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Purpose: This research aims to assess variations of motivations when studying international location decisions. In particular, this study aims to assess the influence of diverse motivations – seeking technology, seeking brand assets, seeking markets, seeking resources and escaping institutional constraints – as determinants of the international location choice of emerging market multinational enterprises (EM MNEs) entering least developed, emerging, and developed countries. Design/methodology/approach: The authors develop a set of hypotheses based on the ownership–location–internalization framework and complement it with an institutional perspective. The conceptual model posits that the different internationalization motivations (seeking technology, seeking brand assets, seeking markets, seeking resources and escaping institutional constraints) will impact the location choice of EM MNEs in developed economies, emerging markets or least developed countries. This study uses the 2013 survey data collected by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. The final sample of analysis of this research includes 693 observations. Findings: After controlling for several variables, two-stage Heckman regressions show there is a variation of motivations when EM MNEs enter least developed countries, emerging markets and developed economies. EM MNEs are motivated to enter least developed countries to seek markets and resources. Conversely, those firms enter developed countries in their search for technological assets and to escape institutional constraints at home. While the present study findings show a clear difference in the motivations that lead to location choice in least developed vs developed countries, the results are not as clear for location in other emerging countries. Research limitations/implications: The paper offers empirical support for the importance of motivations as crucial determinants of location choice. Originality/value: This paper provides a detailed quantitative study on the internationalization location choice of EM MNEs based on their motivations. Though theoretical models underscore the importance of motivations, we know very little about how, in practice, motivations drive location choice. This study contributes to the international location choice literature a deeper understanding of how diverse motivations drive choices of expansion into developed economies, emerging markets or least developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to show that divergent perceptions among regulators, the regulated and the associated regulatory bodies across multiple jurisdictions regarding the nature and functionality of cryptocurrencies hamper the development of a more comprehensive and coherent regulatory framework in curbing crimes and other related risks associated with cryptocurrencies. Design/methodology/approach: The study has used a descriptive doctrinal legal research method to investigate and understand the insights of existing laws and regulations in four selected jurisdictions concerning cryptocurrencies and how these laws could be further improved and developed to reduce crypto-related crimes. Furthermore, the study has also used a comparative research method to conceptualize the contours of the new legal discourse emerging from cryptocurrencies to adopt and implement a sound regulatory framework. Findings: The study illustrated that divergent regulatory treatment among different jurisdictions might suffocate novel digital innovations such as cryptocurrency. These fragmented regulatory approaches by various jurisdictions question the sustainability of the present national legislation adopted to regulate cryptocurrencies. Looking into other jurisdictional developments in regulating cryptocurrencies, it is apparent that a concerted regulatory approach is needed to minimize the abuse of this innovation. Research limitations/implications: The study has implications for regulators and policymakers to review the current regulatory framework for regulating cryptocurrencies to prevent regulatory arbitrage. The divergent legislative measures concerning cryptocurrency among different jurisdictions question the sustainability of these legislative initiatives, considering the evolving and borderless nature of cryptocurrency. Therefore, this paper will help regulators to consider the present legislative gaps in establishing a common global regulatory approach in the crypto sphere. Originality/value: The study contributes to the existing body of literature by examining the regulatory frameworks of four jurisdictions, namely, the USA, Canada, China and the EU, related to cryptocurrencies, with a discussion on the development of cryptocurrencies-related laws among these four jurisdictions and their sustainability in curbing crimes in the Darknet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of assertiveness in determining negotiation outcomes in two different cultures and thus to help understand the cultural differences in the relationship between assertiveness and negotiation outcomes in the West and East, where assertiveness is often viewed quite differently. Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected from four simulated negotiations of varying degrees of complexity ranging from the most distributive to the most integrative. Over 400 business students were recruited as subjects from a Western culture and an Eastern culture, namely Canada and China, to participate in the simulations in order to test the cultural differences in the relationship between assertiveness and negotiation outcomes. Findings - The results provide support for the effects of assertiveness on both economic outcome and affective outcome, and thus confirm the importance of assertiveness as a negotiator trait; the relationship between assertiveness and negotiation outcomes is found to be culture dependent whereby assertiveness is associated with economic outcome and affective outcome for Canadians, but only with affective outcome for the Chinese. Practical implications - This study provides important guidelines for negotiation practitioners. Relevant training and development programs could be designed for international managers to improve their effectiveness when they negotiate with the Chinese who often place more emphasis on affective outcome and on negotiation process. Originality/value - Negotiation skills become more important in the increasingly globalized world market and research on negotiation needs to provide more knowledge for scholars and negotiation practitioners. This paper attempts to enrich our understanding of negotiation in two different cultures and to provide insights on cross-cultural differences in negotiation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of transition strategy, focusing specifically on the Chinese business world, where the common practice is for founders to pass their companies on to their children, the younger generation. This paper describes how Chinese businesses are invariably adopting the western-style management practice of instituting the various offices of chairman, chief executive officer, president, etc. primarily because the children of those founding fathers have been mostly sent to the USA, the UK and Canada to receive higher education. This paper concludes that these second-generation operating managers have essentially transformed their business environments with great success, modernizing the Asian business community as a whole and competing effectively with the western world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Country-of-origin (COO) effects are concerned with buyers' opinions regarding the relative qualities of goods and services produced in various countries. It is the aim of this study to test a framework for investigating the match/mismatch between consumers' product category and country image perceptions. Specifically, the paper seeks to examine whether consumers perceive all products emanating from a particular country favourably simply because consumers associate favourable attributes with that country or whether this effect is specific to particular product categories. Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a structured survey administered through mall intercepts. Data were collected from a sample of 188 Australian consumers. While Australian consumers were the focal country of study, countries selected for evaluation included Japan, Korea, the USA, Canada, China and New Zealand. The products selected included beer, automobiles, watches, leather shoes and stereos. Findings – The findings suggest that when a strong favourable match exists between country and product image then COO will positively influence product evaluation and willingness to buy. Conversely, when an unfavourable mismatch is evident COO would negatively influence consumers' product evaluations and willingness to buy. Originality/value – Given that most products originating in foreign countries are subject to country stereotyping or image effects, it is important for marketers and retailers to understand and manage the potential impact of COO effects. This study tests a framework that can be applied by marketers to determine the effect of product and country matches in relevant domestic or international markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The paper's aim is to analyze changes in the relative importance of Canada as a supplier for its home markets; and, the rising importance of China versus other Canadian trading partners. Design/methodology/approach The market overlap measure (MOM) statistic, developed by Sawchuk and Yerger is used to analyze the Canadian home market shares for Canada and every other nation with sales in the Canadian market for each of 61 different NAIC sectors (56 at the four-digit NAIC level and five at the three-digit NAIC level). Findings The USA remains the most important foreign supplier to Canadian markets with a weighted average 23.6 percent market share as of 2003 (Canadian-based production having a 63.0 percent market share), US market share, however, has been declining by nearly a percentage point per year since 2000. Approximately, half of the lost US' market share has been captured by Canadian-based firms and approximateIy a quarter has been captured by Chinese production. China's growth in Canadian market share places it second behind only the USA in terms of Canadian-based farms' home market competitive exposure. Research limitations/implications - The work does not include an analysis of service sector trade flows due to inadequate data. Practical implications The MOM statistic is shown to be a useful diagnostic tool for analyzing the level of, trends in, and industries driving the competitive exposure a nation's firms have on sales in a specified market. Originality/value The MOM statistic is shown to yield better insights regarding the actual degree of competitive exposure than does the more commonly used similarity indices such as Finger-Kreinen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth examination of country-of-origin (COO) perceptions of consumers in a multinational setting. It shows how explanatory factors like demographics, familiarity with a country's products, purchase behaviour and psychological variables jointly work to explain consumers' COO perceptions. Design/methodology/approach — This is a quantitative study using a drop-off and pick-up survey among three samples of consumers in Canada, Morocco and Taiwan. The final sample size was comprised of 506 male consumers. The data were analyzed using factor analysis to group countries of origin and analyses of variance to relate COO perceptions to the explanatory variables. Findings — The familiarity with products made in a country was the strongest predictor of country perceptions, followed by nationality and the manufacturing process and product complexity dimensions of country evaluation. Canadians had the highest propensity to distinguish between countries of origin on the basis of product technological complexity and manufacturing dimensions and Moroccans the least. Taiwanese appeared to show animosity towards China. Research limitations/implications — The study used an only-male sample from a limited number of countries. Future research should seek to develop a multi-dimensional scale for the familiarity construct. They should also explore the concept of consumer capacity to distinguish between COOs. Cross-national studies using cognitive style scales should be carried out. A qualitative examination of Taiwanese's COO perceptions is also recommended. Practical implications — It seems important to increase consumers' familiarity with a COO and its products to improve its overall perception. Products made in Latin American countries have the lowest level of familiarity in general. Thus, increasing familiarity with their products is particularly important to achieve export success. Originality/value — This study contributes to the marketing and international business literatures and provides insights to international marketers by bringing valuable information that can help make decisions as to where to manufacture and how to promote global products. It provides guidance as to what types of nations are likely to require multi-dimensional information about countries of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Despite its practical importance, the emotion of awe has received scant research attention in the organizational literature. To facilitate future scholarship on this important topic, the authors explore and compare the elicitors of awe at work in three countries representing two culture clusters, including the USA and Canada (the Anglo cluster) and China (the Confucian Asia cluster). Design/methodology/approach: The authors gathered responses from 163 working adults from the USA and Canada and 126 working adults from China using open-response survey, and analyzed each response following the guidance of grounded theory. Findings: Across cultures, there are 10 common elicitors of awe, including virtue of organization, ability and achievement of organization, beauty of workplace, virtue of colleagues, ability and achievement of colleagues, dedication of colleagues, charisma of colleagues, status and power of colleagues, personal growth and achievement and perceived meaningfulness. Looking within cultures, the authors found two awe elicitors that are specific to China: status and power of organization, and work content. Practical implications: Organizations and supervisors wishing to induce the emotion of awe would be well-advised to pay attention to the design of their workplace, as well as their attitudes and behaviors toward employees, customers and the general public. Originality/value: This study contributes to the emotion literature, organizational literature and cross-cultural literature by demonstrating elicitors of awe in the workplace across the Anglo cluster and the Confucian Asia cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: It has generally been anticipated that the growth of Internet technology and e-commerce would result in virtual grocery shopping (VGS) becoming a normal way of life for consumers worldwide. However, the adoption of VGS, except in China and other Asian countries, has been quite slow and there is little understanding for this reason. Using Canada as a research context, the purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of consumers towards VGS with a focus on their technological readiness and the impact of the optimisation of consumer learning. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative research methodology was undertaken using cluster analysis with descriptive statistics to segment the different groups of consumers from a sample of 1,034 adult respondents. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was then used to test a theoretical model for consumers' intention to adopt VGS. Findings: The study found that the attitudes of consumers towards virtual shopping, convenience motivation, perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived risk and consumer learning are all factors that impact consumers' intention to adopt virtual food shopping. The research also identified four segments of consumers in the Canadian market based on their attitudes and intention to adopt VGS. These results allow grocers to target the consumer groups favourable to VGS and provide insights on the factors that can be manipulated via marketing strategies to reach these consumers. Practical implications: Retailers are provided with insights on consumers behaviour that will allow them to target specific segments with shopping modalities. Originality/value: This research investigated VGS, focussing on consumer learning as a socio-cultural influence as well as the consumer's technological readiness as an intention to adopt to this modality of shopping for food. These constructs have not been investigated by previous studies on food grocery shopping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the findings of a research conducted on examining major differences between the government’s role in building energy efficiency (BEE) in China and three developed countries including U.S., Canada, and Great Britain. It examines government measures required to promote building energy efficiency (BEE) in China. It reveals that economic incentives are important for BEE promotion at the current stage, but they are lacking in China. It concludes that active government interventions including adjusting energy pricing and implementing BEE legislation, are required in China if BEE is to become economically growing and efficient.

Trauma and adverse childhood events are found in the pre-immigration histories of a cohort of four Chinese Canadian pathological gamblers. The nature of their traumatic experiences, consisting of loss and abandonment, neglect and deprivation, physical and emotional abuse, socioeconomic and political oppression, is elucidated and described. The impact of pre-immigration trauma and its relationship to the development of pathological gambling post-immigration are discussed. Upon further corroboration of the existence of pre-immigration trauma among Chinese and Asian immigrants in future studies, training of counsellors to incorporate an in-depth pre-immigration history in the assessment and treatment protocol of immigrants manifesting pathological gambling is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - To construct web visibility profiles of news web sites by examining hyperlinks pointing to the sites. Design/methodology/approach - National newspapers from USA (USA Today), Canada (The Globe and Mail), China (People's Daily) as well as Hong Kong (Sing Tao Daily) were selected for the study. A total of 1,859 links pointing to the four news sites were manually classified into the four aspects of language, country, types of sites, and reasons or purposes for linking. Findings - A comparison of the four news sites provided useful information on their web visibility. The Globe and Mail seemed to have a larger international reach than USA Today. Neither newspaper web site attracted links from China or from pages in the Chinese language. Outside China, People's Daily, an official Chinese Government newspaper, is not as visible as Hong Kong based Sing Tao Daily. USA Today and The Globe and Mail were used more for news citing or reprinting purposes while People `.s Daily seemed to be used more as a research resource. Research limitations/implications - Link analysis like this provides us with only an indirect view of the online readership and the methodology has limitations. Not all readers create links to the newspaper sites that they visit. Readers could be led to a news site through other venues including "social bookmarking" services. Practical implications - The study shows that link analysis is a novel and useful method that journalists and information professionals can use to gauge online readership and potential impact of news sites. Originality/value - Presented a novel method that complements but not replaces other web user studies such as web server log analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To meet the management challenges of the 1990s, governments must fundamentally reexamine their approaches to administrative policy. In most governments, administrative policies, such as contracting, procurement, information technology, land and internal government services, are often dominated by management philosophies inherited from the 1960s and 1970s. Policies in these areas have often been shaped by a desire for detailed control, with little regard for the cost of these controls or their impact on service delivery or innovation. Governments today cannot afford administrative policies which do not balance the need for expenditure control with service delivery and innovation. The good news is that it can be done. Governments and businesses are under enormous pressures to reduce administrative costs, improve services, respond to the demands of an information society and to develop more innovative approaches to conducting business. As part of this transformation, the Federal Government in Canada found that its administrative policies were a major impediment to more efficient, service-oriented and innovative government. Recounts the story of how one organization in a central agency of the Government of Canada recognized the need for a dramatic change in its philosophy and approach to administrative policies, and accomplished those changes over a five-year period of phased implementation between 1988 and 1993. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]