Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

The Uppsala internationalization process model is revisited in the light of changes in business practices and theoretical advances that have been made since 1977. Now the business environment is viewed as a web of relationships, a network, rather than as a neoclassical market with many independent suppliers and customers. Outsidership, in relation to the relevant network, more than psychic distance, is the root of uncertainty. The change mechanisms in the revised model are essentially the same as those in the original version, although we add trust-building and knowledge creation, the latter to recognize the fact that new knowledge is developed in relationships.

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The Uppsala Internationalization Process Model Revisited: From Liability of Foreignness to Liability of Outsidership

How have Japanese companies become world leaders in the automotive and electronics industries, among others? What is the secret of their success? Two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, are the first to tie the success of Japanese companies to their ability to create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. In The Knowledge-Creating Company, Nonaka and Takeuchi provide an inside look at how Japanese companies go about creating this new knowledge organizationally. The authors point out that there are two types of knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in manuals and procedures, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience, and communicated only indirectly, through metaphor and analogy. U.S. managers focus on explicit knowledge. The Japanese, on the other hand, focus on tacit knowledge. And this, the authors argue, is the key to their success--the Japanese have learned how to transform tacit into explicit knowledge. To explain how this is done--and illuminate Japanese business practices as they do so--the authors range from Greek philosophy to Zen Buddhism, from classical economists to modern management gurus, illustrating the theory of organizational knowledge creation with case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, Nissan, 3M, GE, and even the U.S. Marines. For instance, using Matsushita's development of the Home Bakery (the world's first fully automated bread-baking machine for home use), they show how tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge: when the designers couldn't perfect the dough kneading mechanism, a software programmer apprenticed herself withthe master baker at Osaka International Hotel, gained a tacit understanding of kneading, and then conveyed this information to the engineers. In addition, the authors show that, to create knowledge, the best management style is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather what they call "middle-up-down," in which the middle managers form a bridge between the ideals of top management and the chaotic realities of the frontline. As we make the turn into the 21st century, a new society is emerging. Peter Drucker calls it the "knowledge society," one that is drastically different from the "industrial society," and one in which acquiring and applying knowledge will become key competitive factors. Nonaka and Takeuchi go a step further, arguing that creating knowledge will become the key to sustaining a competitive advantage in the future. Because the competitive environment and customer preferences changes constantly, knowledge perishes quickly. With The Knowledge-Creating Company, managers have at their fingertips years of insight from Japanese firms that reveal how to create knowledge continuously, and how to exploit it to make successful new products, services, and systems.

The knowledge-creating company

In the present paper a research has been done on the essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak’ by’ Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’. It has been explained into much simpler language about what the author conveys for better understanding and further references. Also the criticism has been done by various critiques from various sources which is helpful from examination point of view. The paper has been divided into various contexts with an introduction and the conclusions. Also the references has been written that depicts the sources of criticism.

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Can the Subaltern Speak

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

This article explores how social capital influences a firm to change its internationalization mode. The authors use an in-depth qualitative study to identify 36 internationalization mode changes in ten New Zealand and ten Swedish small and medium-sized enterprises. This article contributes to the internationalization mode literature by focusing on relationships and mode change. Using the network approach, the authors develop three categories of social capital and discuss their role in influencing mode change. The roles include the efficacy role, the serendipity role, and the liability role of social capital. These three roles incorporate both the positive and the negative aspects of social capital. The liability role is the most frequently observed form of social capital to influence mode change. The most frequent type of mode change is toward a high-control internationalization mode.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/25049072

Social Capital and its Influence on Changes in Internationalization Mode among Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises:

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study how existing relationships influence changes in SMEs' internationalisation strategies in terms of markets and modes.Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides a detailed examination of the dynamics of 116 strategy changes, which are influenced by a firm's relationships in 20 New Zealand and Swedish internationalising SMEs. It uses the qualitative research method to develop theory. A conceptual model with eight categories relating to relationships and strategic change during the internationalisation process of the firm is developed.Findings – Using the conceptual model as a framework to analyse the data, it was found that existing relationships play an important role in 59 market strategy changes and 57 mode strategy changes. The main findings are that business relationships are more influential in internationalisation strategy changes than social relationships, especially with regard to mode changes in foreign markets. Most mode changes are reactive. ...

Henrik Agndal

Papers

Social Capital and its Influence on Changes in Internationalization Mode among Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises:

The impact of relationships on changes in internationalisation strategies of SMEs

Interorganizational cost management in the exchange process

Network resource combinations in the international venturing of small biotech firms

Social capital dynamics and foreign market entry