Comparative cross-cultural studies and identity research in social psychology focused on national and organizational differences, clashes and dimensions (Hofstede, Barsoux & Schneider, Jackson, Ward, Bochner & Furnham, Capoza & Brown). Mapping cultural software of individuals and dynamics of...

Reaching service excellence through a focus on the customer, demands more than just measuring customer satisfaction by means of questionnaire surveys. Nowadays, it is not sufficient anymore to have service excellence in services, processes and relationships. Now is the time to create excellence...

In a synthesis of recent advances, this article gives a fresh, balanced theory of inter-organizational relations. It integrates competence and governance perspectives. It considers the choice between mergers/acquisitions and alliances. It offers a toolbox of instruments to govern relational...

Increasingly, it has been recognised that in their process of internationalisation multinationals may learn. They may take a strategy not only of exploitation, to leverage existing assets, competencies and products, built up in their home countries, but also, and perhaps even primarily, of...

A central feature of innovation systems is that innovation arises from interaction between organizational units. This requires 'cognitive distance' that is sufficiently large to yield novelty of combinations, but not too large for mutual understanding. Two problems and solutions in the transfer...

Fashion is the quintessential post-modernist consumer practice, or so many hold. In this contribution, I argue that, on the contrary, fashion should be understood as a means of communicating one's commitment to modernist values. I introduce the framework of the Social Value Network, to relate...

This paper is on the transformation of network industries or public utilities in Western Europe and the United States (US). A network industry provides a public or basic service by operating a large infrastructure system whose main characteristics are strongly increasing returns to scale, high...

The importance of standardisation is growing. This might be reflected in a growth of standardisation education. In this paper we will elaborate on education in the field of standardisation.

The Chinese economy has developed rapidly despite two major constraints: ill-functioning markets and a socialist past, both of which caused an environment of unenforceable contracts. In this situation the need to pool resources and to govern relational risk was paramount to the development of a...

Financial theory, resource-based theory and access to deal flow are used to explain syndication practices among European venture capital (VC) firms. The desire to share risk and increase portfolio diversification is a more important motive for syndication than the desire to access additional...