International Transfer Research Articles

Measuring Beijing's international air connectivity and suggestions for improvement post COVID-19

This study empirically measures Beijing's international air connectivity through descriptive statistics and various connectivity indexes. In particular, we comprehensively benchmark Beijing's international air connectivity with other major international exchange centers and gateway airports around the world. It is found that, although Beijing has direct flights to a comparable number of foreign destinations, the city still significantly lags behind other major counterparts in international air connectivity. This is due to Beijing's inferior connection quality in terms of flight frequency, number of seats, flying distance, and its poor international transfer capability. Moreover, a gravity-type model is applied to investigate the determinants of Beijing's route-level direct flight traffic. An index of potential market size is calculated for a sample including candidate overseas airports without direct flights with Beijing. It is found that Beijing has already opened direct flights to most of the candidate airports that have high market potentials. The air transport market potentials to major B&R (Belt-and-Road) cities are very low. However, given China's growing trade and economic ties with the B&R countries, Beijing could consider more favorable policies in support of direct flight operations to B&R countries. It is more important for Beijing to upgrade air connectivity quality by liberalizing restrictions on flight frequency and airfare. The newly opened Beijing Daxing Airport adds valuable capacity for Beijing to better explore international connectivity. Although COVID-19 pandemic forces Beijing to shut down international flight operations until now, the city needs to formulate clearer long-term strategies to improve international its air connectivity.

The toll of cascading crises on Lebanon's health workforce

The toll of cascading crises on Lebanon's health workforce

Inside Jobs: Salary Setting for Immigrants Crossing Establishment, Organizational, and National Boundaries

Using novel US Department of Labor administrative records, the authors test theoretical mechanisms to account for variation in immigrant workers’ starting salaries following key career transitions. Specifically, they examine differences in the base starting salaries and discretionary starting salary increases above these base starting salaries for 1) same-establishment hires, relative to 2) US-based establishment transfers, 3) international establishment transfers, 4) US-based external hires, and 5) international external hires. In support of the “insider premium” account, findings show that same-establishment hires tend to work in jobs with greater requirements, and thus higher base starting salaries. In partial support of the “outsider premium” account, findings show that US-based external hires receive larger starting salary increases than do same-establishment hires, conditional on the jobs they enter. This said, international external hires receive smaller starting salary increases than do same-establishment hires. Findings reveal distinct mechanisms, acting separately or in tandem, during salary-setting processes.

Overstraining international climate finance: when conflicts of objectives threaten its success

Purpose Climate finance is regularly not only seen as a tool to efficiently combat global warming but also to solve development problems in the recipient countries and to support the attainment of sustainable development goals. Thereby, conflicts between distributive and allocative objectives arise, which threaten the overall performance of such transfer schemes. Given the severity of the climate change problem, this study aims to raise concerns about whether the world can afford climate transfer schemes that do not focus on prevention of (and adaptation to) climate change but might be considered as a vehicle of rent-seeking by many agents. Design/methodology/approach Future designs of international transfer schemes within the framework of the Paris Agreement are to be based on experience gained from existing mechanisms. Therefore, the authors examine different existing schemes using a graphical technique first proposed by David Pearce and describe the conflicts between allocative and distributional goals that arise. Findings In line with the famous Tinbergen rule, the authors argue that other sustainability problems and issues of global fairness should not be primarily addressed by climate finance but should be mainly tackled by other means. Research limitations/implications As there is still ongoing, intense discussion about how the international transfer schemes addressed in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement should be designed, the research will help to sort some of the key arguments. Practical implications There are prominent international documents (like the Paris Agreement and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development) seeking to address different goals simultaneously. While synergies between policies is desirable, there are major challenges for policy coordination. Addressing several different goals using fewer policy instruments, for example, will not succeed as the Tinbergen Rule points out. Social implications The integration of co-benefits in the analysis allows for taking into account the social effects of climate policy. As the authors argue, climate finance approaches could become overstrained if policymakers would consider them as tools to also solve local sustainability problems. Originality/value In this paper, the authors will not only examine what can be learnt from the clean development mechanism (CDM) for future schemes under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement but also observe the experiences gained from a non-CDM scheme. So the authors pay attention to the Trust Fund of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) which was established with global benefit orientation, i.e. – unlike the CDM – it was not regarded as an additional goal to support local sustainable development. Yet, despite its disregard of local co-benefits, the authors think that it is of particular importance to include the GEF in the analysis, as some important lessons can be learnt from it.

Hungarian health care in the 1930s and 1940s: health care at a crossroads in East Central Europe before World War II

ABSTRACT The relationship between the Horthy era (1920–44) and the communist era shows continuities from a social historical perspective. The paper contributes to the reinterpretation of these relations by examining Hungarian health care in the 1930s and 1940s with a focus on the relationship between international transfers and path dependency in forging health care reforms. The author argues that the achievements communists regarded as inventions of socialism in health care and the welfare state had already been developed in the 1930s and 1940s. It was only because of the strict wartime budget of the early 1940s that these welfare reforms had not been realized. With the help of internal affairs documents, essays on health care, official statistics records in the National Archives of Hungary and the Semmelweis Library and Archives of Medical History as well as press material, Cora demonstrates that, even if communists depicted the interwar period as ‘fascist and imperialist’, the health care system of the so-called ‘productive social policy’ showed continuities. Moreover, social policy makers of the 1930s and early 1940s, such as Béla Johan, Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer and Béla Kovrig also designed welfare and health care reforms for the post-war period by both developing already existing Hungarian programmes and selectively adapting foreign welfare models (American management principles, the Alsace scheme and the Beveridge Plan). The study investigates Hungarian health care in view of the theory of path dependency and the macrohistorical convergence thesis developed by Tomka (on East–West convergence). It is within this framework that the paper addresses the issue of health care transfers to better understand the development of twentieth-century European health care systems by identifying similarities and differences in their development as well as to speculate on the trajectory of various political solutions to social challenges, including health care.

Fintech Remittance Syariah : The Solution of Collection Ziswaf Overseas

Indonesian National Amil Zakat Board (BAZNAS) has collaborated with the largest and popular Indonesian payment gateways, e-commerce and crowdfunding fintechs such as ovo, Gojek, Kitabisa.com, Tokopedia.com etc. to optimize the collection of Islamic social funds like Zakah,  infaq (charity spending), waqf (endowment) and sadaqah (voluntary charity) or usually called ZISWAF by depositing Rupiah currency into the e-wallet platform. However, fundraising cross-border ZISWAF stated in Article 16 Law No. 23/2011 on Zakat Management is carried out by Baznas by forming UPZ representatives of the Republic of Indonesia abroad. The power of fintech that might be operated on global scale can be an alternative for ZISWAF international friendly transfers. Based on the Islamic Finance News (IFN) report, as many as 142 Islamic fintechs are available worldwide. Islamic FinTech offers the opportunity to become more applicable to a global Muslims. This article is a normative economic analysis on the basis of secondary data, this study found that the potential for raising ZISWAF funds across several countries is very large especially in countries with many immigrants from Indonesia through international types of fintech services such as remittances and payments that has allowed or collaborated with Bank Indonesia.

Late Toxicity Outcomes of the NHS Proton Overseas Program Since 2008

The Proton Overseas Program (POP) was begun by the National Health Service (NHS) in England in 2008, to fund eligible patients, including from the rest of the United Kingdom, for proton beam therapy (PBT) abroad. The first NHS PBT center was set up in 2018 and all POP patients' data were transferred to its central repository for tracking and analysis. Outcomes are reported for POP patients diagnosed with non-neuroaxial tumors treated from 2008 to 2020.Each patient's data are stored in the center's Proton Clinical Outcomes database. Clinical follow-up correspondence, last follow-up date, survival data, etc. are continuously updated when received. All non-neuroaxial tumors as of 2nd March 2020 were retrieved. Each patient's information from follow-up letters, assessment forms, etc. was reviewed, for incidence, type and onset time of grade 3-5 toxicities. CTCAE version 4 was used for toxicity nomenclature and grading. If needed, a patient's local UK follow-up center was contacted, sending individualized forms to record the most recent outcomes data.495 patients met the eligibility criteria, with median follow-up 2.1 years (range 0-9.3 years), of which 89% were treated at the University of Florida (68%) and the Oklahoma Procure Center (21%). 70% of patients were pediatric (< 16 years), median age 11 (0-69 years). The most common diagnoses were rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) (43%) and Ewing sarcoma (34%). The main disease site was the Head & Neck (H&N) region (51%). 69 patients had died by March 2020 (13.9%), with the highest risk in spindle cell carcinoma (60% mortality), osteosarcoma (38%) and neural/vascular tumors (25%). The 2-year actuarial survival was 88.3%. Patients with < 90 days follow-up (n = 26) or with insufficient toxicity data (n = 33) were excluded, leaving 436 patients for analysis. Following multimodality therapy, 55 patients (13%) had at least one grade 3 toxicity, 7 patients (1.6%) at least one grade 4, and none with grade 5. Most grade 3 (64%) and all grade 4 occurred in the H&N region, and most were for RMS patients (62%, N = 34 and 71%, N = 5 respectively). The most common grade 3 toxicity was cataract (51%, N = 18), then musculoskeletal deformity (11%, N = 6), premature menopause (11%, N = 6) and hearing impairment (7%, N = 4). Half of the grade 4 toxicities were secondary to hearing impairment. Median time from treatment end to onset was 2.3 years for grade 3 and 5 years for grade 4.This study provides a large well-defined cohort of patients diagnosed with uncommon non-neuroaxial tumors undergoing multimodality therapy including PBT. The NHS approach to vigilant collection and tracking of patient data over time is feasible and provides valuable analysis of PBT patient outcomes. Despite difficulties with international patient transfer, this preliminary data suggests acceptable survival and toxicity rates in the POP cohort.

Crossing Contexts: Applying a System for Collaborative Investigation of School Space to Inform Design Decisions in Contrasting Settings

This paper presents a system for participatory appraisal and idea generation by a school’s users to enable interdisciplinary collaboration between educators and architects, producing school designs appropriate to the needs of the school at the time and into the future. Our uses of this system in two contrasting educational settings in England and in Uruguay are described. We show how the visual-spatial activities supported the educators to consider education in spatial terms, build a shared understanding and produce representations that could be used to convey ideas to architects and designers. Given that participation and cross-disciplinary collaboration in school design is known to be challenging, but vital, we consider the features of our approach that enabled its success and make it viable on each and every occasion of school design or redesign. Further, addressing the critiques of attempted international transfer of architectural designs, educational policies, practices and buildings, we argue that our system avoids these problems through seeking to transfer not a project but the means to enable participation in a project.

Exploring the enablers and microfoundations of international knowledge transfer

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the enablers and barriers influencing international knowledge transfer at the team-level in the context of product innovation within an emerging-market multinational enterprise (EMNE) in the insurance industry.Design/methodology/approachThe research applies an exploratory case study design considering an emerging-market multinational insurance company headquartered in Colombia. Four subsidiaries (El Salvador, Chile, Argentina and Colombia) and the Corporate Office (headquarter) served as the research sites. It also adopts an interpretive research approach providing a grounded theory framework linking international knowledge transfer and product innovation.FindingsThe empirical findings emphasize the central role played by the enablers (i.e. shared vision, empathy and knowledge sources) in facilitating international knowledge transfer, which, in turn, enhances product innovation. More important, however, is the detailed explanation that the paper provides regarding the enablers’ microfoundational antecedents in terms of key activities that are performed at the team-level.Research limitations/implicationsThe grounded theory framework was constructed using data collected in a single firm associated with a particular industry and regional context. The study only considered a single aspect of knowledge management (i.e. knowledge transfer). Other aspects of knowledge management systems, such as knowledge creation and knowledge application, should be used for explaining product innovation in EMNEs more comprehensively.Practical implicationsThe study suggests a set of enabling conditions and activities that should be adopted by managers of EMNEs to improve international knowledge transfer with the aim of triggering product innovation. This includes the design of strategies for strengthening empathy among geographically dispersed teams by providing opportunities for regular live videoconferences among team members aimed at building close bonds, fostering trust and creating a sense of belonging in which participants get to know each other better and to establish a shared vision and a set of guiding principles and commitments for how the team will work. These suggestions are particularly important today when several multinational enterprises (MNEs) have been forced to rearrange their workplace by replacing face-to-face interactions with virtual work dynamics due to the COVID-19 crisis.Originality/valuePrevious studies have confirmed that international knowledge transfer positively influences MNEs’ innovative performance. However, no studies have been conducted linking both variables in the context of EMNEs in Latin America in the service sector. The research tries to fill this gap. Besides, the paper introduces empathy as a novel enabler for international knowledge transfer and a moderator able to diminish the negative effect that cultural differences and geographical barriers have on the knowledge transfer process.

Language Relativity in Legacy Literature: A Systematic Review in Multiple Languages

Since the Olympic Agenda 2020, legacy has been widely used as a justification for hosting the Olympic Games, through which sustainable development can be achieved for both events and host cities. To date, no universal definition of legacy has been established, which presents challenges for legacy-related international knowledge transfer among host cities. To address this gap, a multilingual systematic review of the literature regarding the concept of legacy was conducted in French, Japanese, Chinese, and English. Using English literature as a baseline, points of convergence and divergence among the languages were identified. While all four languages value the concept of legacy as an important facet of mega-events, significant differences were found within each language. This finding highlights the importance of strategies that align different cultures when promoting sustainable development of some global movements such as the Olympic legacy. Sport management is replete with international topics, such as international events and sport for development, and each topic is studied simultaneously in several languages and with potentially differing frameworks and perspectives. Thus, literature reviews that examine the English literature, exclusively, are innately limited in scope. The development of partnerships and resources that facilitate cross-lingual and cross-cultural consultation and collaboration is an important research agenda. More research is needed on knowledge translation across languages.

The impact of skills and training on local development

The impact of skills and training on local development

The effects of subsidiary’s leadership and entrepreneurship on international marketing knowledge transfer and new product development

This study investigates the role of a strong subsidiary leadership and entrepreneurial culture in the promotion of marketing knowledge inflows. We further examine their consequences on the subsidiary’s ability to develop new products when moderated by the tacitness of knowledge. The data were collected from 202 Portuguese subsidiaries of multinational corporations and were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that subsidiaries’ strong leadership support and entrepreneurial culture are fundamental mechanisms that foster marketing knowledge inflows from both the headquarters and peer subsidiaries. Moreover, marketing knowledge inflows enhance the focal subsidiary’s innovation abilities. We also find that tacit knowledge exerts contradictory moderating effects on the transfers of marketing knowledge, carrying distinct implications for a subsidiary’s knowledge management. The results expand our understanding of the effectiveness of transferring marketing knowledge among multinational corporations’ (MNCs) subsidiaries.

International transfer of knowledge: Training and education in craniomaxillofacial surgery. Contributing to humanitarian aid by teaching the teachers

The development of multiple international aid programs aims to offer health care according to basic quality standards to the global population. In many fields of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery such as the treatment of head and neck tumours, complex or acquired malformations and craniomaxillofacial trauma, aid programs contribute to solve urgent needs although in the long term only the establishment at local or subregional levels of stable specialized healthcare networks including training of specialized health personnel will be able to contribute to achieving an adequate standard of care. In this paper we review our experience regarding the different efforts made to enhance education and training in the specialty at the European level by the EACMFS and at the global level by the IAOMS.

Mechanisms of constraint: a clinical inquiry of digital infrastructuring in municipalities

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to contribute to research concerning the role of digital infrastructure in digital government. This is done by answering the research question: how does digital infrastructuring constrain ambidexterity in public sector organizations?Design/methodology/approachThe research is designed as a clinical inquiry in a large Swedish municipality, involving data collection in the form of interviews and internal documents. The method of analysis involves both exploring generative mechanisms in digital infrastructuring and theorizing on the findings based on previous literature.FindingsThe findings identify four generative mechanisms through which stability and change in digital infrastructuring constrain ambidexterity in terms of both efficiency (exploitation) and innovation (exploration).Research limitations/implicationsThis study’s limitations are related to international and intersectoral transferability and risks associated with its approach to clinical inquiry. The main implications are its contribution to the literature on how stability counteracts not only innovation but also efficiency and how change counteracts not only efficiency but also innovation.Practical implicationsThis study identifies clear generative mechanisms that should be avoided by managers striving for digital government, and it offers clear recommendations for said managers regarding how to avoid them.Social implicationsThis study offers implications for national-level digital infrastructure policy and contributes to efforts to increase the capabilities of digital government.Originality/valueAs two of the four identified generative mechanisms are novel contributions, this study offers a concrete addition to existing research. This study has resulted in factual change in the studied organization as well as at the national level through successful dissemination of the findings for both policy and practice in other public sector organizations.

Technological structure network analysis to explore the hotspots of academic patents in international technology transfer

Abstract International technology transfer is a determinant of a country’s national revenue and economic growth. Technology exported through international technology transfer can be the factor that gives a country a competitive edge. Therefore, investigation of international technology transfer has become essential. With the role of universities in innovation changing, academic patents have increased significantly over the past 10 years. Thus, this study used academic patents involved in international technology transfer as a basis for analysis and attempted to identify technological hotspots through a technological structure network analysis. The results indicated that key technologies in academic patent–based international technology transfer networks were mainly concentrated on measurement, nanotechnology, medical technology, biotechnology, and electric digital data processing. An academic patent technological hotspot network model was established to serve as a reference for academic technology transfers as well as for governments in their promotion of emerging technologies.

International technology transfer through projects: A social construction of technology perspective

Despite the use of projects as vehicles for international technology transfer for over five decades, the results have been rather underwhelming. The consistent failure to produce the desired outcomes highlights a simplistic and inaccurate view of technology and its transfer that also fails to incorporate the practical complexity of the process in project settings. Using the social construction of technology lens, this paper contributes a complementary understanding of what occurs in a project-based attempt to transfer technology by focusing upon the nature of technology, the roles actors play, social artefacts, and the wider context. Focusing upon the case of the development of a new monolithic formwork technology on a mass housing project in Ghana, the analysis shows how introducing new technology can have far-reaching implications for the management of projects in terms of shaping project routines, production techniques, and end-deliverables. Consequently, the need for closer examination of the conceptual misnomer of technology transfer in project settings is highlighted, and the managerial implications are identified.

Global value chain breadth and firm productivity: the enhancing effect of Industry 4.0

PurposeGlobal value chains (GVC) incorporate internationally fragmented sources of knowledge so as to increase global competitiveness and performance. This paper sheds light on the role of Industry 4.0 technological capabilities in facilitating knowledge access from international linkages and improving firm productivity.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on organizational learning research, the present study argues that the relationship between GVC breadth, analyzed in respect to the geographical fragmentation of production facilities and productivity follows an inverted U-shaped pattern that can be explained by the interplay between external knowledge access and the coordination costs associated with GVC breadth. We test our predictions using a purpose-built survey that was carried out among a sample of 426 Spanish manufacturing firms.FindingsOur results indicate that organizations adhering to a traditional manufacturing system are able to benefit from fewer transnational relationships (concretely 11 foreign facilities) in the search for productivity improvements. This can be largely attributed to the marginal value of the knowledge accessed and the costs of coordinating international counterparts' production and knowledge transfer. However, our study reveals that the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies has the potential to broaden optimal GVC breadth, in terms of the number of linkages to interrelate with (concretely 131 foreign facilities) so as to obtain productivity gains while mitigating the complexities associated with coordination.Originality/valueThe study unveils that Industry 4.0 technologies enable management of broader GVC breadth, facilitating knowledge access and counteracting coordination costs from international counterparts.

Contributors’ Notes

Contributors’ Notes

On the Two Catching-Up Mechanisms in Asian Development

Existing studies identify two major underlying mechanisms behind East and Southeast Asia’s miraculous economic performance in the past 5 decades: accumulation and technological catching-up. This study investigates empirically the relative importance of these two mechanisms in Asian development based on a unified framework. Using canonical cross-economy panel data, the study arrives at three important findings. First, while the process of catching-up through capital accumulation played an important role worldwide, this mechanism was more salient in Asia than in other economies around the globe, especially during the region’s early phase of growth and development. Second, human capital formation had a significant positive effect on the technological catching-up process worldwide. In particular, human capital formation promoted technology adoption more strongly in Asia than in the rest of the world. Third, innovation has also been critical in facilitating recent growth in Asian economies. These results suggest that Asia’s capital-accumulation-driven growth in the early phase induced human capital formation and international technological transfers at later phases, with strong complementarities between these two types of capital. Asian economies likely went through three phases of catching-up, that is, capital accumulation, technological imitation, and then innovation. The experiences of these Asian economies in the last several decades provide critical lessons for latecomer growth and development.

The scientific community in the international transfer of ideas and technologies: historical aspects

The paper examines training of scientific personnel in the middle of the 20th century in the Soviet Union and in Western countries on the basis of archival materials and published memoirs. The author analyzes common and distinctive features of national systems of highly qualified specialists training. It is noted that different approaches to researchers training, their scientific potential and differences in research methods did not interfere the cooperation of scientists from different countries; on the contrary, they complemented and enriched it. In the paper on the example of materials of Physical and Chemical Institute named after L.Ya. Karpov the author names the main communication channels used by scientists in the 1950s1960s. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that the role of the scientific community in the international transfer of ideas and technologies was to fill this complex process of international cooperation with scientific content. Due to the international nature of science, neither language barriers nor differences in mentality and culture hinder its development, but foreign policy is an important factor in the success of scientific thought. The events of the cold war did not allow many international scientific projects to be fully implemented.