Liability of Emergingness of Emerging Market Banks Internationalizing to Advanced Economies

International management scholars are paying increasing attention to the internationalization of service firms from emerging markets, but empirical research on the challenges facing such firms remains scarce. This study examines how emerging market banks (EMBs) cope with the liability of emergingness. To this end, we conducted exploratory, qualitative interviews with Brazilian and Chinese bankers. We found that the liability may hamper the ability of EMBs to engage in institutional isomorphism in order to effectively embed themselves into host locations. The results reveal that liability of emergingness is a problem, particularly for Chinese banks whose internationalization links with the Belt Road Initiative—national strategy to support the Chinese firms go global. The findings indicate that a major problem is that senior managers in the home countries fail to understand the importance of differences between home and host country institutional systems. The low level of autonomy granted to subsidiary managers, which arises from this lack of understanding on the part of their headquarters, hinders the ability of subsidiaries to effectively engage in normative and mimetic isomorphism to embed into host location institutional systems. The study also highlights differences in how Brazilian and Chinese banks might address this challenge

Synthesis and crystal structure of lithium alendronate

A new monovalent metal alendronate [Li(H4L)(H2O)2] [H5L = H2N(CH2)3C(OH)(PO3H2)2] (1) has been synthesized from lithium carbonate and alendronic acid and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction as well as infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and electrospray mass spectrometry. Compound 1 is monomeric, and the four coordinate Li ion is coordinated by one oxygen of each phosphonate group and two waters in a distorted tetrahedral array. Extensive hydrogen bonding links each complex molecule to 10 others giving a 3-D supramolecular network

Misrecognizing Muslim consciousness in Europe

It is widely accepted that the category of 'Muslim' in Europe is patterned by a variety of subjective and objective features. Despite internal difference, some argue that there emerges something overarching that furnishes Muslims in Europe with a collective sense of self, evidenced by empirically observable Muslim identities at local, national and supra-national levels. Amongst those who share this view at least three prevailing interpretations have emerged. The first is theologically grounded but socially iterative. It maintains that Europe's Muslims are redefining Islam in the context of their identities as European Muslims and that the result is a 'Euro-Islam', illustrated by how Muslims view Europe as their home while being guided by a renewed Islamic doctrine. A second interpretation of a 'Muslim subject' in Europe can be described as the 'Eurabia' trajectory. This predicts the numerical and cultural domination of Europe by Muslims and Islam. The third is more formally sociological and employs a methodology of political claims-making to report that Muslims in Europe are exceptional in not following path-dependent institutional opportunity structures of minority integration. This article argues that these formulations are open to the charge that each places the burden of adaptation upon Muslim minorities. As such each displays a normative 'position' or Weltanschauung that misrecognizes dynamic components of what may be termed 'Muslim-consciousness'. The article maintains that the components of Muslim consciousness contain compelling evidence that Muslims in Europe are meeting standards of reasonableness in their political claims-making, often from contexts in which they face profound social and political adversity