Irish Business Research Articles

Think manager – Think male or female: exploring the content of gendered stereotypes of the managerial role among undergraduate business students in Ireland over a 10-year period

PurposeUsing Schein’s Descriptive Index (SDI), this paper aims to first examine gender role stereotypes and requisite managerial characteristics among Irish business students over a 10-year period. Then, the paper investigates whether there have been changes in gender role stereotypes during this period and subsequently unpack the reasons behind any changes recorded.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 1,124 students from the same business student population rated men, women and managers in general, using SDI. Data was collected first during the academic year 2008–2009 and again in 2018–2019 to determine stability or change in gender role stereotypes and requisite managerial characteristics. Intraclass correlation coefficients scores were computed to determine the relationship between gender and requisite managerial characteristics and identify differences and similarities between the two samples. To explore the content of gender stereotypes, an examination of the specific descriptive items was conducted by performing a factorial analysis using Duncan’s Multiple Range Test. Finally, the authors adapted the scales developed by Duehr and Bono (2006) to determine whether broad gender stereotypic characteristics with respect to communal and agentic, attributed to men, women and managers, differ by sample.FindingsThe overall findings indicate changes in the extent of gender role stereotyping of the managerial role among the male cohorts studied. The subsequent analysis of the descriptive items identified that the change among the male cohort is due to the levels of agency they perceive women to now possess.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors contribute to the literature on both gendered and managerial stereotypes by showing changes in the pro-male stereotype of the managerial role and contribute to the existing debate on a shift towards a more androgynous view of leadership.Practical implicationsThese findings help understand the content of gender role stereotypes that recent graduates bring with them to their first job post-graduation. The observed changes in the level of agency ascribed to women by their male counterparts could prove to be an important step forward for women’s advancement to managerial positions.Originality/valueThe findings indicate that both male and female cohorts in Sample 2 perceived men and women in general to possess the same levels of communal and agentic traits as their managerial counterparts.

The role of relatedness in firm interrelationships

PurposeThis paper analyses how firm births and deaths are influenced by previous firm births and deaths in related and unrelated sectors. Competition and multiplier effects are used as the theoretical lens for this analysis.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses 2008–2016 Irish business demography data pertaining to 568 NACE 4-digit sectors within 20 NACE 1-digit industries across 34 Irish county and sub-county regions within 8 NUTS3 regions. A three-stage least squares (3SLS) estimation is used to analyse the impact of past firm deaths (births) on future firm births (deaths). The effect of relatedness on firm interrelationships is explicitly modelled and captured.FindingsFindings indicate that the multiplier effect operates mostly through related sectors, while the competition effect operates mostly through unrelated sectors.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper's findings show that firm interrelationships are significantly influenced by the degree of relatedness between firms. The raw data used to calculate firm birth and death rates in this analysis are count data. Each new firm is measured the same as another regardless of differing features like size. Some research has shown that smaller firms have a greater propensity to create entrepreneurs (Parker, 2009). Thus, it is possible that the death of differently sized firms may contribute differently to multiplier effects where births induce further births. Future research could seek to examine this.Practical implicationsThese findings have implications for policy initiatives concerned with increasing entrepreneurship. Some express concerns that public investment into entrepreneurship can lead to “crowding out” effects (Cumming and Johan, 2019), meaning that public investment into entrepreneurship could displace or reduce private investment into entrepreneurship (Audretsch and Fiedler, 2023; Zikou et al., 2017). This study’s findings indicate that using public investment to increase firm births could increase future firm births in related and unrelated sectors. However, more negative “crowding out” effects may also occur in unrelated sectors, meaning that public investment which stimulates firm births in a certain sector could induce firm deaths and crowd out entrepreneurship in unrelated sectors.Originality/valueThis paper is the first in the literature to explicitly account for the role of relatedness in firm interrelationships.

The politics of structural reform in Ireland: Dominant growth coalitions, domestic business elites, and internal devaluation

This paper broadens the scope of the Growth Model (GM) research agenda beyond the study of ‘core’ business elites by investigating the influence of (oft-neglected) non-core business actors and sectoral interests in determining growth strategies. To do so it looks at a crucial case in the GM debate: Ireland. Ireland’s robust recovery from the eurozone crisis has set it apart from the rest of the eurozone periphery. For GM scholarship, Ireland’s recovery has been driven by its long-established multinational/export sector, which is relatively indifferent to the effects of austerity and internal devaluation. Why, then, was internal devaluation a central plank of Ireland’s crisis response and Economic Adjustment Programme (EAP)? Drawing on 10 original interviews with Irish business elites and policy makers and documentary evidence, this paper shows that domestic, not multinational, business elites played a key role in framing conditionality related to competitiveness and labour market reform in the Irish EAP. This challenges the concept of ‘dominant growth coalitions’ and argues that an exclusive focus on ‘core’ business elites neglects the ability of other fractions of business power to determine growth strategies. Looking beyond ‘core’ business elites makes it possible to identify transformation behind more obvious patterns of continuity.

A longitudinal study investigating changing implicit leadership theory in an Irish business school

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate changing implicit leadership theories (ILTs) within a business student population over a ten-year period.Design/methodology/approachStudents from the same business student population rated men, women and managers in general, using Schein’s Descriptive Index, first during the academic year 2008–2009 and again in 2018–2019.FindingsIn Sample 1, the authors found multiple ILTs, male students gender typed the managerial role in favour of men, while female students held a more gender egalitarian view of the managerial role. In Sample 2, the authors found evidence that ILTs are starting to converge, as neither the male nor female sample gender typed the managerial role.Practical implicationsThese results aid the understanding of the ILTs that these graduating professionals bring into their new full-time organisations.Originality/valueThe analysis of data from the same population using the same measurement at ten-year intervals, along with the findings that male students no longer gender type the managerial role in the most recent round of data collection, are original contributions to the literature.

Research on Voluntary Internal Audit of Irish Business

Research on Voluntary Internal Audit of Irish Business

Applying Lacan’s four discourse model in career counselling at the postgraduate level

ABSTRACT In this paper, I address Jacque Lacan’s theory of the four discourses, namely, master/slave, university, hysteric and analyst. The four discourses are explored via interviews with five postgraduate business students from a leading Irish business school. Three of the students were prepared to abdicate responsibility for career decision-making to me, thereby suggesting the discourses of the master/slave and university. The remaining two students expected to retain greater control over the career decision-making process which implies a shift in position to the discourse of the analyst. I propose that career counselling should primarily reside in the discourse of analyst, with supporting reference to the discourses of hysteric, university and master/slave. Currently, there is no inclusion of Lacan in career theory.

We Hold Ourselves Accountable: A Relational View of Team Accountability

Accountability is of universal interest to the business ethics community, but the emphasis to date has been primarily at the level of the industry, organization, or key individuals. This paper unites concepts from relational and felt accountability and team dynamics to provide an initial explanatory framework that emphasizes the importance of social interactions to team accountability. We develop a measure of team accountability using participants in the USA and Europe and then use it to study a cohort of 65 teams of Irish business students over three months as they complete a complex simulation. Our hypotheses test the origins of team accountability and its effects on subsequent team performance and attitudinal states. Results indicate that initial team accountability is strongly related to team trust, commitment, efficacy, and identifying with the team emotionally. In established teams, accountability increases effort and willingness to continue to collaborate but did not significantly improve task performance in this investigation.

Inclusion in Digital Recruitment: Building both Internal and External Human Capital Resources

Drawing on strategic human capital theory, this study focused on the digital recruitment of human capital. It explored external human capital i.e., job applicant, experiences with digital recruitment tools and their perceived inclusion. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 adopted a qualitative method, interviewing 25 active job seekers. Findings highlighted the importance of digital recruitment tool ease-of-use and personalisation to suit job applicant needs. Study 2 adopted a quantitative method, surveying graduates in a top Irish business school. Using path analysis, a mediation model was tested for the ease-of-use and personalisation linked to job applicant satisfaction and positive experience with the employer via perceived inclusion. These results bolstered support for the importance of job applicants’ perceived inclusion and the drivers enabling inclusion during digital recruitment. This study extends strategical human capital and human resource management research by adding digital and inclusive management elements. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Business Establishment Opposition to Southern Ireland’s Exit from the United Kingdom

After more than a century of political and economic integration, Southern Ireland exited the United Kingdom in 1922. By identifying the leading business firms of the era and the political and religious allegiances of their owners, this paper explores the perspective of the Southern Irish business establishment on the issues involved. While the mass of the population was Catholic and by 1918 favored secession, the business elite is shown to have been predominantly Protestant and strongly supportive of continued integration. Business elite perceptions of the consequences of exiting the United Kingdom are explored, and post-independence economic and business developments assessed in light of the concerns expressed at the time. The paper also charts the post-independence fate of the leading former unionist firms and the erosion and eventual disappearance of the sectarian divisions then prevalent in Irish business life.

Brexit, business interests, and the politics of the Irish border

Why did the longstanding relationship between businesses and politicians in the UK break down in the midst of arguably one of the most critical and business-sensitive sets of decisions ever in contemporary UK? This paper explores this puzzle in light of the politics of the Irish border. The case of the Irish border is particularly interesting to study because it illustrates how a variety of actors, governmental as well as business actors, apparently shunned “rational” courses to pursue strategies that did not appear to serve their economic or political interest. We argue that this puzzle can only be solved by placing political contestation to the center of analysis, and examining its implication for the way businesses understood and pursued their interests. Based on primary data drawn from a range of Irish business organizations, we explore the crystallization of regional business interests in a context of high contestation and contrasted access to political actors across the border, North and South of the border. Our analysis contributes to the emerging literature on the social construction of business interests.

Non-professional translation in an Irish business setting: Considerations for global theory and national policy

ABSTRACTThis article aims to contribute to the growing body of non-professional translation and workplace studies by presenting a subset of preliminary findings from an exploratory qualitative case study on multilingual practices within an administrative unit of an Irish-based global IT enterprise. Data gathered from observations and interviews with managers and multilingual staff is analyzed thematically following an inductive approach to reveal how translation features in multiple forms, and to examine the underlying conceptions of language and competence that shape the phenomenon in this setting. A case is made for the explicitation of strategies in international business communication to facilitate both the deployment of effective and sustainable language management and education policies, and the development of theoretical understandings of translation and translating in an ever-evolving social and professional landscape.

Linked Finance – Ireland’s Leading P2P Lending Platform: Financial Blog Collection 2019–2020 … Operating Year for Which Linked Finance Was P2P Lending Finalist at the IC Financial Times Investment & Wealth Management Awards 2019 (Presentation Slides)

Linked Finance is Ireland’s leading peer-to-peer lending (P2P) platform. It provides a fast, easy and efficient way for Irish SMEs to access unsecured business loans of up to €300,000 in just 24 hours. When Linked Finance was originally launched in 2013, businesses across Ireland were struggling to access the finance that they needed to operate. Many long-standing companies were having credit facilities withdrawn as the market continued to contract. For those that could access capital, the process was often painfully slow or laden with piles of paper and hours of form-filling. Many business owners became disillusioned with the process of applying for credit and resolved to make do; funding what ambitions they had from their own resources or stalling plans for expansion. This was hugely detrimental to Ireland's economic recovery. Linked Finance created a business model founded on connecting local companies who need loans with a vibrant online lending community. A community that now consists of more than 23,000 local individuals, international investors and large institutions. Linked Finance uses technology to cut out the middle man, cut through the red tape and cut down on the time it takes to access funding. They have facilitated more than 2,300 loans to business in every county of the country and in every sector of the Irish economy. Delivering more than €120 million in much needed funding. This collection of financial blogs presents a key component of Linked Finance's marketing strategy to help educate SMEs about crowd funding and P2P finance as an option to grow their business. In the year 2019-2020, Linked Finance was a P2P Lending Finalist at the prestigious IC Financial Times Investment & Wealth Management Awards 2019, and the Deloitte's Financial Services Innovation Awards 2019. Readers can simply click on the link to the research topic for each title and find the article on Linked Finance's 'The Business Lending Blog'. The slides present links to 20+ researched contemporary topics relevant to the SME Market addressing themes such as 'Preparing for Brexit', 'Getting Ready for Export to the EU', 'Digitalising Your Business', 'Geo-Mapping P2P Lending Nationwide and County-Wise' and many more. Each article is succinct 500-800 words, and downloadable. This collection should appeal to those interested in eCommerce, Crowd Funding, P2P Finance, Fintech, Irish Business Markets, and SME Sector more generally.

Management in the early days of the Irish Free State: Bennetts of Ballinacurra

Abstract This study details the management practices of a malting business called Bennetts of Ballinacurra (Bennetts), from approximately 1920s to the mid-1930s, a period when the Irish Free State was in its infancy. There is little extant literature on the management practices of Irish businesses of the time. Archival records, containing the company’s books, records and correspondence, were our primary source. Our findings revealed a relatively sophisticated management information system for which its merchant background and close connections to Arthur Guinness & Sons Ltd. (Guinness) were a potential explanatory factor. In addition, despite the business being small, the study revealed how management coped with issues such as business structure and industrial relations in a time of great political and economic change. There is scope for future research to utilise the archives of Bennetts, as well as other archives identified in our study.

St. Patrick Meets St. Louis: The Display of the Irish at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair

St. Patrick Meets St. Louis:The Display of the Irish at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair* Jeffrey O'Leary (bio) A short time after the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair opened, a controversy erupted within the Irish Industrial Exhibit, Ireland's showcase at this venue. Members of the Dublin-based Irish National Theatre, who crossed the Atlantic to perform the works of Irish writers, claimed that the leadership of the Irish exhibit permitted the use of the stage Irishman persona in order to boost ticket sales. These Irish actors asserted that they received assurances from exhibit organizers before their arrival that only "Irish classics" would grace the stage. When these actors objected to negative portrayals of the Irish and refused to participate in further productions until removal of this caricature occurred, they lost their jobs.1 After a series of reports and editorials in the press, the organizers of the Irish exhibit declared that they were "sufficiently qualified to judge of, and to maintain what is due to the respect and dignity of, the Irish character."2 The paradox [End Page 142] of this response was that the primary individuals with oversight of the Irish exhibit were St. Louis-based American Irish who argued that their agency regarding the display of Irishness on this fairground was supreme and criticism by outside voices, even Irish ones, were mistaken.3 This article investigates the presentation of Irishness at the St. Louis fair as a mechanism of influencing ethnic-identity construction within the transatlantic world and explores how this fairground emerged as a unique site to mediate memory and commodify Ireland's heritage within an expansive American marketplace. I argue that this world's fair permitted the American Irish community to engage in oversight and presentation of Irishness within the public sphere to increase the commercial visibility of Ireland, its people, and goods with the intent of bolstering investment in Ireland to revive a floundering economy. What differentiates the St. Louis fair from other world's fairs regarding an Irish display is that this event was the first in which a coordinated effort by prominent American Irish business and civic leaders through an enterprise based in the United States, known as the Irish Exhibit Company, worked with an entity of the British Parliament called the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland (DATII) to ensure that the Irish exhibit came to fruition. The DATII, created by an act of Parliament in 1899, became the primary British institution that assisted Irish farmers and workers in the resolution of agrarian- and industrial-oriented problems in Ireland. By the start of the twentieth century, the DATII became an important body in representing Ireland at international exhibitions.4 Although Irish workers and performers appeared within the Irish Industrial Exhibit at the St. Louis fair to provide an authentic experience for its visitors, planning and implementation of this project occurred under the auspices of Ireland's descendants in the United States. The Irish, in fact, had [End Page 143] limited agency in how their heritage appeared within the confines of this world's fair. World's fairs are sites that reinforce or contest notions of identity. In particular, these international extravaganzas provided visitors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with myriad outlets to absorb numerous constructs of ethnicity, including Irishness, and became social texts that commodified ideas of self and portrayed a manufactured reality for fairground visitors. This process within the Irish Industrial Exhibit at St. Louis relied on "performing" Irishness for guests who purchased a ticket to "visit" Ireland without leaving the United States. The power to control these performances and determine the environment in which ethnic remembrance occurred in the Irish exhibit afforded the American Irish organizers enhanced agency over their Irish-born brethren. My examination of the display of Irishness at the 1904 St. Louis fair expands Jeffrey Alexander's work on cultural pragmatics, with its emphasis on social performance and power, as a means of analyzing authenticity "as an interpretive category" that allows for greater comprehension of the dissonance that resulted from contested interpretations of Irishness.5 The episode of the Irish actors who expressed extreme displeasure about...

UK shocks and Irish business cycles, 1922–79

AbstractThis article examines the transmission of UK and global shocks to the Irish economy over the period 1922–79, using annual data for consumer prices and real GDP in a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. UK aggregate demand and supply shocks have large and significant effects on Irish CPI, but smaller effects on Irish real GDP. A historical decomposition indicates that UK aggregate supply and demand shocks played a more important role than domestic shocks in the evolution of Irish CPI. In contrast, the evolution of Irish real GDP is driven more by idiosyncratic domestic shocks than by UK shocks.

The Contribution of Foreign Companies to the Business Economy and Corporate Income Tax Base in Ireland

This paper looks at the sources of value added, labour payments and gross value added in the Irish business economy from 2008 to 2012. In particular it looks at the breakdown by economic sector and by country of controlling owner, especially the United States, of enterprises operating in Ireland. Foreign companies make around 80 per cent of Corporation Tax payments to the Exchequer. The paper examines the sources of these payments and highlights that in the business economy just three sectors account for 50 percent of the tax base. Finally the paper considers the possible impact of changes to the tax base away from a source of value-added basis to a destination of customer sales basis in a stylised Irish and European context for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, a sector which contributes around one-sixth of Exchequer Corporation Tax revenues. At present, around one-quarter of the profits from the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals in the EU is in Ireland’s corporate income tax base. The stylised example shows a potential loss of up to 95 per cent of Ireland’s corporate income tax base for this sector if a sales principle was used. Finally, using an approach similar to the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) as proposed by the European Commission it is found that a potential loss of up to 82 per cent of this tax base is possible. The potential loss of Corporation Tax revenue for the Irish Exchequer is between €575 million and €650 million per annum.

Integrating mobile into marketing strategy

As the use of mobile devices among consumers proliferates, it is important for managers to understand how they can effectively integrate mobile marketing into their marketing strategy. The objective of this research was to explore the current use of mobile marketing by Irish businesses and provide a set of guidelines for the effective integration of mobile marketing into marketing strategy. This process included a thorough review of mobile marketing theory, its application, use and attitudes towards it. Seven in-depth interviews and three focus groups were conducted with managers and consumers in Ireland in 2013 and the findings were comprehensively analysed. The findings identify that managers are largely unclear about how to use mobile marketing and that organisations lack structured mobile marketing strategies. The outcomes of this research are presented as a set of guidelines which will contribute not only to the literature but also to support practitioners in their objective of using mobile marketing in a more considered and strategic manner.

The Connected University: Ireland's Higher Education Institutions and Their Knowledge Exchange Activities

We present the results of a survey of Irish higher education staff, the aim of which was to ascertain a broad picture of the nature and extent of their engagement with various stakeholders. Contrary to the stereotype of academics living in 'ivory towers' and not being engaged with 'the real world' the evidence here is quite different. A broad level of engagement is evident across four main realms – commercialisation, engagement with persons, with communities and in problem solving situations. 33% responded that they saw their research mainly having relevance for non-commercial external bodies, with 22% seeing it mainly as having commercial research. Direct engagement in commercial activity is limited with 8% having taken out a patent or formed a consultancy. These were very heavily dominated by the STEM disciplines as one might imagine. When we look at other forms of acidity however we find a much richer and broader engagement. 60% of respondents were actively engaged with external private and 50% with public sector bodies. Public sector engagement was higher for AHSS disciplines than private, a mirror image of the STEM findings. Public sector engagement was however very heavily local, with very little evidence of engagement with non-Irish bodies. More than 30% of respondents were engaged with external bodies in activities such as student placements, curriculum development, informal non-remunerated advice, joint research etc. In terms of engagement initiation the most frequent approach was an academic approaching an external body. There was very limited evidence for the role of university Technology transfer bodies in initiating contact with external bodies.The motivation for external interaction was overwhelmingly located in the areas of testing and checking theories and hypotheses and in gaining insight, as opposed to more commercial reasons. Over 50% of respondents felt that this contact had led to new insights and 40% found it had led to new projects. 40% also felt that the external contact had led to new teaching insights. Lack of time and lack of institutional support were the most frequently cited reasons for academics reporting being constrained in interactions with external bodies. 'Cultural' differences between academia and others were not seen as a major barrier. Finally, there was muted support for arguments that academia should focus only on basic research in isolation, and some positive support for academia increasing the competitiveness of Irish business.

Hidden Properties of Irish House Price Vintages

Using spectral analysis, prices of two Irish house vintages are investigated for hidden periodicities. What emerges is a major periodicity consistent with an Irish business cycle. A further hidden intermediate cycle in second-hand housing, that is common to all areas of Eire but featured not nearly so prominently in new housing, is posited to be related to life events and space stress. By revisiting the housing market more often, the repeat buyer injects additional volatility in house prices. It is proposed that housing policy should be directed at reducing the number of repeat buyers as a means of deflating property bubbles.

Profitability of Business Entities Settled in Selected Countries of the Eurozone Periphery

Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain can be defined as Eurozone periphery countries due to their specifics being rooted in policy systems and lagging behind in economic performance when compared with EU-15 countries. The objective of this paper is to provide an initial exploration of the similar and dissimilar business aspects´ development within observed Greek and Irish entities´ economic performance in different industries, using two-dimensional visualisation in the context of the recent world financial and economic crisis. This visualisation approach using classical correspondence analysis helps to reveal broader associations, which could influence the economic status of observed business units. Greek and Irish businesses which have been considered to be specifically, strongly and negatively influenced by the world economic downturn were observed. A sample of companies’ corporate financial statements´ data were employed. The sample of entities was set up according to the criterion of profitability of the whole involved capital development, regardless of its nature during the time period of the years 2008 – 2010, i. e. according to either the continual increase or decrease of the aforementioned indicator. Consequently, there were explored other attributes of assorted businesses, namely economic size and industry classification as the components for cross-tabular data sets. Authors revealed associations among different industries and size categories of Greek and Irish businesses using classical correspondence analysis.