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The successful introduction of new products is argued to be the lifeblood of most organisations in the pertinent literature. In current dynamic competitive situation, product innovation is intensely becoming an important strategic goal for firms, mainly as a result of three co-emerging trends: intense international competition, fragmented and demanding markets, and diverse and rapidly changing technologies. Dealing with this situation has obliged entrepreneurs and researchers to examine and employ different mechanisms and strategies that can facilitate successful achievement of innovations characterised with high levels of novelty. Despite extensive body of literature on product innovation, concerns exist related to inconsistent results regarding the impact of different factors such as market orientation dimensions, supplier involvement, absorptive capacity, and environmental turbulence elements on firms' new product performance. Such limitations in the existing knowledge and literature of the subject are partly associated with the adopted measures for new product performance. New emerging theories suggest that such measures should be extended to include other intermediate and innovation and agility related measures in order to accommodate for uncertainties in the firm's business environment. Such necessities call for adoption of new theories and perspectives to address the problems and inform the body of the knowledge. This research is an original attempt to fill this gap to some degrees. Adopting the agility concept and consequently agile supply chain framework, this research attempts to address the gap first by developing a multidimensional perspective on product innovation, and second by introducing multiple and two dimensional measure for new product performance (i.e. general and agility), which is termed as Agile Product Innovation (API). In this scenario, a firm's agility in product innovation is entered as one dimension of the product performance to accommodate a multidimensional perspective. The main purpose of this research therefore is to employ agility concept to develop a contingency perspective of relationships between market orientation dimensions (i.e. responsive and proactive), supplier involvement, absorptive capacity, environmental turbulence factors and agile product innovation performance. By adopting a quantitative research method, a survey of manufacturing sector companies with innovation characteristics was conducted. The results while reaffirm some of the existing theories of the subject, provide some differing views on the issues·. allowing projection of new insight on the approach to product innovation. The key findings and contributions of this research are three-fold: Firstly, this study examined the impact of environmental turbulence factors (technological turbulence and competitive intensity). In particular, market turbulence was introduced as a new addition to the study of market orientation-product performance relationships stemming from agility theory. The results reveal a complex set of relationships between the two dimensions of market orientation and API depending on the intensity of the environmental turbulence factors. The results show that in turbulent environment proactive market orientation strategy should not exceed some levels as it begins to fall into a negative effect. Also a fixed strategy for market orientation is proven ineffective and instead firms should develop their market orientation strategy based on environmental turbulence factors. Secondly, the research also examined the relationship between absorptive capacity and agile product innovation performance. Research findings suggest absorptive capacity as a competitive factor that can provide the grounds for proactively winning in the product innovation game through increasing agility capabilities. Thirdly, the study further investigated the contingent relationship between supplier involvement and API performance. As a result the research suggests that complex relationship between supplier involvement and product innovation performance is varied depending on factors such as innovation life-cycle, teclmological turbulence, and absorptive capacity. Generally the results from the research support the proposition of product innovation performance multidimensionality where achievements beyond financial and market related factors playa critical role. The results also shows that any approach to study the strategy and process of innovation in firms and the effects of collaboration with suppliers and other external sources of knowledge should regard the strategies adopted by the frrm regarding their business environment particularly the market in terms of agile capabilities.

Recent contributions highlight the importance of international knowledge transfer as a fundamental source of competitive advantage of MNCs. Due to the traditional assumption that parent firms are the prime source of knowledge, majority of studies have focused on knowledge transfer from headquarters to subsidiaries. However, the role of subsidiaries within MNCs has changed dramatically; many subsidiaries have gained a creative role by generating new resources depending on the comparative advantage of the location in which they operate, and through the process of reverse knowledge transfer, they subsequently contribute to the competence upgrading of the MNC. In reviewing the extant literature on MNC knowledge transfer and in particular reverse knowledge transfer, this research unleashes several gaps, notably in the understanding of factor affecting subsidiary knowledge development and reverse knowledge transfer within the service sector. Borrowing concepts from the knowledge-based and network views, a series of hypotheses were tested using the result of a web-based survey of the subsidiaries that were located in the UK, had a non-UK parent firm, and were active in the KIBS sector. Responses from 187 general managers, managing directors, or chief executives of subsidiaries confirm that those subsidiaries that develop and maintain business relationships with their internal (sister subsidiaries and headquarters) and external actors (customers, universities, suppliers, competitors) and have high level of autonomy are more capable of developing knowledge. With regards to determinants of reverse knowledge transfer, while subsidiary characteristics (knowledge development and willingness) and relationship characteristics (socialization mechanisms) are emerged as the main facilitators of reverse knowledge transfer, knowledge characteristics (tacitness and complexity) appeared as the main hindrances of this phenomenon. Moreover, the results indicate that, (a) socialisation mechanisms augment the extent of shared values and subsidiary-parent firm embeddedness and (b) willingness mediates the impacts of shared values and subsidiary-parent firm embeddedness on reverse knowledge transfer. The key contributions of this research are two-fold: firstly, it examines the process of reverse knowledge transfer and knowledge development exclusively within the KIBS sector. Secondly, it investigates the joint impacts of relationship characteristics, knowledge characteristics, and subsidiary (sender) characteristicson reverse knowledge transfer.

On the Southwestern Oregon Coast lies Coos Bay. Home to the Hanis and Miluk peoples, Coos Bay is a rich area of linguistic diversity. The languages of the Hanis and Miluk people, hanis kuukwiis (Hanis) and miluk kuukwiis (Miluk), have had their relationship described in a number of different ways. Early workers with Hanis described both languages as dialects of the ‘Coosan’ language, with Hanis being the principal dialect and Miluk being nearly mutually unintelligible. Others have described Hanis and Miluk as being mutually unintelligible and with Miluk having distinct dialects of its own. Still others have tried to link the languages to Oregon Coast Penutian and the Penutian Hypothesis and to the Salishan language family. The Hanis and Miluk people have long held that their languages and their peoples are related but distinct, though they are now confederated together by the United States government. This work seeks to tackle this issue of relatedness between Hanis and Miluk by utilizing the comparative method to provide evidence in support of Proto-Coosan and the Coosan language family.

Extensive attention has been given to the effects of individual stress on employee work performance in both psychology and business literature. Recent work stress research has been shifting focus to team processes and performance. Nevertheless, several questions have not yet been fully addressed: (1) how does team stress impact new product development (NPD) team performance? (2) does stress chronicity, the persistency of NPD teams' stress experience, change the effects of work stress? (3) what team processes can explain the underlying relationship between team stress and NPD team performance? (4) how do slack resources affect the NPD process and performance? By integrating the cognitive activation theory of stress (CATS) and the challenge-hindrance stressor framework (CHSF), this study attempts to investigate challenge stress intensity and hindrance stress intensity as important antecedents of NPD team performance with the team adaptation temporal framework as the explanatory mechanism, and how stress chronicity affects their effects. Based on the data from 112 Chinese NPD teams (i.e. 112 team leaders and 242 team members), results revealed that although challenge stress intensity promotes team performance by boosting both team improvised adaptation and team preemptive adaptation, high stress chronicity attenuates the positive effects of challenge stress intensity. Hindrance stress intensity, on the contrary, has negative associations with team adaptations and team performance. As stress chronicity increases, these associations are weakened. Moreover, slack financial resources are found to have both adaptive and maladaptive characteristics, namely, a high level of slack resources weakens the positive association between team improvised adaptation and NPD team performance but strengthens the positive association between team preemptive adaptation and NPD team performance. This study contributes to theory by capturing the role time plays in the stress-performance relationship and contribute to practice by giving important recommendations regarding stress management and resource allocation.

The present study seeks to extend the understanding of coopetition strategy by contributing in International Strategic Alliances (ISA) literature and utilising loose coupling theory in developing the conceptual model. In particular, the study investigates the inter-partner firms learning strategies in which partners’ resources and goals similarity/dissimilarity determine whether partners employ cooperative or competitive learning strategy, which in turn, affects the effectiveness of the alliance. Particular attention was given to the learning strategies deployed by alliance firms. As such, the study conceptualises the coopetitive learning strategy (i.e. cooperative and competitive learning strategies) as the simultaneous cooperation and competition between inter-partner firms with the aim to create value, which is affected by partners’ differences in strategic goals and resources contributed in the alliance. In turn, coopetitive learning strategy is hypothesised to directly influence alliance outcomes that is the effective performance of the alliance. Further, the study discusses the importance of coopetition on performance and highlights the contribution of such research both to the theory and managerial practices. Using a sample of 218 responses collected from top management team (TMT) of ISA operating in knowledge intensive industries operating in Greece, the study tested four direct relationship hypotheses where partners’ goals and resource differences influence cooperative and competitive learning strategies and one interaction hypothesis where the interaction between cooperative and competitive learning strategies influences the effectiveness of the alliance. The results suggest that partners’ goals and resource differences are important constructs that predict learning strategies within an alliance. Particularly, this study provides empirical evidence that: (1) goal differences directly and negatively affect cooperative learning strategy and positively affect competitive learning strategy (2) resource differences has no impact on cooperative learning strategy while it does affect negatively competitive learning strategy, (3) cooperative learning strategy directly and positively affect the performance of the alliance (4) competitive learning strategy directly and negatively affect the performance of the alliance, and (5) coopetitive learning strategy, that is the interaction between cooperative and competitive learn ng strategies, influence positively the performance of the alliance. These findings are discussed with relevance to the prevalent extant literature. In addition, the study highlights the theoretical and managerial implications, followed by the limitations of the study and future research considerations.

An increasing number of multinational corporations (MNCs) have set up subsidiaries in emerging markets like China to implement their internationalisation strategy. Acknowledging the criticality of subsidiaries to corporations’ global success, international business scholars have attempted to address the question concerning “how can the performance of multinational corporations’ subsidiaries be enhanced?”. In headquarters–subsidiary relations, as subordinate within the hierarchy of decision-making, subsidiaries are susceptible to the work responsibilities that are imposed on them by their headquarters. Yet, a review of the international business literature reveals that relationship studies have not captured performance outcomes of subsidiary job stressors stemming from their headquarters’ demands (see table 2.1). It is important to address this omission because subsidiary managers may substantially susceptible to imposed work stress. In the light of work on group/team-level stress effects, imposed stress can be experienced collectively by a subsidiary’s top management team. Thus, the present study addresses a lacuna in research on the effects of subsidiary job demands within headquarters–subsidiary relationships. Research data were collected through online (Qualtrics) survey with 238 Chinese manufacturing subsidiaries and the performance outcome of operating revenue was measured using secondary data from OSIRIS database. The respondents were acquired through phone calls and emails. The study results confirm that challenge stressors are positively, and hindrance stressors are negatively related to subsidiary top management team’s work engagement. In turn, work engagement is positively linked to operating revenue and local responsiveness. Institutional dependence strengthens the link between challenge stressors and work engagement, but it weakens the association between work engagement and local responsiveness. The current study makes several contributions to existing knowledge in international business. First, it addresses an important lacuna in this literature by unveiling that subsidiary top management teams face imposed stress emanating from the headquarters’ demands and that this affects their work engagement and ultimately subsidiary performance. Second, the study explains inconsistent findings in the work on job stressors’ outcomes in international business by showing that challenge and hindrance stress types have positive and negative outcomes, respectively. Third, this study is novel in developing an extensive model of the conditionalities of work stress outcomes, combining the three complementary theories of transactional stress, JD-R, and neo-institution. From a managerial perspective, the present study suggests that MNCs should assess job stressors for subsidiary TMTs in terms of work challenges and hindrances that they encounter in working with/for headquarters. It is equivalently imperative for subsidiary managers to interpret institutional constituents’ expectations to acquire and utilise valuable resources in host country. Finally, subsidiary managers must proactively explore and exploit knowledge and resources beyond meeting local institutional constituents’ expectations in order to fast respond to local market changes. Hence, on the one hand, they must keep local institutional constituents satisfied, on the other hand, they should identify differences between institutional constituents’ expectations and local market demands to be ambidextrous in terms of meeting expectations from different parties.

Quartet in C major, op. 20, no. 2 / Franz Joseph Haydn -- Appalachian Polaroids / Steven Snowden -- Lady Isabelle was that kind of woman / Alexandra Bryant -- Quartet no. 4, sz. 91 / Bela Bartok.

String quartet no.27 in D major, op.20, no.4 / F. J. Haydn -- String quartet no.5, sz.102, BB110 / Bela Bartok -- String quartet in C minor, op.51, no.1 / Johannes Brahms

Working in professional services firms imposes high levels of job stress on professional service providers, such that three-quarters of solicitors are reported to have moderate to extreme levels of job stress. This research aims to identify different drivers of job stress in professional services firms. In reviewing the extant literature on the job stress of professional front-line employees, several gaps have been identified, notably in understanding the role of clients in the process of service delivery. Based upon the job demands-resources theory, a series of hypotheses were developed and tested using the results of a paper-based survey of 230 senior B2B solicitors in the UK. The results showed that time pressure, as a challenge demand, causes job stress in senior solicitors if it exceeds a certain level. Job autonomy, as a job resource, was also found to buffer the effect of time pressure on job stress. The analysis also indicated that there is a positive link between administrative hassles, as a hindrance demand, and job stress in professionals. Regarding the role of clients in the process of service delivery, the results suggested that frequency of client participation positively affects job stress of senior solicitors. Similarly, low quality of client participation was found to have a positive relationship with job stress. The results also demonstrated that emotional intelligence, as a personal resource, positively moderates the effects of frequency and low quality of client participation on job stress. This study has produced several contributions. First, it introduces challenge stressors to the marketing literature. Second, it examines client participation as a demand in addition to the traditional job demands. Third, this study suggests low quality of client participation as an uninvestigated aspect of client participation. Regarding the managerial implications, this research provides guidelines for managers of professional services firms to understand and manage job stress in their front-line employees.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a correlation between developmental age and scores achieved on music ability tests. The problem of this study was to determine the relationships among the Primary Measure of Music Audiation and the Singing Voice Development Measure and the Gesell School Readiness Test. Sixty-three students in grade one of the Indian Mills Elementary school took part in this study. All of these students had been tested with the Gesell School Readiness Test prior to entering first grade. This test consisted of eight subtests requiring such tasks as cube stacking, verbal interview with the child, pencil/paper skills in which the child was asked to write his/her name and numbers and copy shapes, drawing and naming the parts of a man, visual discrimination of shapes and drawing a pattern of the same, and naming animals and personal interests. This was used as a screening device for readiness for first grade. Children who performed in the younger range were recommended for transitional first or for an extra year in kindergarten. In October, 1997, the students were administered the tonal section of the Primary Measure of Music Audiation. This paper/pencil task evaluated the audiation ability of each child in retaining tonal patterns. Next, all students were audio taped singing Bow-Wow-Wow. Two independent judges then evaluated each child's performance using the five-point rating scale of the Singing Voice Development Measure. In addition, each child's chronological age was computed in months and measured against the three other data sources. Finally, these data were correlated through the use of a Pearson product moment. The researcher did establish a relationship between the developmental age of the child and the use of his/her singing voice.