The effect of government-designed export promotion service use on small and medium-sized enterprise goal achievement: A multidimensional view of export performance

Extant literature is equivocal on the effect of government-designed export promotion instruments and services (EPS) on firm performance. Moreover, literature examining the effects of EPS on exporting firms' success is dominated by a single performance perspective, namely, financial goal achievement. Further, the majority of the studies are conducted in developed countries, with limited attention to exporters in developing countries. In order to address these gaps, this study examines the impact of EPS use on export goal achievement of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) from a developing country, while adopting a four-dimensional view of export performance. Based on a survey of 143 firms in Turkey, the findings suggest that EPS use improves all four export performance dimensions considered, namely, financial, stakeholder relationship, strategic, and organizational learning goal achievements. The article also delineates the performance effects of specific EPS. For example, stakeholder relationship goal achievement is influenced by only one EPS considered, namely, informational materials (e.g., brochures, pamphlets) on exporting. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for scholars, public policy makers, and managers. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Value Orientations as Determinants of Preference for External and Anonymous Whistleblowing

Incidences of organizational wrongdoing have become wide spread throughout the whole business world. The management of organizational wrongdoings is of growing concern in organizations globally, since these types of acts can be detrimental to financial well being. Wrongdoing occurs within organizational settings and organizational members commonly have knowledge of and thus the opportunity to report the wrongdoing. An employee's decision to report individual or organizational misconduct, i.e. blow the whistle, is a complex phenomenon that is based upon organizational, situational and personal factors. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between value orientations of individuals and choices for particular whistleblowing modes. Our results show that there are significant relationships between these variables. We contribute to the extant literature by choosing Turkey as context as most studies have been conducted in the US and Europe, and little has been reported about the actions taken by employees in non-Western cultures when they observe wrongdoing in their organizations

Individual responses to competing institutional logics in emerging markets

In this paper, we study individual responses to competing institutional market and community logics. We argue that when individuals experience strong pressures both from market and community logics in hybrid contexts, they are unlikely to choose one logic over another. Instead, they combine both logics act as hybridizers. We identified three roles of local (Kazakhstani and Turkish) managers as hybridizers: bridging between competing logics, boundary spanning and cultural buffering

Suppliers as Stewards? Managing Social Standards in First- and Second-Tier Suppliers

Buyer-supplier relationships are often framed as principal-agent relationships, based on contractual arrangements that temporarily align the goals of both parties. The underlying notion is that the relationship between buyers and suppliers is adversarial in nature and that the supplier, acting in the role of the agent, will take advantage of the principal if not sufficiently controlled. We propose that there is empirically also another type of partnership which reflects the propositions of stewardship theory. According to this theory, suppliers are motivated to work autonomously towards contractually agreed objectives. We analyse how the agency and stewardship theories differ regarding their descriptions of autonomy, motivation, identification, authority, stakeholder orientation and short- versus long-term collaboration. We analyse the case of a first-tier supplier and four second-tier suppliers situated in Turkey in the area of Istanbul which collaborate with the aim of improving their social and environmental performance. The results show that the relationship between the partners in this case has become more collaborative over time and can now be described in terms of stewardship theory rather than in terms of agency theory. We conclude that the distinction between agency and stewardship relationships is empirically meaningful in the context of supplier-buyer relationships and adds a new aspect to our understanding of how to achieve more sustainable supply chains

Family and non-family sources of knowledge diversity in family firms: The role of causation logics

This article will critically analyse the sources and the role of knowledge diversity in informing causation logics in family firms. Family firms rely on knowledge resources from both intra-family and extra-family sources, which may require different approaches to effectively manage. We argue that as family firms acquire greater knowledge diversity, family-centred effectuation processes become limited and they will increasingly rely on formal causation logics to coordinate these resources. However, we expect this relationship to differ when knowledge diversity is sourced from either family or non-family sources. Empirical analyses of 242 small- and medium-sized family firms indicate that knowledge diversity positively affects a firm's reliance on causation logics, regardless of the source of that diversity. This suggests that the affinity of family firms to leverage effectuation logics may not be characteristic of family firms in general, but instead may be an artefact of firm reliance on knowledge capital concentrated in family owners

Collective action against sexism in Germany, Turkey, and Japan: The influence of self-construal and face concerns

We suggest that self-construal and face concerns influence individuals' collective action intentions against sexism. We examined female students from Germany (N = 105), Japan (N = 112), and Turkey, (N = 111), exposed them to a benevolent and a hostile sexism scenario, and compared their collective action intentions and indirect conflict management styles (avoiding, outflanking) within countries. As predicted, German and Turkish female students' collective action intentions against sexism surpassed their intentions for indirect conflict management styles, whereas the reverse was true for Japanese female students. However, Japanese female students had an unaccomplished desire for collective action, suggesting that they wish to act but decide against open confrontation to maintain ingroup harmony. The higher individuals' independent self-concept and the less they value face, the higher their collective action intentions against hostile sexism in all three countries. We discuss culturally appropriate ways of collective action

Influence of Ethical Position on Whistleblowing Behaviour: Do Preferred Channels in Private and Public Sectors Differ?

Whistleblowing refers to the disclosure by organization members of illegal, immoral, or illegitimate practices to persons or organizations that may be able to effect action. Most studies on the topic have been conducted in North American or European private sector organizations, and less attention has been paid to regions such as Turkey. In this study, we study the whistleblowing intentions and channel choices of Turkish employees in private and public sector organizations. Using data from 327 private sector and 405 public sector employees, we find that public sector employees are more idealistic and less inclined to whistleblow externally and anonymously. Higher idealism among public sector employees does not moderate these effects. We find that private sector employees are more relativistic, and that they are more inclined to whistleblow through external and anonymous channels. More relativistic private sector employees are more likely to prefer external whistleblowing; however sector does not moderate the propensity to whistleblow anonymously