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And that is why it became an instant hit with corporations - Chesbrough's open innovation sanctioned the firm's role as "customer" in its relationship to academe. Well, not if you believe research from Capgemini Consulting - namely, that since 2000, 52 percent of Fortune 500 companies have "gone bankrupt, been acquired, or ceased to exist" as a result of digital disruption, and 75 percent of S&P companies will be replaced by 2027 (Didier, Buvat, and Subrahmanyam [4], p. 2). I'm talking about how American business leaders had the humility to admit their firms needed to learn Lean from Japanese culture to master globally competitive operations, and why they need now to learn innovation from the culture of universities to master globally competitive innovation. Lerner and Wulf ([9], pp. 2-3) note: Beginning in the late 1980s, however, American corporations began fundamentally rethinking the role of these centralized research facilities... Reflecting both a perception of disappointing commercial returns and intensified competitive pressures, firms undertook a variety of changes to these facilities. [Extracted from the article]

Although much attention has been devoted to the issue of managerial training and development, little research has specifically focused on preparing managers for intercultural work. The present study examined documentary and interpersonal training methods of preparing managers to go overseas for their company. The effects of the two training techniques on managerial performance, perceived intensity of adjustment to a new culture, and international perspective were compared in an experiment with a two-factor, crossed-factorial design. The results demonstrate that documentary and interpersonal training methods have additive benefits in preparing managers for intercultural work assignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of the business leader is key to develop the culture of an enterprise. To exemplify its importance in the national and global context, the Muslim author from Indonesia points with admiration to Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Matsushita Electric Corporation, who already in the 1930s set up the seven ethical principles for healthy business growth, which also are commended by the Islamic imperative. Due to the current dynamic business environment, Muslims find themselves confronted with serious dilemmas and need guidance from a clearly developed Islamic business ethics. For this purpose the author offers, first, the essentials of such an ethics: the utmost importance of all sort of productive work and the distribution of wealth in society; the vocation of trade; the fundamental principles of freedom and justice for business conduct; the prescription of certain manners such as leniency, service-motive, and consciousness of Allah; and mutual consultation. He, then, presents his personal view on leadership in business. It involves three basic ingredients: an inspiring vision of high and achievable standards; a value system based on the principles of freedom and justice and promoting fairness, business integrity, and efficiency; and courage to face tough decisions while putting one's complete trust in Allah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Change agent leadership must identify future trends and needs, lead change agendas, invest in what makes a difference, and remain authentic and courageous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms operate in an environment which is influenced by external forces like, government, professional associations, the competitors and other similar organizations operating in the organizational field (Dimaggio & Powell, 1983); knowledge intensive firms, are no exceptions. Purpose of this article is to devise comprehensive conceptual and statistical models for opening the black-box between high-involvement HR practices and innovative work behavior of employees working in knowledge intensive companies. The article explains the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity framework as the generating mechanism through which HR practices affect innovative work behavior through psychological empowerment and supportive work environment. Propositions are developed for future research endeavors, in order to substantiate and validate the proposed models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational Culture is gaining importance in the modern organization theory and research. Mangers are more emphasizing to understand the culture and climate of their organization to enhance the effectiveness and productivity of the organization. Organizational development practitioners and change management flag bearers harmoniously favoring to comprehend the culture of any organization for any kind of change or transformation. Organizational Culture Profile (OCP) provides the basic tool to analyze and figure out the type and nature of cultural stream of any organization. The OCP helps to create the cultural-profile of the organization through a survey of the employees. This study encompasses the applicability of OCP in various organizations of different sectors of Pakistan. An extensive research survey conducted in eight different sectors to collect the primary data to identify the dominant cultural aspect of these sectors. The research study is conducted in banking, insurance, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, manufacturing, textile, media and other service sectors. The analyses reveal that these sectors have their own specific dominant cultural trait and there are different dominant factors in each cultural type. Hospitals have 'social responsibility' as the salient characteristic, while banking and insurance have 'performance orientation' and 'emphasis on reward' as the key cultural indicators to prevail in this sector. Interestingly 'innovation' is found as the lowest priority in all organizational-sectors of Pakistan. The study reveals further interesting statistics and provides the insight into the organizations. This study is useful for managers, leaders and other consultants who are interested to understand the local organizational culture to transform these organizations and enhance their effectiveness. It will also provide a base to those researchers who are interested to develop a profile of their organization or any specific sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of business ethics is an area of growth, both in the business and education sectors in the Arab world, including Palestine. But most research on this subject has been carried out in the USA and Europe, which gives most of the issues related to this field a distinctively American or European character. As an alternative, this case attempts to shed the light on a wide range of socio-economic, educational and business issues that are typically encountered in Palestine and to explain innovative approaches to resolving key dilemmas related to resolving the skill shortage that affects the competitiveness of Palestinian enterprises. It will do so by looking at Padico Holding, a pioneer in developing a creative program adapted to the enterprise sector's needs. The case draws its analysis from international theories and concepts by explaining Padico's sense of responsibility towards community inspired by Kant's ethics of duty, which is demonstrated in its business societal orientation built around the "stakeholder model." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author examines the creation of the concepts of politeness in the business etiquette training provided for new employees in Japanese companies. Based on the data from the business etiquette seminars offered by the training companies, the author analyzes how employees are through appropriate use of honorifics to speak in ways which are seen as kind. The analysis shows how local creation of politeness can serve larger strategic ends.

The article discusses a study conducted to encourage organizational leaders to analyze potential results of their activity. It also discusses how scenario building can assist leaders in tackling situation with high levels of uncertainty. It has been informed that strategic leadership and scenario building are important in managing organizations.

Abstract: Taking the view that honorifics are indexes, this paper examines uses of referent honorifics in a committee meeting in a Japanese company. The ways in which referent honorifics occur in this committee meeting defy the explanation that honorifics are markers of politeness. The paper finds that most of the referent honorifics that occur in the meeting are used in the speech act of requests and descriptions of the third party not present in the speech context. Furthermore, the male participants use referent honorifics more than the female participants. The paper argues that neither Brown and Levinson''s politeness theory nor Ide''s notion of wakimae ‘discernment’ alone can adequately account for the usages of the referent honorifics in the committee meeting talk. This paper illustrates ways in which the participants discursively construct their institutional identity through the use of referent honorifics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This article analyzes the concepts of politeness that are manifest in Japanese business etiquette training in relation to the politeness theories of and . The analysis is based on participant-observation of five workforce development companies that specialize in providing seminars in “business manners” for new employees at a variety of Japanese companies. Intended for native speakers, these classes provide insight into the types of politeness that are considered particularly important for young Japanese to master as they enter the business world. Approaching both Volition and Discernment as language ideologies, the analysis examines the deployment of these ideologies in the Japanese business context. Although the manners training incorporates attention to both formal forms such as honorifics () and the types of verbal strategies described by , both types of politeness are presented in the training in terms of “discernment,” or conformity to social norms, rather than as individually motivated strategic choices. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Pragmatics could be regarded as a background for discussing the notion of politeness in business communication. In this respect, this paper presents the concept of politeness from a pragmatic perspective, making reference to researches that have been made in this field and examining different approaches to politeness strategies used in business settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how the execution of business strategy for global enterprises is shaped by the dual challenges of communicating in a different national culture and working in a changing economic environment. The article develops a framework from the UPS case in China to illustrate the key components of strategy for US companies operating businesses in China. The article proposes that Chinese-American communication effectiveness can be achieved through overcoming five obstacles: cultural multiplicity, relationship/ task orientation, time concept, business style difference, and language use, while utilizing five facilitators: pragmatism, gender equality, English, American pop culture, and a "big country mentality." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Small treasuries” (xiaojinku) are off-book accounts found in many large enterprises in China for the purpose of rewarding managers and their subordinates, building up guanxi (personal networks), and even financing the business operations of their danwei (work units). We analyze CESTs with reference to their antecedents, constructs, and consequences. Our analysis indicates that while CESTs can, in some cases, help organizations deal with immediate financial problems, they have negative impacts on organizational performance in relation to the moral hazard of managers, as well as the allocation of organizational resources, in respect of sustainability of strategic advantages and growth, and mismanagement of organizations. Because of the involutionary behavior of managers in Chinese enterprises, we propose that it will require not only organizational controls, but also a fundamental change in these managers’ ideology for solving the problems of CESTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the mode of entry of a multinational firm that has less information about the host market stochastic demand than the local firm. The foreign firm can enter the market either through direct investment or exports. Each entry mode entails different costs and has different informational implications. Entry through foreign direct investment (FDI) is favored by greater variability in demand. Interestingly enough, strategic behavior by the incumbent firm, which deviates from its first period monopoly output, might be aimed at increasing the probability of foreign entry through FDI despite having to compete against an equally informed and efficient entrant; this never happens in a symmetric information environment. Such host firm behavior is aimed at reducing the strategic uncertainty derived from the foreign firm's beliefs. Compared with the symmetric information setting, entry via direct investment may occur in more cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a case study of the entry of two Norwegian lifeboat companies into the Chinese production system. Rather than merely studying the situation through the eyes of these companies, it includes a perspective from the far side of international business, i.e., the local competitors. The article argues that to understand the dynamics and development of both international companies and localized production systems in a global economy, it is necessary to explore how international and local actors reflexively evaluate and act upon each other. The article, thus, presents a model for studying the internationalization process and localized production systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses corporate cultural characteristics such as the high performance cultures common in some credible organizations. According to the author, these cultural characteristics do not only influence employee behavior but it also reflects the fact such organizations have a deeply shared belief system, high level of cohesion, strong behavioral norms, and charismatic leaders. Likewise, these organizations resemble cults on account of such characteristics.

This article, based on 30 interviews with firms, business associations, and EU institutions, explores the Europeanization/harmonization of Japanese firms' lobbying strategies, and assesses how they have adapted to the constantly evolving EU public policy-making system. We provide an empirical investigation of interaction between traditional Japanese lobbying practices and the EU institutional environment in forming firms' preferences for particular lobbying strategies in the automobile and electronics sectors. In short, a key objective is to highlight the variations in Japanese lobbying, with special attention to the firms' efforts to blend into the EU policy-making process, on the one hand, and their embeddedness in traditional business culture, on the other. This article concludes that Japanese firms have restructured their political behaviours to suit the EU policy-making process; however, the degree of such Europeanization of lobbying strategies has significantly varied across sectors and firms owing to the ranging influence of several institutional factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lexicographic evidence and oral translations of được in Vietnamese show its meanings as: “all right”, “agreed”, and “OK”. In reality, the undetermined range of probabilities in its meaning, imperceptible by non-native intuitions, are readily recognizable by natives. Not grasping what được means entails communication failures since to be told that something “can be done” induces a positive belief in English. This paper studies the meaning of được (can/OK) and compares it with chắc (là) được (probably can/OK) and chắc chắn được (certainly can/OK). It discusses the strategic and polite functions of được in business communication and shows that được is explorative as it sets the starting point for communication that could be furthered to reach a more conclusive result, explicitly lexicalized by chắc chắn được. It concludes that được is a non-committal “conflict-avoidance device” and “face-saver”. It is inconclusive that the farther the “distance” between the illocutors, the higher the degree of politeness, but supports the demand for ‘face’ over efficiency to a certain extent in the communicative style of the Vietnamese. Overall, it points to the need for long overdue analytic work on business discourse in cultural and social contexts, especially in lesser studied languages and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the role of foreign languages in business communication. Languages like German, Russian and English have been designated as the global languages widely used in corporate organizations. The European Union selected eleven languages as the official languages but later reduced them to three languages. The wide use of languages in business communication was further promoted by globalization. The relationship between business and language can be determined by the economization of communication.

In the domestic and international business environment, globalization creates a social demand: the acquisition of knowledge in order to let the businessmen grow in a more competitive business world Recent studies in Japan show that business food meetings are, in most cases, the best opportunity to carry out businesses that are fundamental for the enterprise. That is why it is important to introduce the executive to etiquette topics so he knows how to behave properly. Therefore, it is a necessity for the contemporary managers to own the etiquette knowledge that will lead him to a confident development to achieve the main objective of the business agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on everyday life has only imperfectly taken to itself the influence of modern information and communications technology, generally through the work of authors like Benjamin and the lettristes like de Certeau and Virilio. Part of the reason for this relative absence seems to be a concern that these technologies are, in some way, inauthentic. But such a reaction is no longer adequate. As software plasters the everyday world with a new and active surface, so the character of the everyday world is being changed. This change is based on theoretical models of the world that are written into software and which have as one of their key roots particular notions of biology. How can one understand this new kind of everyday life in which theoretical models of biology come back to haunt the surfaces that define us as they are incorporated in all manner of increasingly 'lively' devices? Obviously, a series of characterizations could be made but this paper proposes that one of the best of these may turn out to be that of the companion animal. Everyday life is chock full of these animals yet they too are hardly ever remarked upon in the literature: their strange familiarity is so obvious that they are deemed to be unworthy of notice. However, as software makes the world increasingly lively, perhaps we should start to think of its agency, especially as it is incarnated in various increasingly mobile objects, as calling forth similar kinds of relationship of dominance and affection - and a pressing ethical task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I analyze and compare the effects of sequential and simultaneous cheap-talk communication (e.g., preannouncement of entry) among privately informed potential entrants who then play a normal-form entry game. The first main result is that cheap-talk communication is powerful enough to enable the potential entrants to coordinate on an efficient outcome for each and every contingency. The second is that sequential cheap talk is more dextrous in this task in the sense that it can generate a greater variety of efficient outcomes than simultaneous cheap talk. The precise extent to which it does so is also explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are culture driven ethical conflicts apparent in the discourse of the protagonists? A multiyear, multi-cultural study of managers by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner resulted in two conclusions relevant to business ethics. The first is that intercultural business conflicts can often be traced to a finite set of cultural differences. The second is that enough similarities exist between cultures to provide the grounds for conflict resolution. The research reported here gives credence to their study when applied to an ethical conflict viewed from French and American perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study that sought to refine the concept work procedures in small group communication. Hypotheses about procedural order; Properties of high procedural order (HPO); Development of Group Procedural Order Questionnaire; Factor loadings on converted item scores.

The article reports on the growth of corporate social responsibility among Japanese companies. In years past, Japanese society has not expected business to play a larger role in society beyond financial and economic development. Two factors leading to this change are increased prosperity of post World War II Japanese people, and the larger role played by Japanese companies in international business. Japanese firms conducting business internationally have adapted to local social customs and incorporated this social responsibility back in Japan. The results of a survey by the Japan Productivity Center on corporate citizenship in Japan are presented.

This paper is designed to do three things while discussing the challenge of ethical behavior in organization. First, it discusses some reasons why unethical behavior occurs in organization. Secondly, the paper highlights the importance of organizational culture in establishing an ethical climate within an organization. Finally. the paper presents some suggestions for creating and maintaining an ethically-oriented culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determinants of multinational presence in UK manufacturing industry in 1979 are analysed. It is argued that multinational presence may result from strategic interaction as well as other firm and industry characteristics. The determinants of both foreign and UK multinational presence are estimated using a dataset that enables both types of multinational to be identified. Results show an important effect of both scale and concentration on multinational presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of publications on general management, compiled as of winter 1978. Some of the publications are "The case for the Multinational Corporation," by Carl H. Madden; "The Changing Environment for Industrial Enterprise," by John A. Miller; "Government-Business Cooperation in Meeting World Needs," by Edward C. Bursk and Gene E. Bradley; and "Special Report: Congress and International Business."

A systematically organized method of writing can improve an organization's communications. Such a systematic method of writing can be expressed in the technical notation of modern symbolic logic or in a modified form of ordinary English prose that can be easily understood by readers who have not had any training in modern logic. This method can provide both a means of detecting ambiguities and a means of simplifying complicated statements without changing their meaning. Once an ambiguity is detected a writer can cut that ambiguity out, or he can allow it to remain. He is not forced to delete ambiguity in the systematically organized method of writing suggested in this article. This method of writing is likely to be used by organizations if, and only if, its merits are fully understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers at a symposium sponsored by the American Bar Association on remedies for dominant firm misconduct held at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville is presented. Topics include the consideration of remedies issues and how to remedy specific instances of unlawful market dominance. The symposium features professor Christopher Sprigman and government officials Per Hellstrom, Thomas Barnett and Bill Blumenthal.

The article discuses the importance for businesses to build a culture and values to their organization. It explores the value and significance of an organization culture in the business since it serves as an operating system in the company. It also outlines the advantages of an organization culture since it develops responsible employees, as well as cooperation and teamwork in the workplace.

Discusses special considerations for U.S. companies doing business in Brazil. Adaptation to local customs and conditions; Involvement in the community; Adaptation to local institutions and problems without sacrificing business ability; Four principles that are germane to the problem of doing business in Brazil.