Safety climate and increased risk: The role of deadlines in design work

Although much research indicates positive safety climate is associated with reduced safety risk, we argue this association is not universal and may even be reversed in some contexts. Specifically, we argue that positive safety climate can be associated with increased safety risk when there is pressure to prioritize production over safety and where workers have some detachment from the consequences of their actions, such as found in engineering design work. We used two indicators of safety risk: use of heuristics at the individual level and design complexity at the design team level. Using experience sampling data (N = 165, 42 design teams, k = 5752 observations), we found design engineers’ perceptions of team positive safety climate were associated with less use of heuristics when engineers were not working to deadlines, but more use of heuristics when engineers were working to deadlines. Independent ratings were obtained of 31 teams’ designs of offshore oil and gas platforms (N = 121). For teams that worked infrequently to deadlines, positive team safety climate was associated with less design complexity. For teams that worked frequently to deadlines, positive team safety climate was associated with more design complexity

Understanding Communication of Sustainability Reporting: Application of Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of rhetoric and rhetorical strategies that are implicit in the standalone sustainability reporting of the top 24 companies of the Fortune 500 Global. We adopt Bormann’s (Q J Speech 58(4):396–407, 1972) SCT framework to study the rhetorical situation and how corporate sustainability reporting (CSR) messages can be communicated to the audience (public). The SCT concepts in the sustainability reporting’s communication are subject to different types of legitimacy strategies that are used by corporations as a validity and legitimacy claim in the reports. A content analysis has been conducted and structural coding schemes have been developed based on the literature. The schemes are applied to the SCT model which recognizes the symbolic convergent processes of fantasy among communicators in a Society. The study reveals that most of the sample companies communicate fantasy type and rhetorical vision in their corporate sustainability reporting. However, the disclosure or messages are different across locations and other taxonomies of the SCT framework. This study contributes to the current CSR literature about how symbolic or fantasy understandings can be interpreted by the users. It also discusses the persuasion styles that are adopted by the companies for communication purposes. This study is the theoretical extension of the SCT. Researchers may be interested in further investigating other online communication paths, such as human rights reports and director’s reports

The Liability of Foreignness in International Equity Investments: Evidence from the U.S. Stock Market

Bok Baik, Jun-Koo Kang, Jin-Mo Kim, and Joonho Lee

International New Ventures: Revisiting the Influences Behind the 'Born-Global' Firm

There is a small but theoretically important literature on ‘born-globals’ or international new venture firms that positions itself in contrast to the more established sequential international entry literature. In this paper we examine the pattern of entry into international markets for a set of international new ventures and show that they need not be a distinct breed of firms, as previous research has portrayed. Absent a specific technological advantage, the decision for a new venture to internationalize at inception is influenced by the size of its home market and by its production capacity, as well as by cultural and economic forces that also influence other more traditional firms that stage their entry into international markets. Most importantly, we demonstrate that the decision to internationalize or not should be considered jointly with the capacity allocation decision to specific international markets, as analysing these separately may lead to biased results. Journal of International Business Studies (2007) 38, 1113–1131. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400308

Ex-post Performance Implications of Divergence of Managers’ Perceptions of ‘Distance’ From ‘Reality’ in International Business

Despite much research on “distance”, little attention has been paid to the effect of divergence of managers’ perceptions of distance from reality (i.e. distance divergence) and its implications for firm performance. This knowledge is highly important since managerial perceptions of the firm’s environment do not always coincide with the actual environmental characteristics. Consequently, strategies based on inaccurate data may result in erroneous forecasts, missed opportunities and business failure. Using survey data from senior managers of Swedish exporters and corresponding objective data, this study is a first attempt to explore the ex-post performance implications of “distance divergence” when expanding into foreign markets. Our results demonstrate that the larger the divergence between managers’ perceptions of cultural distance and corresponding “objective” distance, the lower the performance expressed in companies’ sales. However, over/underestimation of cultural distance does not have differential effects on firm performance.“Stiftelsen Olle Hakelius Stipendiefond”, Grant no: 1165001

Global gatekeeping, representation, and network structure: a longitudinal analysis of regional and global knowledge-diffusion networks

This paper argues that structural characteristics of knowledge-diffusion networks, such as density levels, centralization levels, and the presence of global knowledge brokers, contribute to the emergence of dominant designs and the competitiveness of countries' firms and industries. It further suggests that national institutional structures and firm-specific attributes influence the development of these knowledge-diffusion networks. Six propositions, developed from examination of one industry's networks and previous scholarly literature, specify these arguments. Journal of International Business Studies (2003) 34, 428–442. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400039