Artificial intelligence (AI), commonly defined as “a system’s ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation,” can be classified into analytical, human-inspired, and humanized AI depending upon its application of cognitive, emotional, and social intelligence. AI’s foundations took place in the 1950s. A sequence of vicissitudes of funding, interest in, and support for AI followed subsequently. In 2015 AlphaGo, Google’s AI-driven system, won against the human grandmaster in the highly complex board game Go. This is considered one of the most significant milestones in the development of AI and marks the starting of a new period, enabling several AI innovations in a variety of sectors and industries.
Higher education, the fashion industry, and the arts serve as illustrations of areas wherein ample innovation based on AI occurs. Using these domains, various angles of innovation in AI can be presented and decrypted. AI innovation in higher education, for example, indicates that at some point, AI-powered robots might take over the role of human teachers. For the moment, however, AI in academia is solely used to support human beings, not to replace them. The apparel industry, specifically fast fashion—one of the planet’s biggest polluters—shows how innovation in AI can help the sector move toward sustainability and eco-responsibility through, among other ways, improved forecasting, increased customer satisfaction, and more efficient supply chain management. An analysis of AI-driven novelty in the arts, notably in museums, shows that developing highly innovative, AI-based solutions might be a necessity for the survival of a strongly declining cultural sector.
These examples all show the role AI already plays in these sectors and its likely importance in their respective futures. While AI applications imply many improvements for academia, the apparel industry, and the arts, it should come as no surprise that it also has several drawbacks. Enforcing laws and regulations concerning AI is critical in order to avoid its adverse effects. Ethics and the ethical behavior of managers and leaders in various sectors and industries is likewise crucial. Education will play an additional significant role in helping AI positively influence economies and societies worldwide. Finally, international entente (i.e., the cooperation of the world’s biggest economies and nations) must take place to ensure AI’s benefit to humanity and civilization. Therefore, these challenges and areas (i.e., enforcement, ethics, education, and entente) can be summarized as the four summons of AI.
141-160 of 282 Results
Article
Innovation in Artificial Intelligence: Illustrations in Academia, Apparel, and the Arts
Andreas Kaplan
Article
Innovation Indicators
Fred Gault and Luc Soete
Innovation indicators support research on innovation and the development of innovation policy. Once a policy has been implemented, innovation indicators can be used to monitor and evaluate the result, leading to policy learning. Producing innovation indicators requires an understanding of what innovation is. There are many definitions in the literature, but innovation indicators are based on statistical measurement guided by international standard definitions of innovation and of innovation activities.
Policymakers are not just interested in the occurrence of innovation but in the outcome. Does it result in more jobs and economic growth? Is it expected to reduce carbon emissions, to advance renewable energy production and energy storage? How does innovation support the Sustainable Development Goals? From the innovation indicator perspective, innovation can be identified in surveys, but that only shows that there is, or there is not, innovation. To meet specific policy needs, a restriction can be imposed on the measurement of innovation. The population of innovators can be divided into those meeting the restriction, such as environmental improvements, and those that do not. In the case of innovation indicators that show a change over time, such as “inclusive innovation,” there may have to be a baseline measurement followed by a later measurement to see if inclusiveness is present, or growing, or not. This may involve social as well as institutional surveys. Once the innovation indicators are produced, they can be made available to potential users through databases, indexes, and scoreboards. Not all of these are based on the statistical measurement of innovation. Some use proxies, such as the allocation of financial and human resources to research and development, or the use of patents and academic publications. The importance of the databases, indexes, and scoreboards is that the findings may be used for the ranking of “innovation” in participating countries, influencing their behavior. While innovation indicators have always been influential, they have the potential to become more so. For decades, innovation indicators have focused on innovation in the business sector, while there have been experiments on measuring innovation in the public (general government sector and public institutions) and the household sectors. Historically, there has been no standard definition of innovation applicable in all sectors of the economy (business, public, household, and non-profit organizations serving households sectors). This changed with the Oslo Manual in 2018, which published a general definition of innovation applicable in all economic sectors. Applying a general definition of innovation has implications for innovation indicators and for the decisions that they influence. If the general definition is applied to the business sector, it includes product innovations that are made available to potential users rather than being introduced on the market. The product innovation can be made available at zero price, which has influence on innovation indicators that are used to describe the digital transformation of the economy. The general definition of innovation, the digital transformation of the economy, and the growing importance of zero price products influence innovation indicators.
Article
Innovation in Family Business
Alfredo De Massis, Emanuela Rondi, and Samuel Wayne Appleton
The involvement of families in firms’ ownership, management, and governance is a key driver of organizational attitudes, behaviors, and performances, especially those related to innovation. Starting from the beginning of the 21st century, the academic interest toward family firm innovation has bloomed. This body of research has mostly emerged from family firm scholars, while mainstream innovation scholars have often overlooked family variables in their studies. Indeed, innovation is one of the main areas in family firm research, integrating family and business aspects, leading to a plethora of sometimes contradictory findings. Initially, research compared innovation between family and nonfamily firms. While this approach has been beneficial to the rise of this stream of research and underlined the idiosyncratic characteristics of family firms on this matter, it soon emerged that within family firms there is a high degree of heterogeneity, especially in their attributes and the way they relate to innovation. Therefore, scholars have delved deeper into the heterogeneous influence that different types and degrees of family involvement in the firm can exert on innovation. This vast body of literature can be reconciled according to an antecedents–activities–outcomes framework allowing to attune current understanding of family firm innovation and recommend directions for future research. While most of current research has examined the antecedents of family business innovation, further examination of the activity of innovating in family firms is needed. Fostering accessibility to this literature allows students, practitioners, and scholars to grasp and digest this insightful area of family business research. It also encourages an extension of the range of perspectives adopted to examine innovation in family firms, contributing to advance current knowledge.
Article
Institutional Logics
Heather A. Haveman and Gillian Gualtieri
Research on institutional logics surveys systems of cultural elements (values, beliefs, and normative expectations) by which people, groups, and organizations make sense of and evaluate their everyday activities, and organize those activities in time and space. Although there were scattered mentions of this concept before 1990, this literature really began with the 1991 publication of a theory piece by Roger Friedland and Robert Alford. Since that time, it has become a large and diverse area of organizational research. Several books and thousands of papers and book chapters have been published on this topic, addressing institutional logics in sites as different as climate change proceedings of the United Nations, local banks in the United States, and business groups in Taiwan. Several intellectual precursors to institutional logics provide a detailed explanation of the concept and the theory surrounding it. These literatures developed over time within the broader framework of theory and empirical work in sociology, political science, and anthropology. Papers published in ten major sociology and management journals in the United States and Europe (between 1990 and 2015) provide analysis and help to identify trends in theoretical development and empirical findings. Evaluting these trends suggest three gentle corrections and potentially useful extensions to the literature help to guide future research: (1) limiting the definition of institutional logic to cultural-cognitive phenomena, rather than including material phenomena; (2) recognizing both “cold” (purely rational) cognition and “hot” (emotion-laden) cognition; and (3) developing and testing a theory (or multiple related theories), meaning a logically interconnected set of propositions concerning a delimited set of social phenomena, derived from assumptions about essential facts (axioms), that details causal mechanisms and yields empirically testable (falsifiable) hypotheses, by being more consistent about how we use concepts in theoretical statements; assessing the reliability and validity of our empirical measures; and conducting meta-analyses of the many inductive studies that have been published, to develop deductive theories.
Article
An Institutional Perspective on Corporate Governance
Ilir Haxhi
Concerned with the structure of rights and responsibilities among corporate actors, corporate governance focuses primarily on the monitoring of executive boards, the protection of minority shareholders, corporate reporting and disclosure, and the improvement of employee participation in the corporate decision-making process. An institutional theory–driven approach helps position corporate governance as a social construct that reflects formal institutional rules as well as the informal practices that prevail when formal rules are absent, weak, or ambiguously defined. The institutional context thus constitutes a framework for corporate governance that captures not only the internal structures of corporations but also the institutional arrangements and national business systems in which these corporations are embedded. The actor-centered institutional perspective provides a comprehensive, in-depth, and nuanced picture not only of current governance structures but also of the characteristics and practices that prevail within and across different corporate governance models. Overall, adopting an institutional perspective underscores the importance of recognizing that corporate governance at the national level remains a key unit of analysis for explaining its diversity because it highlights the role of national institutions and their powerful institutional actors.
Article
Institutional Theory in Organization Studies
Robert J. David, Pamela S. Tolbert, and Johnny Boghossian
Institutional theory is a prominent perspective in contemporary organizational research. It encompasses a large, diverse body of theoretical and empirical work connected by a common emphasis on cultural understandings and shared expectations. Institutional theory is often used to explain the adoption and spread of formal organizational structures, including written policies, standard practices, and new forms of organization. Tracing its roots to the writings of Max Weber on legitimacy and authority, the perspective originated in the 1950s and 1960s with the work of Talcott Parsons, Philip Selznick, and Alvin Gouldner on organization–environment relations. It subsequently underwent a “cognitive turn” in the 1970s, with an emphasis on taken-for-granted habits and assumptions, and became commonly known as “neo-institutionalism” in organizational studies. Recently, work based on the perspective has shifted from a focus on processes involved in producing isomorphism to a focus on institutional change, exemplified by studies of the emergence of new laws and regulations, products, services, and occupations. The expansion of the theoretical framework has contributed to its long-term vitality, though a number of challenges to its development remain, including resolving inconsistencies in the different models of decision-making and action (homo economicus vs. homo sociologicus) that underpin institutional analysis and improving our understanding of the intersection of socio-cultural forces and entrepreneurial agency.
Article
Inter-Firm and Intra-Firm Managerial Mobility
Joseph P. Broschak
Inter- and intrafirm managerial mobility has emerged as a topic of growing interest among management and organizational scholars. The movement of managers within and between organizations is one of the fundamental processes that links organizations and labor markets and has been the focus of research in organizational behavior, strategy, organization theory, and entrepreneurship for more than 50 years. Managerial mobility affects career opportunities and labor market outcomes for individual managers; influences the structure, strategy, routines, and processes of organizations; and shapes the environments within which organizations operate. Thus, managerial mobility research is a key to unlocking our understanding of a wide range of organizational behaviors and outcomes at several different analytical levels.
Readers are introduced to the topic of managerial mobility and the vast body of existing research is summarized here. To help researchers understand the phenomenon, “managerial mobility” is distinguished from the more general topic of “employee mobility,” various terms that researchers have used to characterize managerial mobility processes are defined, and a distinction is made between intra- and interorganizational mobility. Next, because managerial mobility is a complex process, relevant research on the antecedents of managerial mobility is identified, categorizing some of the most important predictors into individual-, organizational-, and environmental-level antecedents. To demonstrate to researchers the importance of studying managerial mobility, some of the significant consequences of managerial mobility are highlighted, again distinguishing between consequences for individuals, organizations, and the environments in which they reside. To conclude, four potential directions for research to guide scholars and help set a research agenda on lines of inquiry on intra- and interorganizational managerial mobility are offered.
Article
Internalization
Rajneesh Narula and Jong Min Lee
Internalization theory stands as a foundational framework within the realm of international business (IB). Its primary aim is to elucidate the reasons and methods behind a firm’s expansion across national boundaries. Pioneered and developed by eminent scholars, including John Dunning, Peter Buckley, Mark Casson, Jean-François Hennart, and Alan Rugman, internalization theory scrutinizes the underlying motives that drive firms to conduct transactions internally rather than resorting to external markets. Its central objective is to forecast why firms opt for internal transactions when venturing into the international arena, thereby influencing multiple facets of decision-making within organizations. Consequently, it offers invaluable insights into the structure and operation of multinational enterprises (MNEs). At its core, internalization theory delves into the dynamic interplay between the advantages and costs linked to the internalization of transactions. This analysis is pivotal in comprehending how firms tactically oversee their operations, especially within the context of the global economy. Crucially, the theory encompasses various substreams, as introduced by scholars such as Buckley and Casson, Hennart, and Rugman. Each of these substreams delves into specific aspects of internalization, collectively enriching the broader understanding of IB. Since the turn of the century, the discourse surrounding internalization theory has extended its scope to encompass concepts like the recombination of firm-specific advantages, the role of dynamic capabilities, and the impact of entrepreneurial actions in the operations of MNEs. A burgeoning concept within this theory is “quasi-internalization,” which signifies a hybrid governance approach. It amalgamates elements of both market and hierarchy, frequently relying on relational and reputation-based controls to facilitate international transactions. Thus, internalization theory remains highly pertinent in explaining the boundaries of MNEs across diverse eras and contexts, spanning from emerging economies to digital economies. It also serves as a valuable guide for other disciplines, such as strategy and management. When investigating new transaction types, firms, or governance methods, a prudent initial step involves assessing whether internalization theory can effectively elucidate them.
Article
International Initial Public Offerings
Christina Maria Muehr and Thomas Lindner
An initial public offering (IPO) is the process within which private firms offer their shares to the public by form of a new stock issuance for the first time. IPOs have strong economic significance and performance fluctuations, which affect both firms and public markets. What is more, acquiring capital on a stock exchange outside of the firm’s home country comes with substantial benefits, including access to a greater and more diversified pool of resources and investors, more liquid markets, the opportunity to raise capital at a lower cost of capital, and increased capital retention for future investments. On the contrary, it also introduces multiple challenges, including higher underwriting, professional, and initial listing fees or lower analyst coverage, trading volume, and trading liquidity.
Integrating and building on literature emerging from multiple domains, including international business (IB), accounting, finance, entrepreneurship, management, and economics, international IPO research clusters around seven central themes: corporate governance, upper echelon, social partners, internationalization activities, institutions, technology, and market activities. Each of these themes employs unique theoretical perspectives and findings, which are at the forefront of advancements in international IPO research from its early beginnings and altogether provide a deep understanding with some potential avenues of future enquiries within the field.
Article
Internationalization Processes
Catherine Welch and Peter W. Liesch
The Uppsala internationalization process (IP) model is one of the few long-standing developments in the international business (IB) field to have maintained pre-eminence into the early 21st century. Scholars at Uppsala University were early proponents of research on firm internationalization processes, advancing a model that defined the “Uppsala School” in IB. The attention that the model has received is justified, attesting to its continued relevance since it was first proposed in the 1970s. While welcomed, this attention has, however, not succeeded in capturing the theoretical essence of this model and its potential in further developing IP theory.
The consequence of this failure in the IB field is profound, as the full promise of research on the internationalizing firm, as well as the firm’s expansion into markets overseas, is yet to be realized. It can be asked, What then is the Uppsala IP model? Answering this question requires addressing common misconceptions about the model that have circulated for decades. These misconceptions continue to circulate, constraining theorizing on this topic. Dispelling these misconceptions and specifying what the IP model is provides the IB field fresh insights into what it could be when developed further in the future.
Article
International Research and Development and Knowledge Sourcing by Multinational Corporations
Kazuhiro Asakawa and Jaeyong Song
Internationalization of R&D facilitates knowledge sourcing of multinational corporations (MNCs) on a global scale. As MNCs internationalize R&D, they not only engage in domestic-driven R&D but are actively involved in overseas-driven R&D. And accordingly, the role of overseas R&D laboratories often evolves, from applying the HQ-generated innovation to local market, to innovating locally and contributing to the parent company. Within an MNC boundary, knowledge flows have become multidirectional: on top of the most typical knowledge flows from headquarters (HQ) to a subsidiary, reverse knowledge flows from a subsidiary to HQ as well as horizontal knowledge flows among overseas subsidiaries have become more salient. In addition to knowledge flows within a firm, increasing attention has been paid to external knowledge sourcing, i.e., knowledge sourcing from foreign locations outside the firm. MNCs commonly engage in local knowledge sourcing, i.e., sourcing knowledge from an overseas local environment, to tap into local hotbeds of innovation. But MNCs are also increasingly conducting global knowledge sourcing, i.e., sourcing knowledge from around the world, to practise global open innovation. Theoretically, knowledge sourcing in international R&D has often been examined from the capability and embeddedness perspectives. The effect of capability has been discussed in connection with motivation, autonomy, and mandates of subsidiaries. The effect of embeddedness has been discussed in connection with complementarity between external and internal embeddedness. As future research agenda, the following are suggested. First, cross-fertilization among the research fields of international R&D, global innovation, and open innovation deserves further attention. Second, greater research focus can be placed on managerial processes of global knowledge sourcing. Third, further research can be advanced on global knowledge sourcing at the team level. Fourth, the association between corporate governance and global knowledge sourcing can be investigated further. Fifth, much more attention needs to be paid to microfoundations of global knowledge sourcing. And lastly, further evolving patterns of global knowledge sourcing by advanced country multinationals (AMNCs) and emerging economies multinationals (EMNCs) continue to be relevant.
Article
Interpersonal Trust in Organizations
Jingjing Ma, John M. Schaubroeck, and Catherine LeBlanc
Interpersonal trust refers to confidence in another person (or between two persons) and a willingness to be vulnerable to him or her (or to each other). In contemporary organizational science, research conducted within organizations has extensively investigated personal, dyadic, and contextual factors that motivate interpersonal trust (i.e., trust between two persons) and the consequence of interpersonal trust for the trustor and the trustee. This line of work distinguishes between two orientations that researchers have taken when conceptualizing interpersonal trust: unidirectional trust and bidirectional trust. Unidirectional trust refers to a focus on one person’s trust in another without regard to the reciprocation of that trust. Unidirectional trust research investigates trust in another party at a higher hierarchy level (e.g., followers’ trust in the leader), a lower hierarchy level (e.g., the leader’s trust in followers), or at the same hierarchy level (e.g., employees’ trust in coworkers). Bidirectional trust focuses on the shared trust in a dyad. Research on bidirectional trust helps to provide insights about the complex pattern and evolution of interpersonal trust over time. However, research investigating bidirectional trust is relatively limited compared to unidirectional trust. Besides research on interpersonal trust within the same work unit, there is also a recent trend toward investigating interpersonal trust across work unit and organizational boundaries. Another important line of literature regarding interpersonal trust is the investigation of the causes and consequences of interpersonal trust violations and the effectiveness of remedies (e.g., apologies) for these violations.
Article
Interrater Agreement and Interrater Reliability: Implications for Multilevel Research
Jenell L. S. Wittmer and James M. LeBreton
Statistics used to index interrater similarity are prevalent in many areas of the social sciences, with multilevel research being one of the most common domains for estimating interrater similarity. Multilevel research spans multiple hierarchical levels, such as individuals, teams, departments, and the organization. There are three main research questions that multilevel researchers answer using indices of interrater agreement and interrater reliability: (a) Does the nesting of lower-level units (e.g., employees) within higher-level units (e.g., work teams) result in the non-independence of residuals, which is an assumption of the general linear model?; (b) Is there sufficient agreement between scores on measures collected from lower-level units (e.g., employees perceptions of customer service climate) to justify aggregating data to the higher-level (e.g., team-level climate)?; and (c) Following data aggregation, how effective are the higher-level unit means at distinguishing between those higher levels (e.g., how reliably do team climate scores distinguish between the teams)?
Interrater agreement and interrater reliability refer to the extent to which lower-level data nested or clustered within a higher-level unit are similar to one another. While closely related, interrater agreement and reliability differ from one another in how similarity is defined. Interrater reliability is the relative consistency in lower-level data. For example, to what degree do the scores assigned by raters tend to correlate with one another? Alternatively, interrater agreement is the consensus of the lower-level data points. For example, estimates of interrater agreement are used to determine the extent to which ratings made by judges/observers could be considered interchangeable or equivalent in terms of their values.
Thus, while interrater agreement and reliability both estimate the similarity of ratings by judges/observers, but they define interrater similarity in slightly different ways, and these statistics are suited to address different types of research questions. The first research question that these statistics address, the issue of non-independence, is typically measured using an interclass correlation statistic that is a function of both interrater reliability and agreement. However, in the context of non-independence, the intraclass correlation is most often interpreted as an effect size. The second multilevel research question, concerning adequate agreement to aggregate lower-level data to a higher level, would require a measure on interrater agreement, as the research is looking for consensus among raters. Finally, the third multilevel research question, concerning the reliability of higher-level means, not only requires a different variation of the intraclass correlation, but is also a function of both interrater reliability and agreement. Multilevel research requires researchers to appropriately apply interrater agreement and/or reliability statistics to their data, as well as follow best practices for calculating and interpreting these statistics.
Article
Intersectionality Theory and Practice
Doyin Atewologun
Intersectionality is a critical framework that provides us with the mindset and language for examining interconnections and interdependencies between social categories and systems. Intersectionality is relevant for researchers and for practitioners because it enhances analytical sophistication and offers theoretical explanations of the ways in which heterogeneous members of specific groups (such as women) might experience the workplace differently depending on their ethnicity, sexual orientation, and/or class and other social locations. Sensitivity to such differences enhances insight into issues of social justice and inequality in organizations and other institutions, thus maximizing the chance of social change.
The concept of intersectional locations emerged from the racialized experiences of minority ethnic women in the United States. Intersectional thinking has gained increased prominence in business and management studies, particularly in critical organization studies. A predominant focus in this field is on individual subjectivities at intersectional locations (such as examining the occupational identities of minority ethnic women). This emphasis on individuals’ experiences and within-group differences has been described variously as “content specialization” or an “intracategorical approach.” An alternate focus in business and management studies is on highlighting systematic dynamics of power. This encompasses a focus on “systemic intersectionality” and an “intercategorical approach.” Here, scholars examine multiple between-group differences, charting shifting configurations of inequality along various dimensions.
As a critical theory, intersectionality conceptualizes knowledge as situated, contextual, relational, and reflective of political and economic power. Intersectionality tends to be associated with qualitative research methods due to the central role of giving voice, elicited through focus groups, narrative interviews, action research, and observations. Intersectionality is also utilized as a methodological tool for conducting qualitative research, such as by researchers adopting an intersectional reflexivity mindset. Intersectionality is also increasingly associated with quantitative and statistical methods, which contribute to intersectionality by helping us understand and interpret the individual, combined (additive or multiplicative) effects of various categories (privileged and disadvantaged) in a given context. Future considerations for intersectionality theory and practice include managing its broad applicability while attending to its sociopolitical and emancipatory aims, and theoretically advancing understanding of the simultaneous forces of privilege and penalty in the workplace.
Article
Intuition in Management
Eugene Sadler-Smith
An extensive literature has accumulated during the past three quarters of a century on the topic of intuition in management. The beginnings of management intuition scholarship are to be found in Chester Barnard’s insightful speculations on the role and significance of logical and non-logical processes in managerial work. Barnard’s thinking impacted profoundly Herbert Simon’s foundational concept of bounded rationality, which shed much needed light on how managerial decision-making is accomplished in real-world settings by using intuition as well as analysis. In parallel, management researchers in common with scholars in a wide range of applied fields also drew on Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and colleagues’ seminal behavioral decision research and its focus on the systematic errors and biases that accrue in managers’ intuitive judgments as the result of the use of heuristics (e.g., representativeness, availability, anchoring and adjustment, and affect heuristics). In recent years management researchers have drawn on further insights from Klein and colleagues’ work in naturalistic decision-making (NDM) (e.g., the “recognition primed decision-making model,” RPD) to conceptualize managerial work as expert performance and in understanding expert-versus-novice differences using the “skill acquisition model” (SAM). In recent years managerial intuition research has alighted on the dual-process theories of Epstein, Evans, Stanovich, and others as a conceptual foundation for further theorizing and research in terms of System 1 (also referred to as Type 1) and System 2 (Type 2) processing. More recently still, research in neurology (e.g., the “somatic marker hypothesis”) and social cognitive neuroscience (e.g., the specification of complementary “reflexive (X)” and “reflective (C)” systems) has mapped the physiological and neural correlates of intuitive processing and begun to inform not only intuition research but decision research more widely in management and organization studies. These various developments have shed light on how intuitive decision-making is accomplished in managerial work across diverse management subfields including entrepreneurship, business ethics, human resources, and strategic management. More recently, scholars are turning to paradox theory and process philosophy as alternative ways of viewing the phenomenon of intuition in organizations.
Article
Is There a Female Leadership Advantage?
Lynn R. Offermann and Kira Foley
Women have historically been underrepresented in leadership positions across private and public organizations around the globe. Gender inequality and gender discrimination remain very real challenges for women workers in general, and especially so for women striving for leadership positions. Yet organizational research suggests that female leaders may bring a unique constellation of leadership-related traits, attributes, and behaviors to the workplace that may provide advantages to their organizations. Specific cultural and organizational work contexts may facilitate or inhibit a female leadership advantage. Reaping the benefits of female leadership relies on an organization’s ability to combat the numerous barriers female leaders face that male leaders often do not, including gender-based discrimination, implicit bias, and unfair performance evaluations. Despite these challenges, the literature suggests that a reasoned consideration of the positive aspects of women’s leadership is not only warranted but is instructive for organizations hoping to reap the benefits of a diverse workforce.
Article
Japanese Department Stores
Rika Fujioka
Dry goods stores, the predecessors of Japanese department stores, were forced to modernize and change their business format after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, which led to the demise of their main customers. The largest dry goods store, Mitsukoshi, was the first to learn about modern retailing in the West, and it broke out of the mold of the traditional Japanese retailer in around 1900 in an effort to catch up with Western department stores. Other large dry goods stores were quick to follow its lead: they transformed into department stores and created their own “cathedrals of consumption” in the 1920s, to match those in the West. This new retail format strongly contributed to Japan’s economic growth and to the Westernization of the Japanese lifestyle.
Despite numerous publications on the history of department stores, there has been little research on this transfer of Western department stores into a very different world: Japan. Although there are many studies on Japanese department stores in Japanese, focusing on how they were influenced by Western department stores, they are mostly subdivided on the basis of specific topics, such as levels of consumption in the interwar period or their economic impact during Japan’s period of high economic growth. The focus here is on the whole development process of department stores, bridging the gap between Western and Japanese studies on department stores.
The first stage in the development of Japanese department stores was in the early 20th century, when Japanese retailers raced to catch up with Western department stores to become modern Western-style retailers themselves; the second stage was in the late 20th century, when these new Japanese stores continued developing along their own unique path in order to target the domestic market during the growth of the Japanese economy, introducing ready-to-wear clothing, luxury brands, and gift products. In this way, Japanese department stores succeeded in increasing their efficiency and establishing a more upmarket image. However, in exchange for this prosperity, department stores also gave up control of their sales floors to the wholesalers and reduced their own merchandising skills. After the economic bubble burst in 1991, Japanese department stores began to suffer from decreased sales and lack of control over the points of sale in their stores.
Article
Labor History, Railroads, and Australia, 1880–1900
Bradley Bowden
Previously, most attention to managerial attitudes to railroad labor during the late 19th century has focused on industrial conflict in the United States, most particularly the so-called Pullman Boycott, a national stoppage that brought much of the American rail network to a halt in May–July 1894. Most historians—Alfred Chandler, Richard White, Gabriel Kolko, and Shelton Stromquist, to name a few—have associated this pattern of American conflict with falling freight rates caused by excessive competition between the United States’ privately owned railroads. If this assumption is correct, then one would expect both of the problems—labor conflict and falling freight rates—would be absent in New World societies where railroads operated under public rather than private ownership. Among New World societies, public ownership of the railways was arguably most significant in Australia, a continental society almost identical in geographical size with the mainland United States. Here, railroads played a similar role in national development. Despite this variance in ownership, however, Australian railroads were beset with similar problems to the United States. Per-ton freight rates declined in like fashion. As in the United States, Australian railroad managers responded to falling freight rates by savage wage cuts and staff redundancies. The commonalities between Australia and the United States points to a common causal factor. It is argued that this common causal factor was the falling world price for grain, most particularly wheat, the London benchmark wheat price falling from US $1.92 in 1871 to US $0.81 in 1891.
Article
The Concept, Treatment, and Future of Language in Contemporary Business and Management
Terry Mughan
In the literature of business and management, language, unlike the contiguous concepts of culture and communication, did not have a recognized place until the early part of the 21st century. Isolated publications about language might have appeared occasionally in journals in subdisciplines such as marketing, communication, and international business (IB), but there was no real visible research community or concentration of output in the field. Special issues appearing in International Studies of Management and Organization, 2005 and the Journal of World Business, 2011 were significant steps in demonstrating the emergence of active researchers at this time. In 2014, the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), the top-ranked IB journal and the only such journal used by the Financial Times for its global journal rankings, published its first special issue on the subject. This landmark issue attracted 78 submissions, of which 14 were published in JIBS over two issues, and this represented a breakthrough in terms of both quality and quantity that captured the attention of all in the IB field. Many explanations have been proffered for the delay in breaching this barrier, from tacit resistance on the part of monolingual executives and institutions to methodological bias in favor of numerical data to the daunting definitional complexity of the term “language” itself and its relation to nation-level phenomena.
Article
Leadered and Leaderless Teams in the Classroom
Rae André
There are trends in the use of teams in the classroom that stimulate both theory development and pedagogical innovation in this important area. In particular, three classroom applications are (1) building group process skills, (2) developing team leaders, and (3) using teams to learn course content. Of particular interest are new possibilities for utilizing leadered rather than leaderless groups, systematizing team coaching interventions, and enriching team-based learning. In this field of study, it is clear that pedagogical innovation and theoretical development interact to enhance student learning. Continued exploration in both aspects is encouraged.
