Word from the editor

This new issue of Management international is comprised of 13 articles and one book review. Contributions take an original look at several of the main themes preoccupying international management today, including the strategies that multinational enterprise (MNE) subsidiaries pursue, the importance of cultural differences, new forms of public management in international business, digital platforms’ role in international collaborative arrangements, etc. We would like to thank and congratulate all the authors for their excellent underlying research – along with our 40 or so reviewers whose input has greatly enhanced this journal issue.

Christopher Williams and Maya Kumar’s article - “Diffusing MNE subsidiary initiatives across national cultural distance: The role of organizational values sharing and knowledge sharing” - mobilises management control and knowledge-based theories to investigate how the internal sharing of values and knowledge within a MNE influences the relationship between external national cultural distance and the extent to which group headquarters adopts subsidiary initiatives. Based on a sample of 111 subsidiaries representing a diverse range of cultures and industries, the study finds that national cultural distance has a negative impact on the dissemination of subsidiary initiatives, whereas the effects are positive when both organisational values and knowledge are shared. The internal sharing of values does little to overcome the negative impact of national cultural distance, whereas the internal sharing of knowledge attenuates this effect. The analysis section discusses implications for MNE managers and for further research.

Gregor Bouville, Stéphane Le Lay and Dominique Mahut’s article - “Forms of work commitment witnessed in dustmen’s ‘dirty job’. An approach rooted in the sociology of activity” - seeks to understand the various forms that commitment to work can assume in an undervalued profession such as refuse collection. The study broaches this topic by referring to previous research undertaken by Alexandra Bidet. The authors use a mixed methodology to explore how garbage collectors’ relationship to their activity is affected by the different internal and external valuation sources that they develop. A typological analysis elucidates a wide range of work commitment modes by referring to the sociological dimensions thereof. These include cooperation; the appropriation of autonomy; corporal engagement; technicity; and forms of adherence to professional standards. It is an original approach to the topic of work commitment and one that criticises the way in which management studies usually frame the topic, which is often apprehended through an employer’s idealised view of workers rather than from the perspective of real workers themselves.

Laetitia Dari and Gilles Guieu’s article - “Third parties’ crucial role in sectoral regeneration” – tries to explain how the fortunes of a sector that has collapsed might be revived. The problem is that strategic regeneration literature largely focuses on individual efforts in this domain, despite the fact that companies generally operate in environments comprised of other firms. Hence the authors’ suggestion that the concept of regeneration be studied at more of a collective level, all the more so because third parties’ orchestration of sectoral regeneration facilitates understanding thereof. Analysis involving the French Aquitaine region’s cork industry highlights: (1) the presence of collective regeneration of the kind needed to revitalise this sector; and (2) the fact that third parties do have a role to play in the orchestration of inter-organisational relationships.

Mehdi Nekhili, Amira Lajmi, Haithem Nagati, and Gilles Paché’s article –“CSR quality insurance’s contribution to market valuations of voluntary CSR reports: Evidence from France” - studies quality’s moderating role in insurance services’ performance. Highlighting the importance of the scope and level of quality’s application (as well as the involvement of external auditors), this econometric analysis uses Tobin’s q to assess the relationship between a specific CSR report’s publication and a company’s market valuation. Drawing from a sample of large French companies included in the SBF 120 index between 2007 and 2017, it finds that the negative relationship between specific CSR report publication and stock market performance (measured by Tobin’s q) turns positive when companies use high-quality assurance services.

Stéphan Pezé and Christelle Théron article - “Catch me if you can! Strategic episodes in search of strategizing” – started with the observation that strategic work (also known as strategizing) is actually a difficult concept to grasp, especially when its manifestations are being sought outside of the management meetings that have been explicitly organised towards this end. The authors hypothesize that a strategic episode construct (Hendry and Seidl, 2003) - one of the units of analysis proposed as a way of addressing this dilemma – should help to identify many of the various ways in which strategizing manifests. A systematic literature review then identifies research avenues that will help the concept to realise its full potential. The net effect is to enhance researchers’ understanding of strategizing in all its different forms.

Alfredo Valentino, Urike Mayrhofer and Matteo Caroli’s article - “Staying connected: Social and business networks’ impact on foreign subsidiaries’ performance” – applies both an extended resources and a network approach to evaluate this potential relationship. It is an empirical study based on a sample of 120 MNE subsidiaries working out of Italy. The findings show that social networks have a positive effect on subsidiary performance through the mediating role of business networks. The authors then go on to challenge existing literature regarding the connection between networks and performance, highlighting the need for greater attention to be paid to the way in which local subsidiaries manage their networks.

Jérôme Maati and Christine Maati-Sauvez’s article - “Board diversity and stock market volatility of companies in France” - analyses how diversity in directors’ profiles impacts listed companies’ price movements in this country. One empirical finding is that diversity, together with each of its components (with the exception of age), lessens volatility due to the fact that diverse boards tend to adopt financial policies which are less risky and more consistent. Diversity also moderates a company’s growth opportunity decisions and helps offset executives’ supervisory deficiencies in situations marked by a relative dearth of independent directors. Having said that, diversity also increases the most innovative companies’ share price volatility.

Ingrid Mazzilli and Christian Defelix’s article - “Collaborative work at the heart of local jobs and skills-based strategic workforce planning: what are the emerging qualitative effects?” - considers a future-oriented management of jobs and territorial skills in light of the input provided by actors coming from various sectors of activity and seeking to develop a project capable of satisfying a given locale’s employment and skills development needs. Questioning the qualitative effects that have emerged from a number of collaborative work efforts undertaken along these lines, the study analyses three such projects through the prism of cross-sector collaboration, identifying internal structuring effects; the strengthening of actors’ sectoral collaborations; and the best ways of supporting territorial employment and skills management strategies’ deployment.

Sébastien Dony and Léonard Gourbier’s article - “Local authorities’ austerity management, between budgetary rebalancing and renewed performance: a lexicometric study” – starts by noting the impacts that the financial crisis has had on local government for nearly a decade now (including recurrent savings programmes). A number of studies have found that stakeholders’ very vision of public action has been altered by this austerity context – a theme the authors explore by analysing how such decision-makers actually envision austerity management. A lexicometric analysis reveals four austerity-related schools of thought, each differentiated by two dimensions: its orientation; and its nature. Findings reveal that respondents’ austerity management attitudes are analysed more accurately as exemplifying a resurgence of New Public Management NPM rather than as a renewed logic of public action.

Bertrand Agostini and Sybille Persson’s conceptual article - “Re-examining the connection between context and language, from Hall to Jullien: Supporting true intercultural dialogue” – offers an interdisciplinary journey that extends from Edward T. Hall to François Jullien and which covers context and language in both Europe and China. After advocating that international management research seriously consider what kind of language is capable of establishing true intercultural dialogue, the article studies the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by delving into its translation-related ethical issues. Lastly and in line with François Jullien’s own intercultural approach, international management researchers are invited to transcend implicit Western ethnocentrism, itself based on an identity concept, and promote instead a contextualised kind of management rooted in more of a resource concept.

Ouidad Yousfi, Nadai Loukil and Rania Béji’s article - “CEO power and social performance: evidence from France” – analyses how the traits and power of a SBF12 company CEO affects social performance. It finds that CEO power has a partial effect on CSR approaches; and that CEOs with a scientific-academic background and/or who started with business world connections have a tendency to marginalise social performance. In family businesses, on the other hand, the power wielded by a CEO – especially when s/he is not particularly old – appears to strengthen CSR approaches.

Yves Livian’s article - “From Letourneau’s ethnic psychology to Hofstede’s intercultural management (1901-1980): A representation of interculturality that is due for deconstruction” - starts with the observation that despite the abundance of criticism levied at intercultural management, its canonical version continues to be widely disseminated. The origin of this resistance to change resides in the way that this field has been constructed. Emphasizing the usefulness of a historical perspective, the analysis reviews ethnic psychology (starting with Letourneau’s 1901 works); the “psychology of peoples”; and North American cultural anthropology - demonstrating how these inputs have culminated in a kind of intercultural science that is considered “normal” today, largely following the works published by Hofstede in 1980. The article then questions whether this legacy enables a much-needed renewal; skims over power, gender and race-related differences; and is guilty of Western centricity.

Franck Barès and Bernard Cova’s article - “Co-creating brand value using diaspora volunteers” - points out that diaspora communities facilitate both the dissemination of brands coming from their country of origin as well as such brands’ foreign market entry. Even so, there has yet to be any significant investigation of the opportunities that exist to engage this population in more meaningful brand co-creation processes. Hence the longitudinal qualitative approach that this exploratory study develops in order to ascertain how a new brand coming from a Global South nation can benefit from its diaspora’s co-creative potential. The findings show that diaspora members are often willing to serve as unpaid volunteers working for such brands’ benefit.

The issue is completed by Jamal Eddine Azzam’s review of Charles A. O’Reilly and Michael L. Tushman’s “Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator’s Dilemma,” published in 2021 by Stanford University Press (Stanford, California). In their book, O’Reilly and Tushman suggest an alternative vision to Christensen’s famous “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, which had tried to explain how successful companies eventually fail and disappear while recommending that established companies explore disruptive innovation based on the creation of entities that are both independent and isolated from the rest of an organisation (i.e. spin-offs). O’Reilly and Tushman also note the danger of isolating such units from the rest of their organisation and argue that ambidexterity is the only true solution to the innovator’s dilemma. The key argument here is that adaptation to disruptive innovation requires a full-blown integration of exploitation and exploration.

We wish you an excellent read!!!!!

For the editorial committee

Patrick Cohendet