Showing papers on "Embeddedness published in 2017"

The Dynamics of Political Embeddedness in China

Abstract: Economic transitions in countries that move from state planning and redistribution to market exchange create business opportunities but also uncertainty, because many interdependent factors—modes o...

Migrant entrepreneurship: Reflections on research and practice:

Abstract: This article assesses recent developments in the research and practice of migrant entrepreneurship by examining the powerful contribution that the perspective of ‘mixed embeddedness’ has provided to this field. We identify key themes emerging from mixed embeddedness, particularly in relation to the role of the institutional and market contexts, and highlight areas that could strengthen the perspective, such as (1) the role of regulation, (2) the incorporation of racist exclusion and (3) gendered structures of migration and labour market processes, (4) market ghettoisation and (5) greater sensitivity to historical context. We also consider the extent to which growing interest among practitioners in supporting migrant enterprise has been influenced by developments in the academic domain.

Social value creation and relational coordination in public-private collaborations

Abstract: Public-private collaborations, or hybrid organizational forms, are often difficult to organize because of disparate goals, incentives, and management practices. Some of this misalignment is addressed structurally or contractually, but not the management processes and practices. In this study, we examine how the coordination of these social and work relationships, or relational coordination, affects task performance and the creation of social value. We employ a dyad perspective on two long-term relationships that are part of a wider ecosystem. We illustrate the social value creation process, identifying mutual knowledge and goal alignment, as necessary to create relational coordination. We find that the degree of professional embeddedness moderates the link between coordination and task performance, and explore the role that organizational and ecosystem experiences play. We develop a model of how relational coordination influences social value creation in hybrids. The findings have implications for social value creation, hybrid collaborations, and organizational design. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Supply chain resilience in a developing country context: a case study on the interconnectedness of threats, strategies and outcomes

Abstract: Purpose In few prior empirical studies on supply chain resilience (SCRES), the focus has been on the developed world. Yet, organisations in developing countries constitute a significant part of global supply chains and have also experienced the disastrous effects of supply chain failures. The purpose of this paper is therefore to empirically investigate SCRES in a developing country context and to show that this also provides theoretical insights into the nature of what is meant by resilience. Design/methodology/approach Using a case study approach, a supply network of 20 manufacturing firms in Uganda is analysed based on a total of 45 interviews. Findings The perceived threats to SCRES in this context are mainly small-scale, chronic disruptive events rather than discrete, large-scale catastrophic events typically emphasised in the literature. The data reveal how threats of disruption, resilience strategies and outcomes are inter-related in complex, coupled and non-linear ways. These interrelationships are explained by the political, cultural and territorial embeddedness of the supply network in a developing country. Further, this embeddedness contributes to the phenomenon of supply chain risk migration, whereby an attempt to mitigate one threat produces another threat and/or shifts the threat to another point in the supply network. Practical implications Managers should be aware, for example, of potential risk migration from one threat to another when crafting strategies to build SCRES. Equally, the potential for risk migration across the supply network means managers should look at the supply chain holistically because actors along the chain are so interconnected. Originality/value The paper goes beyond the extant literature by highlighting how SCRES is not only about responding to specific, isolated threats but about the continuous management of risk migration. It demonstrates that resilience requires both an understanding of the interconnectedness of threats, strategies and outcomes and an understanding of the embeddedness of the supply network. Finally, this study’s focus on the context of a developing country reveals that resilience should be equally concerned both with smaller in scale, chronic disruptions and with occasional, large-scale catastrophic events.

Toward Understanding Remote Workers’ Management of Work–Family Boundaries: The Complexity of Workplace Embeddedness:

Abstract: This study employs a multi-method research design to examine how remote workers, or employees who work solely from home, manage the work–family interface. Our qualitative study revealed that workin...

Trust and the strength of ties in online social networks: an exploratory field experiment

Abstract: We conduct an exploratory study using a customized Facebook application to understand how social ties are linked to an economic measure of trust. We employ the Investment Game, a well-established economic game designed to generate a quantifiable trust measure. We consider the relationship between observed trust and three "revealed preference" tie strength measures: (1) the degree of interaction between friends on their walls; (2) embeddedness, a metric related to the number of mutual friends shared; and (3) being tagged together in a photograph, indicative of a physical-world interaction. We identify latent heterogeneity among our subjects, establishing that for users with a large number of Facebook friends, the only measure associated with trust is whether the dyad was tagged in a photo together. In contrast, for users that are more selective and have fewer Facebook friends, all three aforementioned tie strength measures correlate with trust. Our findings are preliminary evidence that traditional measures of dyadic trust like embeddedness which are used widely in physical-world social networks may not always be effective predictors of digital trust, because not all online social ties are created equal. Our findings provide preliminary evidence that traditional measures of dyadic trust may not always be effective predictors of trust, as not all online social ies are created equal.

Bureaucracy and Service Delivery

Abstract: This essay reviews the literature on the politics of bureaucracy in the developing world, with a focus on service delivery and bureaucratic performance. This survey classic topics and themes such as the developmental state, principal-agent relations, and the ancient Greece hypothesis, and link them to new research findings in political science, sociology, and economics. This review identify the concept of embeddedness as an important yet still under explored framework that cuts across disciplines and which may be used to understand bureaucratic performance and service delivery. Looking forward, the out-line a framework for conceptualizing bureaucratic action by exploiting variation across time, space, task, and client, and identify promising areas for further research on the bureaucrat-citizen encounter in developing countries.

Student entrepreneurship and the university ecosystem: a multi-country empirical exploration

Abstract: Using an embeddedness perspective, a model and hypotheses are developed concerning the impact of the university entrepreneurial context on student start-up activity. Results based on analysis of the GUESSS database from 25 countries demonstrate that students' involvement in entrepreneurship-related curricular programs and co-curricular activities at university is positively related, and financial support from university is negatively related, to start-up activities undertaken by students. Prior business experience moderates the relationships between student involvement in university initiatives and start-up activities. The negative relationship between financial support and start-up activities is positively moderated by business experience. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

The role of local context in the cross-border acquisitions by emerging economy multinational enterprises

Abstract: This paper explores the role of local context in cross-border acquisitions by emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs). It argues that the importance of local context has remained despite the increased global integration of the world economy. Hypotheses are tested using data on Indian acquisitions hosted in 70 countries over an eight-year period. Results, which are consistent across number and value of cross-border acquisitions, show that the local context in host countries offers contrasting benefits. Emerging economy multinational enterprises exploited these benefits by embedding in host countries through acquisitions. The acquisition strategy is conventional in the motives underpinning internationalization, but novel in its geographical clustering of host countries, and idiosyncratic owing to the EMNE's ability to draw on home country embeddedness. The paper develops theoretical implications and extends the concept of embeddedness, treating it as a series of internalization or quasi-internalization decisions across a variety of local contexts by multinationals.

Karl Polanyi on economy and society: a critical analysis of core concepts

Abstract: The Review of Social Economy was founded to highlight the irreducible social aspects of economic activity. Yet, the nature of the ‘social’ and the ‘economic’ are both unresolved, and they are much more problematic than often assumed. This article probes Karl Polanyi’s depiction of the relationship between the ‘social’ and the ‘economic’ and subsequent discourse on ‘embeddedness’. In his Great Transformation (1944) Polanyi associated the ‘economic’ with motives of material gain, while ‘social’ referred to norms of reciprocity and redistribution: his distinction between the ‘social’ and the ‘economic’ then focused primarily on different kinds of motivation. But in a 1957 essay he brought in different kinds of institutions that engender different types of motivation. Polanyi (1944) argued that after 1800 Britain was transformed into a market-oriented ‘economic’ system, based on motives of greed and material gain. He also proposed that an effective market system had to be ‘self-adjusting’ and free of ...

Value co-creation behaviour – role of embeddedness and outcome considerations

Abstract: Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify antecedents and consequences of customers’ value co-creation behaviour (VCB). VCB as a means to facilitate value realisation processes is gaining importance in service research and practice. Encouraging such enactments can be challenging, but can also offer competitive advantages. Design/methodology/approach We empirically investigate a conceptual model by converging three contemporary concepts of co-creation research – embeddedness, VCB and value-in-context – and examining the interdependencies between them. Data were collected in an online forum of a leading international weight-management firm. Findings Results suggest that customers’ embeddedness is a key antecedent of customers’ VCB in a service system. The three embeddedness dimensions – structural, relational and cultural – have a differential impact on customers’ VCB. Furthermore, findings illustrate that customers’ VCB has a significant impact on their object-oriented, self-oriented and brand-oriented social value-in-context outcomes. Research limitations/implications This study contributes by empirically investigating and validating antecedents and consequences of VCB in a service system. In doing so, the study highlights the significance of the nature of customer’s social constellations to develop contexts where value outcomes are actualised. Understanding the factors that shape VCB offers insights for firms to recognise how and where value propositions can be deployed that drives on-going co-creation processes. Originality/value This study is the first empirical research to offer insights into important pre-conditions and subsequent outcomes concurrently to illustrate how customers’ VCB can be managed and nurtured for sustainable value co-creation processes within service systems. This research further advances mid-range theorizing and microfoundational perspectives in marketing.

Tackling Marginalisation through Social Innovation? Examining the EU Social Innovation Policy Agenda from a Capabilities Perspective

Abstract: This paper demonstrates that the capabilities approach offers a number of conceptual and evaluative benefits for understanding social innovation and—in particular, its capacity to tackle marginalisation. Focusing on the substantive freedoms and achieved functionings of individuals introduces a multidimensional, plural appreciation of disadvantage, but also of the strategies to overcome it. In light of this, and the institutional embeddedness of marginalisation, effective social innovation capable of tackling marginalisation depends on (a) the participation of marginalised individuals in (b) a process that addresses the social structuration of their disadvantage. In spite of the high-level ideals endorsed by the European Union (EU), social innovation tends to be supported through EU policy instruments as a means towards the maintenance of prevailing institutions, networks and cognitive ends. This belies the transformative potential of social innovation emphasised in EU policy documentation and negl...

Technology and education: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract: This article seeks to contribute to the continuous reflection on the integration of technology into education. In order to accomplish this aim, the use of technology in the form of blended learning and online education will be utilised to illustrate how technology plays a central role in education today. It is argued that technology should not merely be viewed as a tool, but rather as a medium that shapes culture. Therefore, the integration of technology into education should be accompanied by continuous reflection on the identifiable characteristics of technology as medium that is not value-neutral or a disembedded force. To the contrary, technology is socially embedded and could be directly linked to other social developments and processes. The article therefore wishes to highlight the social embeddedness of technology by stressing how it is intertwined with other social developments like economy. In order to utilise technology more effectively and in a responsible manner in education, the nature thereof as medium should be reflected on. In light of the discussion on the technology as a socially embedded medium, the possible challenges and opportunities that it poses as medium to education, are identified and discussed. Specific reference is made on how theological education could benefit from educational technologies.

Stitched on the Edge: Rule Evasion, Embedded Regulators, and the Evolution of Markets

Abstract: While the role of laws and regulations in structuring markets is well established, it is less understood how rule evasion affects the evolution of markets or how the interaction between regulators and the regulated about the meaning of compliance influences this effect. The authors study this issue by looking at the development of the asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) market in France, Germany, and the Netherlands from 1999 to 2009. In all three countries, this market involved financial innovations designed to evade regulations. The authors identify diverging trends in the ABCP market that are a result of whether and how regulators were embedded in the different interpretive communities that defined regulatory compliance, such embeddedness being dependent on their discretionary and sanctioning power as well as their expertise. Focusing on these regulatory networks that embed institutions in markets, they propose a synthesis of relational and institutional accounts of the embeddedness of markets.

Institutional relatedness behind product diversification and international diversification

Abstract: Previous diversification research has largely focused on product relatedness, but ignored institutional relatedness—the degree of informal embeddedness with the dominant institutions that confer resources and legitimacy. We argue that during institutional transitions, political ties and international experience represent different types of institutional relatedness linking firms, respectively, to political institutions and market institutions. Specifically, CEOs’ political ties may help firms access critical resources, sense new market entry opportunities, and gain board support to increase firms’ product diversification. CEOs’ international experience may help firms leverage different market-based capabilities, engage in international competition, and then lead firms to grow on a different path by expanding internationally. We further investigate a crucial contingency factor: the degree of economic freedom. Data from 11,992 firm-year observations based on firms listed on China’s stock exchanges between 2001 and 2011 largely support our predictions.

The importance of ‘fitting in’: collaboration and social value creation in response to community norms and expectations

Abstract: This article explores the effects of embeddedness in communities upon entrepreneurial practices. Based on the lived experiences of 10 craft entrepreneurs, this study reveals that within certain contexts, such as craft communities, entrepreneurs are expected to exhibit high levels of camaraderie and generosity, which leads them to create social value by supporting their peers and freely sharing their resources. Entrepreneurs achieve ‘fitting in’ not only by learning accepted norms, but also by performing strategic actions which allow them to temporarily adapt their conduct to meet the expectations of community members. Thus, this study exposes a largely concealed element of social entrepreneurial practice. This article also reveals that embeddedness in communities can lead entrepreneurs to collaborate with potential competitors. Craft entrepreneurs share their economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital in order to support and help revitalise their communities, to perpetuate their respective in...

The Power of Peers: How Transnational Advocacy Networks Shape NGO Strategies on Climate Change

Abstract: What explains variation in the tactical choices of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)? This article uses network autocorrelation models to establish how the tactical choices of climate change NGOs are shaped by their embeddedness in transnational advocacy networks. Specifically, it finds that NGOs are more likely to adopt protest tactics when adjacent organizations – those with whom they have direct ties – have already done so. The choices of equivalent organizations – those that occupy similar relational roles in the network – do not appear to be influential. Qualitative evidence also shows that NGOs are affected by relational pressure from their peers, which alters their perception of costs and benefits. These findings enhance understanding of how networks influence actors’ behavior and offer insights into the relational processes that generate protest in global politics.

From the informal economy to the meaning of informality: Developing theory on firms and their workers

Abstract: Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess ways in which informality can be understood and reviews an emerging area of management scholarship The origins and nature of informality are discussed with the aid of two different theoretical tools: “workplace sociology” (WS) and “mixed embeddedness” (ME) Design/methodology/approach The analysis is grounded in empirical material reflecting different aspects of informality mainly within the ethnic economy, such as a study on the implementation of the National Minimum Wage regulations (Ram et al, 2007; Jones et al, 2004, 2006) Findings The authors argue that the combination of WS and ME provides a valuable means of content and character of informality It can also help to explaining variations and patterns within the informal economy, as well as understanding new forms of informality in the ethnic economy and beyond in “superdiverse” contexts Originality/value This paper bridges two different theoretical approaches to explain the interactions between the firm and state regulations, as well as the workplace relations between employer and employees

Networks of Labour Activism: Collective Action across Asia and Beyond. An Introduction to the Debate

Abstract: As an Introduction to the Debate section that follows, this article develops the concept of ‘Networks of Labour Activism’ (NOLA) as a distinct, and important, aspect of cross-border, cross-organizational mobilization of workers, trade unions and other organizations and groups. NOLAs are seen as different from traditional labour activist networks in that they are neither solely connected to the position of labour in production processes, nor wholly reliant on the soft and discursive power of advocacy coalitions. The authors understand NOLAs to be characterized by the interaction of different types of labour rights, social movement and community organizations, joining forces in complex forms of strategizing vis-a-vis multiple targets. Thus, cross-boundary strategizing (across organizational and geographical divides) is seen as a basic characteristic of NOLAs. The authors argue that NOLAs continue to be deeply embedded in political-economic contexts of the state and global value chains, and alliance formation reflects the peculiar vulnerabilities and constraints resulting from this embeddedness. This Introduction draws on multiple studies of NOLAs from around the world, but its main focus is on some of those Asian countries which are at the centre of global supply chain capitalism and labour exploitation, and which have become the laboratory for new forms of networked worker agency and activism.

Social ties and embeddedness in old age: older Turkish labour migrants in Vienna.

Abstract: This paper focuses on older Turkish labour migrants and their spouses, who mostly came to Vienna as young adults in the 1960s and thereafter. They are now entering retirement age and constitute a significant part of Vienna’s older population. I analyse their understandings of transnational ageing, their social ties and feelings of social embeddedness. For those still mobile, active participation in one of Vienna’s Turkish cultural/religious/political associations is identified as a particular source of social embeddedness. I argue that these voluntary associations provide an important place for older migrants to strengthen social ties and are relatively easy to access, including in old age. Nevertheless, I demonstrate that older Turkish labour migrants are exposed to several forms of discrimination, some of which are felt especially strongly in old age, including a lack of adequate institutionalised late life care. In the discussion of the paper, I critically revisit the debate on ethnicity as a r...