Suchergebnisse

Abstract

Many consumers profess to want to avoid unethical offerings in the marketplace yet few act on this inclination. This study investigates the nature of the rationales and justifications used by consumers to make sense of this discrepancy. The data was collected via in‐depth interviews across eight countries. The respondents were presented with three ethical consumption scenarios, and discussed their views on the consumption issues as well as their consumption behavior. The majority of the discussion focused around their rationalizations for their lack of ethical consumption patterns. Three justification strategies emerged from the data: economical rationalization, institutional dependency, and developmental realism. Economic rationalization focuses on consumers wanting to get the most value for their money, regardless of their ethical beliefs. Institutional dependency refers to the belief that institutions such as the government are responsibility to ethically regulate what products can be sold. Finally, developmental realism features the rationalization that some unethical behaviors on the part of corporations must exist in order for macro level economic development to occur. Consumer resistance in the marketplace is currently limited to small niche groups. This study investigates why resistance is so limited, in spite of survey results which suggest that a much larger group of people are interested in ethical consumption. This is the first study to investigate the nature of consumer rationales, and reinforces the need for non‐survey‐based research to understand nuanced consumer reactions and behaviors in ethical consumerism.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

With the increasing globalization of business, there has been growing interest in how to create and manage a successful international enterprise. Although researchers and practitioners have grappled with the issue of globalization for some time, there is no one model that encompasses the range of phenomena we observe in the global economy, nor have those models that do exist been precisely formalized. This paper provides an expanded approach to thinking about the organizational forms and linkages that exist in international business operations. Building on the popular integration-responsiveness framework of international strategic orientation, we develop a more expansive approach that is better able to account for the diversity of organizational forms and strategic choices open to managers. By adding a third set of environmental pressures, incorporating the beliefs of managers, and by employing the idea of efficient frontiers, we reformulate the integration-responsiveness framework, making it more consistent with modern economic models of the firm. Our integration-responsiveness-completeness (IRC) model argues that global firms can respond to these fundamental and competing pressures by configuring themselves in a variety of ways—rather than normatively prescribing that the transnational form is optimal. In addition, our model has methodological ramifications. Its formal structure suggests that empirical techniques that focus on the best rather than average performance are necessary to adequately investigate the performance differences among alternative organizational forms. This may explain the paradoxical lack of empirical support for a link between organizational form and performance.

Volume 28 of the Advances in International Management focuses on the opportunities and challenges for multinational enterprises that consider emerging economies their destinations. It provides a forum for thought-provoking idea and empirical research, and is ideal for researchers and doctoral students whose work touches emerging markets

The role that small- and medium-sized enterprises play in the economic development and growth of cities, regions and nations has been an increasing subject of debate and study for the last half century. This volume focuses on the opportunities and challenges that entrepreneurs and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face in a world of global competition. The papers therein provide an overview of successful strategies that global entrepreneurs and SMEs have employed that have allowed them to establish regional and international footprint and of how local resources, culture and managerial capabilities have contributed to startups global success. In doing so it highlights original, edgy ideas and theoretical advances that will provide the foundation for future doctoral dissertations and other research projects on international entrepreneurship.