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To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2007.00513.x Byline: Ayse Saka-Helmhout ([dagger]) Abstract: This article explores the impact of institutional variation on the extent to which subsidiary firms learn from multinational corporations. Learning is conceptualized here as consisting of two aspects: knowledge flow and reinforcement of or change in routines to incorporate the behaviourist assumptions of learning into the international business field. The research is based on in-depth case studies that systematically compare the ways in which parent company knowledge diffuses to Polish, Turkish, Italian and German subsidiary firms in the chemical industry. The findings show that even though firms face the same global pressure to integrate and pursue the same international strategy, their learning outcomes are not the same. There is heterogeneous learning as a result of differences in the institutional context of home countries. Where institutional structures are not favourable to learning, the proactive or reactive orientation of actors to identifying future needs and modifying existing schemata - which highlight the importance of human agency - is significant in explaining learning. Author Affiliation: ([dagger])University of Groningen, Faculty of Management and Organization, Department of International Business and Management, PO Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The NetherlandsEmail:a.saka@rug.nl

A study on the effect of institutional change on the disposition of organizations to change, in order to grow, is presented. This examination is based on the data accumulated in the Major League Baseball during 1920-2001, to identify the drivers of change and their performance implications.

Although our understanding of clusters and their contribution to economic performance has improved over the last three decades, the literature has become host to a wide array of divergent empirical and theoretical claims. We systematically review cluster studies published in top journals, highlighting the lack of integration among prior work. We focus on the ways in which Porter's three cluster dimensions, namely geography, networks, and institutions, have been utilized. None of the studies reviewed fully captured their complex interrelationships, which we argue is an important cause of the key disagreements in the literature. Configurational theorizing and analysis are presented as means by which the different approaches to cluster studies could be reconciled. We discuss how the application of a configurational approach can help explore new scholarly directions that can deepen our understanding of clusters and their performance‐enhancing potential. In doing so, we can move beyond an understanding of independent effects to emphasizing combinations of attributes that can generate multiple pathways to cluster performance outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the example of the airline industry, this paper explores in a longitudinal comparative case study the question of how firm-level changes and national institutional environments interact in shaping employee and union relations. Adding to previous research in comparative institutional analysis and comparative employment relations, we illustrate that the way in which industry pressures and national-level effects play out to influence employee and union relations depends on firm-level changes, mainly in the form of firm growth, acquisitions and the foundation of new subsidiaries. We show in particular that depending on firm-level changes, the very same firm might engage differently with a given institutional context at different points in time. Hence, our work illustrates the importance of firm growth, acquisitions and the foundation of new subsidiaries in explaining the shifting interaction between the firm and its institutional environment, and its implications for changing employee and union relations within firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and Development (R&D) investment is seen as a fundamental driver of high-tech small and medium-sized (SME) firm performance. However, the same driver may be constraining growth among non-high-tech SMEs as it increases the level of risk faced by such firms. We challenge this argument by examining the relationship between R&D intensity and performance among non-high-tech SMEs. While the size of R&D investments is, by definition, limited in the non-high-tech sector, our study shows that such investments are important for non-high-tech firms. There is, however, an inverted U-shaped relationship between R&D intensity and performance among non-high-tech SMEs. Furthermore, increased internationalization leads non-high-tech SMEs to exploit their R&D investment more effectively to enhance firm performance, provided that R&D investment levels exceed a critical threshold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]