14 research outputs found
The ethnicity impact on attitudes toward country of origin for products with different involvement levels
No full textThe effect of the country-of-origin cue on product evaluation by different ethnic groups is considered for the purchase of high- and low-involvement products. A review of the literature in relation to country of origin, product involvement, and ethnicity effects is followed by primary research to untangle some of the purchase-evaluation complexities. It was observed that the impact of ethnicity was more pronounced for the high-involvement product, contradicting the proposals of some other researchers, though it is argued that this experience is well aligned with not only the thinking on national brands but also the ideas behind extrinsic cues and their moderators. Furthermore, the work considers the implications that this work has for marketing communication strategies
Learning on your own: bricolage and the quest for relevance in the squeezed Bangladeshi garment supply chain
No full textThis chapter explores knowledge-acquisition strategies adopted by Bangladeshi garment suppliers, in pursuit of economic upgrading. The context is characterised by ‘tacit promissory’ contracting relationships, whereby suppliers make recurrent discrete transactions with the same buyers over a long period of time, without the existence of any original and legally binding written agreement. We explore whether and to which extent suppliers in such contexts can access the knowledge resources of their powerful trading partners. Furthermore, we examine the strategies these supplier firms may pursue, at a functional level, to compensate for their lack of knowledge in order to effectively progress towards upgrading. We draw on a qualitative case analysis of two small and two large Bangladeshi garment manufacturing firms. The findings show that these suppliers source knowledge externally to the extent to which these are available and affordable to them, in order to compensate for the lack of access to buyers’ tacit knowledge resources. The small firms in our study are only able to seek locally available knowledge sources, and thus are constrained to technocratic or output-oriented dimensions of process upgrading. Large firms, however, are able to afford sourcing tacit and codified components of knowledge from overseas and thus arrive at higher order functional capabilities including designing and branding
Supplier strategies to compensate for knowledge asymmetries in buyer-supplier relationships: Implications for economic upgrading
No full textThis paper explores a special form of international outsourcing relationship in which suppliers make recurrent discrete transactions with the same buyers over a long period of time without the existence of any original legally binding written agreement. The study examines three research questions: (1) Can suppliers in such relationships access any of their buyers’ tacit knowledge? (2) What implications does their access or the lack thereof have for their economic upgrading? (3) What strategies do suppliers adopt to compensate for existing knowledge asymmetries? The case analysis of three small Bangladeshi garment manufacturers reveals the following key findings: The studied firms only have access to their buyers’ explicit/codified knowledge. Notwithstanding this, they have successfully developed relevant knowledge that has allowed them to engage in process upgrading
A reconceptualization of social value creation as social constraint alleviation
No full textPurpose: This paper has two interconnected objectives. The first is to provide a reconceptualisation of social value creation as social constraint alleviation. The second is to respond to the call put forward by Giuliani and Macchi (2014) to produce synergies between bodies of literature exploring the development impact of businesses. The paper focuses on ideas from the global value chain/global production networks (GVC/GPN), business and human rights, corporate social responsibility (CSR), international business (IB) and (social) entrepreneurship literatures. Design/methodology/approach: The paper offers a reconceptualisation of social value creation by building on the synergies, complementarities, and limitations of existing concepts identified through the literature review. Findings: The reconceptualisation of social value creation put forward in this paper contributes to the literature in the following way. It offers a useful and clear definition of the term 'social' (cf. Devinney, 2009), and it attends to the limitations of the constraint concept as put forward by Ted London and his collaborators (eg. London, 2011). Furthermore, it sketches out the basic ideas of a two-system approach to allow for the differentiation between symptom treatment and root cause alleviation. Finally, it offers a refinement of Wettstein's (2012) proposed capability-based remedial action concept. The paper furthermore proposes that there are three distinct ways in which businesses generally respond to social constraints. Originality/value: The paper illustrates how the redefined concept of social value creation can connect different bodies of literature and help make sense of existing empirical results, without engaging in definitional debates
Rana Plaza collapse aftermath: Are CSR compliance and auditing pressures effective?
No full textPurpose: The paper sets out to investigate the intended and unintended consequences of compliance and auditing pressures in the Bangladeshi garment industry. To explore this issue we draw on three medium sized suppliers. The institutional changes that followed the Rana Plaza accident in April 2013 make Bangladesh in general and the garment industry in particular an interesting and suitable research setting for standards compliance. // Design: The study adopts a multiple case study approach. Face-to-face interviews have been conducted with the owners of three Bangladeshi garment manufacturing firms and several workers. Additionally, organisational documents and local newspaper articles had been collected wherever possible. // Findings: The results indicate that the pressure for compliance has led the case companies to prioritise the implementation of measurable standards over the socially grounded needs and priorities of workers. As a consequence certain initiatives instead of adding new social value in fact destroyed previously existing social value. Furthermore, the pressure for compliance created the necessity to find ways to cover the sizable cost of compliance. This prompted firms to pursue process upgrading through technological advancements and increased work pressures on the labour force. These initiatives led to an increased power imbalance and the exclusion of unskilled workers from the job market.// Originality: The paper contributes to the understanding of the human rights implications of compliance and auditing pressures and initiatives. Furthermore, in order to further enrich existing knowledge in the critical accounting literature, the study draws on insights from the global value chains (GVC) and international business (IB) literatures
Supplier strategies and routines for capability development: implications for upgrading
No full textThis paper examines the strategies and routines adopted by small and medium-sized suppliers to develop capabilities that enable them to engage in upgrading, despite a precarious relational and institutional context. To this end, we investigate the strategic behaviour of two Bangladeshi garment manufacturers. Both started out as small suppliers for multinational enterprises (MNEs) and have eventually grown into micro-multinationals. The firms are involved in ‘tacit promissory contracting’ with their buyers, a specific form of international outsourcing relationship. The study adopts a multiple case study design that involves interviews with managers/owners of the firms. The analysis yields two key findings. Both firms have devised strategies and taken coherent routines involving actions to develop skills and motivation needed to perform appropriate functional activities (i.e. pre-production, production and post-production) as they embarked on different stages of upgrading. Furthermore, firms have designed routines to internalise the challenges originating from their relationships with their buyers and the institutional environment at the time that had the potential to affect their upgrading goals. The paper contributes to IB studies by highlighting how suppliers, even in a precarious context, can control their own strategies and routines, so as to develop capabilities that allow them to gradually redress the power imbalance between themselves and their buyers
The use of global value chain/global production network related literature in international business research:investigating the nature and degree of integration
No full textWe live in a world in which the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services are becoming progressively more complex, with increasing geographical spread and functional integration between economic activities (Dicken, 2015). These economic activities are undertaken within complex and geographically dispersed webs of production circuits and networks, conceptualised by a body of scholars as global production networks (GPNs) (Ernst & Kim, 2002; Coe, Dicken & Hess 2008; Dicken, 2015). Dicken (2015, p. 54) defines a GPN as ‘the circuit of interconnected functions, operations and transactions through which a specific commodity, good or service is produced, distributed and consumed’. The GPN framework has close linkages with global commodity chain (GCC) analysis, proposed by Gereffi (1994), which subsequently evolved into the global value chain (GVC) framework (Gereffi, 1999; Gereffi, Humphrey & Sturgeon, 2005). Whilst GCC analysis focused on a ‘set of inter-organisational networks clustered around one commodity or product’ (Gereffi & Korzeniewicz, 1994, p. 2), GVC exploration concentrated on value-generating activities not only for ‘commodities’ but throughout the entire production process for goods and services. In this way, GVC scholars have analysed the characteristics of value chain transactions by proposing five distinct forms of inter-firm governance based on the complexity of transactions, supply base capabilities and codifiability of production (Gereffi, Humphrey & Sturgeon, 2005). Parallel to GCC/GVC analysis, GPN scholars study the networked nature of economic activities (Dicken et al., 2001; Coe, Dicken & Hess, 2008). They emphasise that, within the changing contours of the world economy, such networks integrate firms, industries and national economies (Coe, Dicken & Hess, 2008). Therefore, GPN analysis adopts the network rather than the chain as the central unit of analysis, positing that firms are part of wider networks of globalised production (Dicken et al., 2001). In this chapter, we refer to these two bodies of literature combined as the GVC/GPN literature. Whilst the GVC/GPN literature places the chain or network at the heart of the analysis, international business (IB) scholars have traditionally been interested in firms, and particularly multinational enterprises (MNEs) (Gui, 2010). The fragmentation of economic activities and functional integration have deeply transformed the way MNEs structure and manage productive and commercial activities on a global scale (de Marchi, di Maria & Ponte, 2014). In contrast to traditional forms of vertical integration associated with internationalisation, MNEs have more recently opted to extend their organisational boundaries to form equity and non-equity based relationships with other actors operating along the value chain, such as suppliers, distributors, agents and partners (Buckley, 2016). Therefore, in order to keep pace with the rapidly shifting world economy, de Marchi, di Maria and Ponte (2014) urge for continual insights on MNEs’ changing organisational forms, internationalisation paths between outsourcing and offshoring, and approaches to knowledge management within organisations and networks. The emergence of these networked multinationals has also changed the process of value creation, and power and knowledge dynamics between MNEs and other actors in value chains (Johns et al., 2015). For this reason, a broader range of GVC/GPN actors beyond MNEs have started to gain analytical and empirical importance. The increasing interdependencies between MNEs and other actors have set the groundwork for analysing inter-firm and non-firm relationships, governance and power dynamics and the distribution of gains throughout GPNs. However, such foci of analysis have so far received insufficient attention in IB and, we would argue, can no longer be overlooked (cf. Cairns & Sliwa, 2008). Not surprisingly then, a number of IB scholars have noted potential incoherence between theoretical progress made in IB and the practical impact of recent processes of economic globalisation (Storper, 1997; Dicken et al., 2001; Dicken, 2015). Whilst IB studies are increasingly adopting network-based perspectives to study MNEs (e.g. Parkhe & Dhanaraj, 2003; Mathews, 2006) along with other actors in the network (McDermott & Corredoira, 2010; Li, Kong & Zhang 2016), the emphasis on internationalisation aspects combined with an analytical preoccupation with Western MNEs is still predominant in IB (Cairns & Sliwa, 2008; de Marchi, di Maria & Ponte, 2014). More recently, a number of IB scholars, including Giuliani and Macchi (2013), de Marchi, di Maria and Ponte (2014), and Johns et al. (2015), have called for interdisciplinary research to integrate broader dimensions of analysis into IB scholarship. In particular, they urge for the integration of GVC/GPN-related ideas. Johns et al. (2015) have pointed out numerous commonalities between the IB and GVC/GPN literatures, noting that GVC/GPN concepts can contribute to key debates and unanswered questions in IB. Based on a bibliographic analysis of IB papers published from 2005 to 2014, they furthermore recognise that IB studies have very slowly been taking up references from the GVC/GPN literature. The authors identify 75 papers published in IB journals that have either cited or mentioned the term GVC/GPN. However, a more in-depth, qualitative examination of these papers was beyond the scope of their study. The purpose of this chapter is to build on and extend Johns et al.’s (2015) work by examining the nature and degree of integration of GVC/GPN-related articles cited in IB research. The focus is on the analysis of papers published since the mid-2000s in IB journals. We also examine the disciplinary origin of the authors as this is an important factor in the discussion of idea migration and integration. To undertake this analysis, we adopt Cairns and Sliwa’s (2008) perspective on the boundaries of IB. They suggest that, in order to critically engage with the nature of contemporary IB, it is necessary to study IB processes as a network of power relations. They furthermore warn against viewing IB as a ‘value-free activity of a purely economic nature’ (p. 162), urging scholars to understand the power dynamics of different forms of networked relationships and the impact of MNEs’ economic activity on other GVC/GPN actors. Subsequently, they call for broadening the boundaries of IB beyond the analysis of MNEs alone, by drawing upon neighbouring disciplines to solve key debates in IB whilst opening up possibilities for alternative structures and forms of IB. In view of that, Cairns and Sliwa (2008, p. 5) adopt a broader ‘stakeholder-based approach’ in order ‘to take account of the different actors involved in and affected by IB’. Rather than (Western) MNEs alone, they consider all stakeholders within the boundaries of IB, such as suppliers, linkage firms, industries, employees, consumers, broader society and the natural environment. In this chapter, we utilise Cairns and Sliwa’s (2008) stakeholder-based perspective of IB to identify the degree to which the GVC/GPN literature is adopted in IB studies. The contents of this chapter are structured as follows. The first section presents a brief literature review on how the IB literature has evolved and taken shape over the ten-year period since the mid-2000s, along with how GVC/GPN studies can contribute to contemporary IB. The second section outlines the methodology of the systematic bibliographic analysis performed here. The third section discusses the findings regarding the nature of GVC/GPN integration into IB studies. This section also investigates the relationship between the authors’ disciplinary backgrounds and the level of integration. The final section concludes with a summary of key findings along with recommendations for future research
Bouncing Forward Through Crisis: Social Innovation and Transilience in Social Purpose Organizations
No full textThis study investigates whether organizations rebound to their pre-adversity state after crisis subsides or advance to a more desirable state by analysing the link between organizational resilience and social innovation. Using a qualitative case study of 25 social purpose organizations (SPOs) during the Covid-19 crisis, the research reveals that all SPOs pursued social innovation to achieve dual objectives: internal financial stability and beneficiary protection. Key transformations included product/service diversification, market expansion, digitalization, functional efficiency, resource optimisation, capability building, and operational model changes. These changes occurred both during and after the crisis that prepared SPOs and their beneficiaries to handle future crises. The findings demonstrate that SPOs bounced forward by leveraging transformation and learning rather than merely returning to their previous state. This paper advances the concept of transilience within organizational resilience literature. It also contributes to social innovation literature by highlighting the role of social innovation in achieving organizational level resilience in case of SPOs
Ethical Tensions in Global Value Chain Governance
No full textThis paper employs a pattern matching approach to explore the tensions arising from differences in the ethical dispositions of multinational enterprise (MNE) buyers and their suppliers within the Bangladeshi apparel manufacturing sector. It examines how varying ethical principles shape the development, implementation, and outcomes of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and labor standards. Our analysis resulted in the identification of four scenarios: legitimacy with friction, mitigated forced alignment, collaborative enhancement, and principled resistance. However, the scenario, principled resistance, is purely conceptual, as none of our empirical cases aligned with this category. We extend work highlighting the importance of ethical foundations for strategic decision making. This study advances the understanding of global value chain governance, particularly regarding MNEs’ contribution to the socially oriented Sustainable Development Goals. Our findings suggest that, out of the four scenarios, the combination of virtue ethics and consequentialist principles is most likely to facilitate a just transition to a more desirable state in contexts characterized by development challenges and institutional voids
Advances in qualitative comparative analysis (QCA): Application of fuzzy set in business and management research
No full textQualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is a set of techniques that are designed to transfer subjective data into numeric data. QCA has recently become popular, as it sets out to integrate the strengths of qualitative and quantitative methods while overcoming the key concerns inherent in both the approaches. This chapter discusses and explains the QCA method and highlights the possible application of the method in business and management research. The chapter offers an application example and concludes with suggestions regarding future avenues for using QCA approach in the field of management research
