National Institutional Contexts Research Articles

Regulating board gender diversity in Europe: The influence of cultural, governmental, and women’s institutions

This study empirically explores the formal and informal institutional antecedents of the enactment of quotas and codes to increase gender diversity on corporate boards. A panel of 30 European countries and 510 observations from 2002 to 2018 reveals that formal and informal national institutional contexts affect the likelihood of board gender codes and quotas. The presence of women in decision-making bodies is the most powerful driver of quotas and codes. Countries with better governance quality and longer maternity leave are less likely to have board gender quotas. High power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, restraint, short-term orientation, and individualism all increase the likelihood of quotas. A country’s female participation in the labor market is also associated with the regulation of board gender diversity. In contrast to previous theoretical propositions, other institutional factors, such as the current presence of a left-wing government, are not related to gender diversity regulations.

Religion, personality traits and the nature of entrepreneurial activities: insights from Scottish Muslim entrepreneurs

PurposePrevious studies have shown how the nature of businesses and the strategies pursued by their owners are affected by the personality traits of their owners. These personality traits can be formed in the early stages of life due to experiences and the surrounding context, where religion is a particularly important aspect of this context. This study aims to explore how religion affects entrepreneurial activities through the personality traits created.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses interviews with 43 Muslim entrepreneurs in Scotland to examine the role played by religion. This ensures that the national institutional context is kept consistent but also allows an in-depth examination of relationships, which are likely to be interlinked and recursive.FindingsThe traits created influence the nature of the entrepreneurial activities undertaken with the potential to harm and support the entrepreneurial endeavours. It is the combination of personality traits that are formed which have the greatest effect. As such, it is found that Muslim entrepreneurs display less openness and creativity associated with new ideas, but this does not reflect risk aversion rather hard work in itself is valued, and patience combined with an external locus of control mean entrepreneurial behaviours are not altered to boost poorly performing business activities.Originality/valueFor Muslim entrepreneurs in Scotland, their traits explain why growth may not be a foremost consideration of these entrepreneurs rather they may value hard work and meeting the ideals of formal and informal institutions associated with religion. For those seeking to support minority groups through the promotion of entrepreneurship, either they must seek to overcome these ingrained traits or alter support to complement the different objectives held by Muslim entrepreneurs.

Board gender diversity, firm risk, and the intermediate mechanisms: A meta‐analysis

AbstractResearch questionThe primary focus of this meta‐analysis is to synthesize previously discordant findings on the relationship between board gender diversity (BGD) and different types of firm risk and to explore potential moderating and mediating mechanisms underlying these relationships.Research findingsWe statistically combine the results from 193 studies and find a negative association between BGD and firm risk. Further investigation indicates that different measures of risk lead to systematically different effect sizes. Our meta‐analysis structural equation modeling (MASEM) analysis reveals that BGD's impact on risk operates primarily through the monitoring rather than advising function of the board. Regarding the moderating role of national institutions, we find that several aspects of the national institutional context (e.g., investor protection, gender equality, and national culture) influence the relationship between BGD and different types of risk.Theoretical implicationsOverall, our results suggest that agency theory has more explanatory power than resource dependence theory for understanding the association between BGD and risk, and women's board representation is more likely to reduce downside risk than upside risk. Our moderating effect analysis also highlights interesting avenues for further research on the interplay of BGD and different risks in national environments with varying institutional attributes.Practitioner/policy implicationsOur meta‐analysis offers important practical implications for corporate risk management, suggesting that BGD significantly mitigates downside risks associated with poor corporate transparency without stifling board support for corporate decisions shaping future growth potential. In an era of rising board vulnerability to litigation for insufficient transparency, this study contributes evidence supporting trends toward greater gender diversity.

Smart cities as spatial manifestations of 21st century capitalism

Globally, smart cities attract billions of dollars in investment annually, with related market opportunities forecast to grow year-on-year. The enormous resources poured into their development consist of financial capital, but also natural, human and social resources converted into infrastructure and real estate. The latter act as physical capital storage and sites for the creation of digital products and services expected to generate the highest value added. Smart cities serve as temporary spatial fixes until new and better investments opportunities emerge. Drawing from a comprehensive range of publications on capitalism, this article analyzes smart city developments as typifier of 21st century capital accumulation where the financialization of various capitals is the overarching driver and ecological overshoot and socio-economic undershoot are the main negative consequences. It closely examines six spatial manifestations of the smart city – science parks and smart campuses; innovation districts; smart neighborhoods; city-wide and city-regional smart initiatives; urban platforms; and alternative smart city spaces – as receptacles for the conversion of various capitals. It also considers the influence of different national regimes and institutional contexts on smart city developments. This is used, in the final part, to open a discussion about opportunities to temper the excesses of 21st century capitalism.

National institutional context and voluntary carbon disclosure: An international study of the banking industry

The determinants of banks' voluntary environmental disclosure have been little studied in the literature. Drawing from the assumptions of institutional theory, this paper analyzes the impact of the national context, including the general legal system and the environmental policy of states, on banks' carbon disclosure. Based on three international samples, the results show a positive relationship between the strength of the legal system (degree of law enforcement), the stringency of environmental regulations, environmental performance, and the quality of banks' carbon disclosure.

Digital creatives and digital engineers: entrepreneurial firms, institutional context, and the organization of innovation

Abstract The comparative capitalisms literature has developed an increasingly dynamic approach to conceptualizing capitalism variety, and has suggested mechanisms to explain shifts in institutional practices under the surface of formal stability of the institutional context. Less is known, however, about how new entrepreneurial firms engage with institutions to develop organizational arrangements needed to support their innovation activities. Such engagement with institutions can represent sources of heterogeneity within and across national institutional contexts, with incremental changes in practices resulting, in some instances, in major transformations in institutions over time. We draw on a study of fifty-three independent mobile games firms in the USA and Japan and the structures and processes used by these firms to develop innovative activities in their institutional context. Our research advances our understanding of organizational diversity and institutional change in two ways. First, our study identifies two new ‘variants’ of how entrepreneurial firms organize their innovation activities in their institutional context—digital creatives and digital engineers. Second, we characterize the mechanisms through which entrepreneurial firms engage and respond to institutions that support the establishment of these variants—defecting, intensifying, and positioning vis-à-vis large firms.

Institutional settings and financing green innovation

The sheer scale of the current environmental challenge underscores the need for successful generation and application of environmentally sustainable innovations. At the same time, there has been growing interest in how national institutional contexts interact with the financial ecosystem, corporate governance, and firm behaviour. Bringing these topics together, we theoretically address and empirically evaluate the institutional and financial conditions under which green innovation and application occur. Using a novel sample of 53 countries over a twenty-one-year period, we show that green innovation is more likely to occur in Liberal Market Economies, a crucial feature of which is the heavier reliance by firms on markets to obtain their finance. However, we also show that this innovation is applied more frequently in economies with a higher degree of State coordination and where high short-term returns are less in demand. Given national institutional contexts are persistent, our results highlight that extensive regulatory intervention is likely required to develop green economies.

The role of founder CEO and independent board in family firms' international growth: evidence from India and Italy

PurposeThis paper investigates the role of the founder CEO and board independence in shaping the way in which Indian and Italian family firms (FFs) pursue international growth via two modes, that is exports and FDI. This article claims that country's context matters in determining the relationship between the presence of the founder CEO and FFs' extent of exports and extent of FDI. Further, this article examines the moderating role of board independence on the above-mentioned founder CEO–FF's international growth relationship.Design/methodology/approachUsing a fixed-effect panel data method, this article tests the hypotheses on a sample of 1,275 Indian FF-year observations and 705 Italian FF-year observations over the period 2008–2015.FindingsThis article reveals that the presence of a founder CEO is positively associated with the extent of exports but negatively associated with the extent of FDI in Italian firms. However, in case of Indian firms, the presence of the founder CEO is negatively associated with the extent of exports as well as with the extent of FDI. This founder CEO's influence on the firm's international growth is mitigated by the presence of an independent board in Italian firms; however, this moderation is not significant in the case of Indian firms.Research limitations/implicationsIt is important to capture heterogeneity within family firms and across institutional contexts while studying family firms' international growth. Further, it is important for international business scholars to theorize for different modes of international growth because challenges faced in expansion via exports are different from the challenges faced in expansion via FDI (foreign subsidiaries). Therefore, family firms leadership might prefer a certain mode of international growth.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study imply that national culture and institutional context could play an important role in determining (a) Founder CEO's inclination towards FF's extent of exports and FDI as well as (b) the effectiveness of an independent board in mitigating founder CEO's influence on FF's international growth.Originality/valueThis work is one of the very few studies that examines the impact of FF's heterogeneity and country heterogeneity on two modes of international growth, namely exports and FDI, in the Indian and Italian contexts. Further, this work provides empirical evidence on the independent board's role in mitigating founder CEO's influence in decision making in the case of Italian firms. Extant literature expects an independent board to encourage FFs' international growth both via exports and FDI; this study shows that independent boards could reduce the founder CEO's inclination towards exports and mitigate founder CEO's influence on the decision making; however, this mitigation effect is highly context dependent.

Knowledge transfer from and within digital incubators: does the context of entrepreneurship matter? The case of women entrepreneurs in France

PurposeThis paper aims to refer to the knowledge transfer of entrepreneurial skills between digital incubators and nascent entrepreneurs. It questions the role of the context and of the richness of the ecosystems in which these women evolve, as defined by Welter and Baker (2021) on such an attempt.Design/methodology/approachThis research is based on a qualitative study that refers to case studies of women nascent entrepreneurs who evolve into two different contexts – one rich zone and one deprived economic one of the French Parisian Region – and who integrated the same digital incubator.FindingsContext does partly matter: besides the “Where”, the “Who” and, moreover, the level of education and previous entrepreneurial experience really matters, and only educated women, whatever the other components of context, seem to be capable to receive the “best” knowledge transfer from incubators. Second, incubators can be considered as to be a knowledge hub that allow knowledge transfer not only from trainers and coaches to women nascent entrepreneurs but also among women entrepreneurs. This paper concludes with a discussion on the role of digital training and coaching in such knowledge transfers.Research limitations/implicationsFindings are limited to a specific place (the region of Paris). Therefore, women entrepreneurs evolve in more different contexts but the national entrepreneurial and institutional context remains the same. There should be need to explore the role of an incubator that evolves into more contrasted contexts.Practical implicationsIf results can be generalized, this means incubators should differentiate their services, teaching and coaching expertize according to the education level of nascent entrepreneurs: This is a plaidoyer against institutionalized incubators that claim to be capable of targeting any nascent (women) entrepreneurs.Social implicationsThis study is also a plaidoyer for more digital incubator to mix persons from different contexts, especially to welcome persons from more deprived economic zones.Originality/valueThe research reveals the role of context – and, some components of the context – intro coaching and training that are provided by online incubators. It contributes to the literature on knowledge transfer that is brought about by incubators. It also contributes to the literature in entrepreneurship by showing that some components among the others that define what we call “the context” matter more than others.

An Investigation of Top Management Teams’ National Career Patterns in the Age of Globalization – Evidence from Eastern Europe

Research on European business elites has been dominated by a national career model approach, which argues that each country has a specific top management career pattern embedded in national institutional contexts. Research has focused on applying those patterns to Western European countries while no analysis of Eastern European managers has been conducted to date. In recent years, the line of argumentation on national career patterns has been challenged due to the increasing international circulation of top managers. In this article, we analyse the applicability of these patterns to an Eastern European country, specifically, Poland. For this purpose, we analyse the career paths of Polish top management team members and investigate their development. We collect biographical data and career-related information from the top managers employed by the 30 largest stock-listed companies located in Poland and Germany. Our analysis reveals that the most important career distinctions from existing models are applicable to the Polish market, and our data show similarities with the Germanic national model. These results will likewise shed light on the stability of certain career pattern features of top management profiles.

O nouă reglementare - Statutul lucrătorului cultural profesionist

The paper presents a new regulation issued in Romania, in April 2023, regarding the Status of the professional cultural worker, following the E.U. and UNESCO recommendations on the matter of the precarity of artists and cultural workers activity; although not all the UNESCO recommendations are observed by the Romanian regulation, it represents a first step in supporting the independent cultural sector, namely professionals outside the „employee” legal framework, based on a regular „work contract”, offering tax reductions, right of fee negotiations and recognition of work experience. The paper also analyses the international recommendations in force, current national regulations on the status of the artist and the cultural worker, as well as data from recent research on the subject. A special section of the article refers to the present situation of specific occupations in the field of cultural heritage in Romania, indicating the potentially low impact of the new regulation in this particular sector, due to the current national institutional and legal context that favours the regular „work contract”.

Negotiation of psycho-social risks of remote working. An enterprise-level comparison in Italy and France

The article focuses on how the actors of industrial relations acted at firmlevel in multi-national company, Danone, in two different institutional contexts (Italy and France), in order to set rules and procedures aimed to mitigate the negative psycho-social consequences of remote working adopted during Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, it examines what was the role of firm-level industrial relations in setting specific oriented actions and what were the relations between these, global policies of the company and national level policies about health and safety and in general the institutional context. It emerges the importance of informality of relations between actors in helping to face an emergency together with the role of global policies of the company that seems to overcomes the different national institutional contexts.

Upper Echelons and the Transmission of Institutional Norms: Varieties of Capitalism and CSR

Both national institutional context and the attributes of firms’ upper echelons (UE) are well known to shape corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies, practices, and outcomes. However, prior research has paid little attention into interdependencies between the two, and especially to the role played by the attributes of firms’ UEs in transmitting CSR norms internationally. In this study, we integrate the upper echelons perspective (UEP) and the varieties of capitalism (VOC) perspective to theorize upper echelons as critical to the transmission of CSR practices. Our theory suggests that representation among firms’ UEs from multiple VOCs tends lead firms to exhibit less nationally stereotypical patterns of CSR and instead to exhibit hybrid forms of CSR that reflect the diversity of their UEs. Additionally, we propose that this tendency towards CSR hybridization is moderated by the degree of critical mass, positional power, and long tenure among “alternate” VOC UE members. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 4,010 large firms from 68 countries between 2009 and 2018, and find evidence that largely confirms our hypotheses.

Digital skills in context: Working with robots in lower-skilled jobs

Digital skills are increasingly presented as essential for work and labour market inclusion, with fears the low-skilled could be left behind. Lack of clarity about these new skill demands and limited evidence from the workplace have prompted calls to unpack skill requirements in specific sectors and occupations. This article analyses digital skills in relation to wider skills and knowledge required in a job, and examines the influence of the workplace, sector and national institutional context. The study focuses on robotic technologies in lower-skilled jobs, drawing on the experience of food and drink processing operatives, and logistic porters and service workers in public hospitals, in Norway and the UK. The article contributes to the conceptualisation of digital skills, probes country differences, and offers a grounded understanding of the challenges presented for workers in lower-skilled jobs.

Meso-level factors fostering or hindering the implementation of age-related HR practices in firms

PurposeThis paper aims to examine two types of age-related human resources (HR) practices, i.e. age-specific and age-inclusive HR practices and firm-level (meso-level) factors that foster or hinder the implementation of these two types of practices.Design/methodology/approachBased on a cross-case analysis of four firms across industries in Thailand, a developing country, the empirical evidence draws on semi-structured interviews with the top managers, HR managers and aging employees of four firms; field visits; nonparticipant observations; and a review of archival documents and Web-based reports and resources.FindingsThis paper proposes that age-specific HR practices primarily include those HR practices under the regulation HR bundle and some HR practices under the maintenance and recovery HR bundles. Additionally, the factors fostering the implementation of age-specific HR practices in firms include group corporate culture, nonunionism within the workplace, paternalistic leaders, a focus on the development of internal labor markets within firms and the need for tacit knowledge transfer from aging employees to younger-generation employees, whereas the factors hindering the implementation of age-specific HR practices in firms include age biases within firms. Moreover, age-inclusive HR practices primarily include HR practices under the development HR bundle and some HR practices under the maintenance and recovery HR bundles. Additionally, the factors fostering the implementation of age-inclusive HR practices in firms include the procedural justice climate, the transition from a family ownership structure to a professional ownership structure and result-/output-based corporate culture, whereas the factors hindering the implementation of age-inclusive HR practices in firms include experience-/seniority-based corporate culture. In fact, some of the meso-level factors that foster or hinder the implementation of age-specific and age-inclusive HR practices tend to be influenced by the national institutional and cultural contexts of the developing country where firms that implement such HR practices are located.Originality/valueThis paper aims to fill the research gap by examining both age-specific and age-inclusive HR practices. Additionally, this paper analyzes the factors fostering or hindering the implementation of these two dimensions of age-related HR practices across firms by using a case study of firms in Thailand, a developing country. To date, most studies in this area have focused on one of these dimensions, while comparisons between different HR dimensions are rather scarce. Finally, this paper contributes to the prior literature on strategic HR and comparative institutional perspective on HR strategies and practices as proposed by Batt and Banerjee (2012) and Batt and Hermans (2012) that future research should go beyond the meso-level (organizational) context. In this regard, some of the factors that foster or hinder the implementation of age-specific and age-inclusive HR practices tend to be influenced by the national institutional and cultural contexts of the developing country of Thailand.

The interplay between global accounting firms and national institutional contexts: The establishment of the Big Four in China from 1978 to 2007

This paper provides an analysis of the establishment of global accounting firms (the ‘Big Four’) in China between 1978 and 2007. Drawing on the extant literature on professional service firms, and the work of Faulconbridge and Muzio (2015) , this paper examines how the Big Four entered China following the country's ‘Reform and Opening-up’ and evolved from tentative representative offices to established accounting firms in the Chinese audit market. Based on an extensive analysis of archival materials and interviews, the findings of this paper show that the Big Four's establishment in China has been deeply intertwined with the country's socio-political and economic transition. It reveals important conjunctural moments in history that have provided the Big Four with important windows of opportunity to actively shape local institutional change to their own interests. This paper contributes to the extant accounting literature on the expansion of the Big Four in China by highlighting the interplay between their surrounding institutional context and their capacity for agency.

The implementation of green human resource management bundles across firms in pursuit of environmental sustainability goals

AbstractThis paper aims to examine the green human resource management (GHRM) bundles successfully implemented by firms across industries in response to the national institutional and cultural contexts toward the pursuit of environmental sustainability goals. Based on a cross‐case analysis of five firms across industries in Thailand, the empirical evidence draws on semistructured interviews with various stakeholders, field visits, and a review of archival documents and web‐based reports and resources. This paper proposes that GHRM bundles successfully implemented by firms in response to the institutional and cultural contexts include the following: green recruitment and selection in terms of green employer branding; green training in terms of awareness enhancement, on‐the‐job training, job shadowing, coaching, mentoring, and workplace climate building; green pay and rewards in terms of financial and nonfinancial rewards; and green employee relations in terms of a paternalistic leadership style and workplace climate. Specifically, firms develop green employer branding and implement the practices of awareness enhancement, on‐the‐job training, job shadowing, coaching, mentoring, and workplace climate building in response to deficiencies in the national education and skill formation system in terms of skill shortages. Additionally, firms offer both financial and nonfinancial rewards and create a paternalistic leadership style and workplace climate in response to a cultural context that favors in‐group collectivism, conflict avoidance, and passivity among workers within the workplace.

Multistakeholder Agency: Stakeholder Benefit Alignment and National Institutional Contexts

The alignment among multiple stakeholder benefits is a valuable performance indicator for the benefits generated by a firm for various stakeholders. Our research seeks to augment stakeholder-agency theory with an institutional perspective to analyze how national institutions affect stakeholder benefit alignment. We suggest that the current development of stakeholder-agency theory has overlooked the alignment of different stakeholders’ benefits and the external institutional contexts as critical determinants in ensuring such alignment. We conceptualize stakeholder benefit alignment as a positive relationship between different stakeholder groups’ benefits, and propose an institutional framework grounded in relative stakeholder salience. Using this framework, we argue that stakeholder benefits are better aligned when national institutions enhance the ease of withdrawal, legal protection, and private enforcement for intrinsically less salient stakeholders, and when a long-term oriented culture characterizes a society. We found supportive evidence by employing a meta-analytic approach based on 530 correlations from 94 primary studies representing 23 economies. Our study adds new insights to the stakeholder-agency literature by conceptualizing and quantitatively examining the degree of alignment across different stakeholder benefit dimensions, focusing on national formal and informal institutions as boundary conditions.

The development of green skills across firms in the institutional context of Thailand

The development of green skills across firms in the institutional context of Thailand

Institutions, Chain Governance and the Predicament of Local Upgrading: A Case Study of Hangzhou’s Mobile Game Industry

ABSTRACT This article focuses on one of China’s emerging creative clusters – Hangzhou’s mobile game industry – and investigates the various adaptations this cluster has undergone, as well as the mechanisms underlying the industrial and geographical dynamics within the cluster. Specifically, it examines the power asymmetry of governance in the cluster, paying attention to how chain governance has been shaped by both local and national institutional contexts, affecting local firms’ upgrading prospects and trajectories of industrial development. It is argued that China’s peculiar institutions have shifted the power asymmetry in the mobile game chain in favour of game distributors, allowing them to grab more value than their counterparts in the USA and European Union do. Despite various adaptation efforts made by small developers, they are largely constrained by lead firms with little possibility to move up the chain, which will inhibit further transformation and competitiveness of the industry.