Once bitten, not necessarily shy? Determinants of foreign market re-entry commitment strategies

We investigate foreign market re-entry commitment strategies, namely the changes in the modes of operation (commitment) undertaken by multinational enterprises (MNEs) as they return to foreign markets from which they had previously exited. We combine organisational learning theory with the institutional change literature to examine the antecedents of re-entry commitment strategies. From an analysis of 1,020 re-entry events between 1980 and 2016, we find that operation mode prior to exit is a strong predictor of subsequent re-entry mode. Contrary to the predictions of learning theory, we did not find support for the effect of experience accumulated during the initial market endeavour on the re-entry commitment strategies of MNEs. In turn, exit motives significantly impact on the re-entrants' decision to re-enter via a different mode of operation, by either increasing or decreasing their commitment to the market. We show that re-entrants do not replicate unsuccessful operation mode strategies if they had previously underperformed in the market. When favourable host institutional changes occur during the time-out period re-entrants tend to increase commitment in the host market irrespective of the degree of prior experience accumulated in the market

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

Motivating University Researchers

Contains fulltext : 68817.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)This paper presents an empirical investigation into how universities approach the need and means for motivating university researchers through their management practices. The role of work motivation for this group deserves attention because pressures from outside and within the universities are said to have made university research less of a curiosity-driven activity and turned it more into ordinary work, with career opportunities and performance assessment connected with it. Interviews with research managers in the Business Administration discipline in The Netherlands have been analysed via the principles of a grounded theory approach. The analysis shows that the ways research managers deal with motivation issues cannot adequately be captured by how universities as employment systems define the typical core categories of work motivation theories, including goals, tasks, performance and competencies. A crucial role for understanding how motivation is — and is not — managed appears to lie in how individual and organizational understandings of work assessment, work processes and work context connect to the social mechanisms borrowed from the broader epistemic, discipline-specific communities outside the university.18 p

When reactivity fails: The limited effects of hospital rankings

Dorn C. When reactivity fails: The limited effects of hospital rankings. Social Science Information. 2019;58(2):327-353.Recent research has advanced the idea that modern society is replete with numerous measuring activities that evaluate the performance of individuals and organisations. Both the research and the application of such measures suggest that the scrutinised actors will internalise the expectations associated with these measures and adjust their behaviour accordingly (‘reactivity’). Usually these expectations involve both technical and moral demands aimed at improving the evaluated activities so as to make them more beneficial, efficient, and transparent for the consumer and society in general. However, both research and practice instantaneously equate their widespread presence with their efficacy, i.e. that their implied behaviour-altering capacity is inevitably achieved. This overlooks that the coupling of measurement and behavioural change is mitigated by the sensemaking processes of the examined actors. Using examples from the US hospital sector, this article shows that patients, medical professionals, and hospitals do not simply conform to the expectations created by hospitals rankings but rather show different forms of resistance, such as ignorance or rejection. Thereby, the paper highlights that the conditions under which measures prove inescapable and substantially influence social fields need to be examined more closely

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 one of the first attempts 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

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 one of the first attempts 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

Horizontal Unfairness and Retrospective Sensemaking

In this article, I aim at problematizing the implied idea of causality in cognitive evaluations of horizontal justice events. I will draw on theories about retrospective sensemaking and its cognitive foundation in counterfactual belief formation. Issues related to horizontal or intraunit unfairness emerge in situations in which the actions of one employee influence the outcome of another due to relational interdependence. The authors of theories about horizontal unfairness have continued the traditional distinction between the three facets of justice, procedural, distributive, and interactional. However, might employee A blame employee B because she (B) obtained qualitative (e.g., non-monetary appraisal) or quantitative (e.g., monetary compensation) recognition even though the latter did not, directly at least, bring about the event. The problem here is one of causality which asks the question, Can A be blamed by B for bringing about the event of outcome difference? While blame in evaluations of vertical justice certainly presumes causal agency, it might be questioned whether the same goes for horizontal unfairness. Counterfactual belief formation enables a step into the cognitive and retrospective nature of evaluations of horizontal justice events centered on the counterfactual belief “had the unfavorable event X not occurred, another and more favorable event X 1 would have occurred.” This is related to the distance between the actual X and the potential event state X), in the sense that the closer the two appear, the more convincing becomes A’s belief to himself. The underlying causality of rewarding processes, however, states that some third party introduces the recognition, for example, a manager, and, therefore, B did not bring about the reward event, the third party did. It seems, then, that to understand this, we should take into consideration: 1) the formation of counterfactual beliefs and 2) the causality of blame. The article concludes that, due to the underlying causality of rewarding processes, one might solely consider one facet of horizontal justice, interactional horizontal justice. However, tapping into the phenomenological dimension of morality might allow one also to address the moral nature of distributive and procedural facets of horizontal justice as the experience of the psychosocial fabric of social reality related with feeling either “as if” one is being treated unfairly or “as if” one is treating others unfairly. </p