Technological knowledge and internationalization: evidence from India

PurposeThe authors combine institutional theory with resource-based theory to explain how emerging market firms (EMFs) manage their technological knowledge capital by venturing into international markets. The authors further explore the contingency effect of international marketing knowledge and competitive intensity in the home country in influencing technological knowledge capital and internationalization relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs multiple linear regression analysis using a dataset consisting of 326 Bombay Stock Exchange-listed A and B category stocks for a six-year period (2010–2016).FindingsThe study finds that with an increase in technological knowledge capital, the internationalization of Indian firms increases. Furthermore, international marketing knowledge and competitive intensity positively moderate this relationship.Research limitations/implicationsThe study finds that with an increase in technological knowledge capital, the internationalization of Indian firms increases. Furthermore, international marketing knowledge and competitive intensity positively moderate this relationship.Practical implicationsThe authors’ findings increase international marketing managers' awareness of how internationalization acts as a knowledge management tool for EMFs under the contingency effect of international marketing knowledge and competitive intensity.Originality/valueThe study provides novel insights into the technological knowledge capital management strategy by EMFs through internationalization and the role of international marketing knowledge and competitive intensity in increasing firms' ability to even better manage technological knowledge capital.

Effect of entrepreneurial satisfaction on personal initiative: The role of institutional trust and industry attractiveness

We investigated the effect of entrepreneurial satisfaction on personal initiative using a sample of 581 entrepreneurs in China. Entrepreneurial satisfaction was classified into 2 dimensions: satisfaction with income and satisfaction with firm size. The moderating roles of institutional trust and industry attractiveness were examined. We found that entrepreneur's personal initiative was lower for those who were more satisfied with their entrepreneurial progress, particularly satisfaction with firm size. Regarding the contingency effect, industry attractiveness assuaged the negative relationship between entrepreneurial satisfaction and personal initiative, but institutional trust did not. The study promotes understanding about Chinese entrepreneurial behaviors and has relevant practical implications for policymakers and new venture management.

Contingency learning as binding? Testing an exemplar view of the colour-word contingency learning effect

The learning of contingent regularities between events is fundamental for interacting with our world. We are also heavily influenced by recent experiences, as frequently studied in the stimulus-response binding literature. According to one view (“unitary view”), the learning of regularities across many events and the influence of recent events on current performance can coherently be explained with one high-learning rate memory mechanism. That is, contingency learning effects and binding effects are essentially the same thing, only studied at different timescales. On the other hand, there may be more to a contingency effect than just the summation of the influence of past events (e.g., an additional impact of learned regularities). To test these possibilities, the current report reanalyses a number of datasets from the colour-word contingency learning paradigm. It is shown that the weighted sum of binding effects accumulated across many previous trials (with especially strong influence of very recent events) does explain a large chunk of the contingency effect, but not all of it. In particular, the asymptote towards which the contingency effect decreases by accounting for an increasing number of previous-trial binding effects is robustly above zero. On the other hand, we also observe evidence for higher-order interactions between binding effects at differing lags, suggesting that a mere linear accumulation of binding episodes might underestimate their influence on contingency learning. Accordingly, focusing only on episodic stimulus-response binding effects that are due to the last occurrence of a stimulus rendered contingency learning effects non-significant. Implications for memory models are discussed.

Quality initiatives, quality awards and performance; contingency effect

Purpose This paper aims to explore the contingency effect of winning a specific Indian quality award (QA) on the correlation between interacting quality initiatives (QI) and QA with performance measures (PM) during the continuous improvement (CI) journey of Indian organizations. Design/methodology/approach Data collected from a survey were followed by validity and reliability analyzes of the instrument. Hypotheses were tested using Spearman’s correlation test and Fisher’s Z-test. Findings Similarities and differences among four Indian QA in terms of PM affected by the interacting QI and QA models during different phases of CI journey were identified. Practical implications Preliminary identification of PM that realistically reflected the adoption of QI and QA models during different phases of the CI journey. Originality/value This study attempts to fill the gap of scarce holistic studies on the interacting QI and QA as they affect the PM through the CI journey of organizations.

The Contingency Effect of Relational Competency on the Relationship between Information Technology Competency and Firm Performance

Drawing upon the resource-based and relational view, this study examines how the three types of IT competencies (i.e., IT objects, IT operations, and IT knowledge) differentially affect firm performance and how such effects are moderated by interorganizational communication (IOC). We test the hypotheses of interest with data collected from 258 firms in China. The results of hierarchical regression analysis reveal that IT operations and IT knowledge significantly improve firm performance, while IT objects are found to be insignificant. In addition, the moderating effect of IOC on the relationship between the three types of IT competencies and firm performance varies across diffenent types of IT competencies. Specifically, IOC positively moderates the relationship between both IT operations and IT knowledge and firm performance. However, the moderating effect of IOC on the relationship between IT objects and firm performance is not significant.