used for clinical decision making within the concept of safe definitive surgery (SDS) in the treatment of severely injured patients. Keywords Polytrauma surgical treatment strategy Safe Definitive Surgery Timing of major trauma surgery Damage contro