Word from the editor

Management international is pleased to kick off a new year for our journal with an initial issue comprised of eight original articles covering a variety of themes, fields of study and methodologies – and offering a broad range of diverse findings.

In their article “The anglicisation of the advertising field: An exploratory study of resistance to a fashionable communication mode”, Philipe Robert-Demontrond and J.-Ph. Croizean question a phenomenon that has become increasingly widespread in France. Falling under the aegis of Critical Management Studies – a corpus focused on the various ways in which practices can become denaturalised - the epistemological and pragmatic aims pursued in this study are coherent with the perspectives generally adopted by this school of thought. Highlighting conceptions that are commonly (albeit often erroneously) taken for granted, the paper contributes four major insights. The first relates to marketing professionals’ largely unnoticed resistance to commercial communications’ anglicisation, translating a recalcitrance that plays out on a socio-cultural level. The second involves an analysis of critical discourse, replete with the various moral conventions that opponents to anglicisation tend to invoke. The third elucidates the core moral emotions driving opponents to this trend. And lastly, the moral imagination (metaphorical representations) structuring said resistance is examined in a way that complemeting the above analyses.

Pham Hoanh Son Nguyen and Renato Pereira’s work - “Exploring the relationship between international growth and intra-regionalization vs inter-regionalization: the roles of host country environments and the degree of international commitments” – draws from a theoretical framework largely constructed around the advantages and characteristics of these two geographical context, using such filters to not only explain intra-regionalisation’s superiority (in international expansion terms) over inter-regionalisation but also the mechanisms by means of which intra-regional similarities, inter-regional differences and extent of international commitment interact and by so doing affect intra- and inter-regional companies’ growth trajectories. The findings serve to bolster the emerging corpus of regionalisation literature.

Didier Chabanet, Guillaume Do Vale and Xavier Weppe’s article - “Managing business model innovation in a changing environment: the case of SMEs in the pharmaceutical sector” - seeks to understand how changes in the environment (such as it is perceived by owner-managers) might cause the latter to adapt their business models. Based on 43 interviews with independent pharmacists in Belgium (19) and Italy (24), the study discovers that certain respondents will tend to focus on the macro environment, and that this generally leads to their construing change as a threat. In turn, they might feel unable to adapt their business model and/or will only want to make minor adjustments to it. Others, however, will focus on both the micro and the macro environments and try to identify opportunities that sometimes go well beyond the pharmacy sector per se. By so doing, they are freeing themselves from the constraints that they perceive in their environments and will construct specific ecosystems that then enact major business model innovations.

Pascal Corbel and Martial Kadji Ngassam’s contribution - “The role of trademark in the business model of open source software publishers: A case study” - starts by noting the paucity of research in this domain, justifying in turn an in-depth study of a small open source editor called Xwiki. The paper illustrates the crucial role that brands are capable of performing when they articulate the two pillars that underpin all business models, namely value creation and value capture. The demonstration is made that a synergistic, highly controlled management of brands and the developer community alike make it possible to exploit the complementarities that can arise between the two.

Zouhour Ben Hamadi and Tarek Chanegrih’s article - “A typology of auditors’ postures in the face of ethical dilemmas: the case of Tunisia” - starts with the observation that the post-revolutionary situation in this country has created an excellent opportunity for studying the kinds of organisational and managerial practices that can be witnessed under such circumstances. How auditors position themselves in a context of corruption is a subject that would have been impossible to study just a few years ago. The paper contributes to the debate about corruption phenomena by interviewing 27 auditors, culminating in a thematic analysis which reveals the existence of a multitude of auditor profiles and positionings.

Julien Billion, Jean-Michel Sahut, Claire Doussard and Rey Dang’s article - entitled “What does the study of entrepreneurs with disabilities contribute to the entrepreneurial literature? A systematic review of the literature” - notes the similarities and divergences that arise within this population, irrespective of whether a given entrepreneur has a disability. The first observation is that certain entrepreneurship motives (as well as factors inherent to the creation and development of all businesses) are common to all entrepreneurs, albeit with varying degrees of intensity. The second is that disability - along with the special needs that accompany it - can indeed become a driver of entrepreneurship, notwithstanding the requirement that a modicum of support be provided at various stages of the entrepreneurial process in order to facilitate actors’ transition to action. The paper concludes with recommendations and avenues for further research.

Laurent Griot’s text - “Emergence of the security function in large French companies. A contingency theory approach” - focuses on the way in which such activities can be made into tools capable of managing the criminal environments within which companies may find themselves. The specific demonstration made here is that “safety” and “security” are in actual fact two separate constructs and describe different realities. Each activity contends with its own particular environmental constraints and must therefore be managed independently and under its own conditions. The findings are based on the fact that criminal activity constitutes much more a source of uncertainty than a risk. That being the case, many of the contingency factors that have already been identified – relating notably to the size of an organisation and/or to the international criminal environment within which it may operate - must be viewed as quanta that are specific in nature.

Lastly, Marie Lachapelle, Sylvie St-Onge, Sébastien Arcand and Felix Ballesteros Leiva’s paper - “The black box of diversity management: An exploratory study in regionally based companies” - samples 60 companies primarily operating outside of major urban centres. The study’s interviews reveal that executives’ diversity beliefs (and the scope thereof) have a direct effect on companies’ HR strategies and practices; on the actions taken by middle managers and HR officers; on the organisational climate; on the attraction, integration and retention of immigrant workers; and on an entity’s ultimate performance at an individual, organisational, social and societal level. The courses of action proposed here are meant to turn diversity management into a bona fide organisational change driver, one that is capable of becoming a real source of competitive advantage.

Happy New Year one and all – and may 2024 see all your research projects flourish!