baum character

• Social Ties and Foreign Market Entry: An Empirical Inquiry

This study attempts to document the influence of social ties on two critical components of foreign market entry (FME) decisions by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): timing of entry and resource commitment. An ethnic Chinese group serves as the best candidate to underlie this research because ethnic Chinese networks often build on personal connections that are based on regional collegiality and kinship. From a sample of 173 Taiwanese SMEs, hierarchical regression results indicate that social ties are significantly related to FME decisions by Taiwanese SMEs in terms of both the timing of entry and resource commitments.

.../Schwartz 1995), organizational adaptation (Baum/Oliver 1991), and ethnic economies (WaIdinger/Aldr... in terms of either firm-specific characteristics or a subset of operation-related questions. Becaus...

• Management International Review
• Band 47 Nr. 6, November 2007

• Practicing Human Resource Strategy: Understanding the Relational Dynamics in Strategic Hr Work by Means of a Narrative Approach**

This article presents the results of a qualitative research project aimed at examining how Human Resource (HR) practitioners interpret HR strategy and strategic change. We will illustrate how they develop HR strategy by relying on a system of shared practices which, in turn, constitute the underlying relational dynamics. We argue that HR strategy is embedded in a (rhetorical) network of middle and top managers from HR departments and corresponding operational departments. This implies that HR strategy happens in a social process, more precisely in practices -in-use. Drawing on a systemic constructionist framework, the article discusses the nature of practices -in-use and presents findings from an inductive analysis of a qualitative HR study. The qualitative nature enabled us to shed lig...

... of some of the interviewees' characteristics. It is important to note that the study did not ai...

• Zeitschrift für Personalforschung
• Band 23 Nr. 2, April 2009

• Organizational Fields and Competitive Groups in Higher Education: Some Lessons From the Bachelor/Master Reform in Germany**

The implementation of the Bachelor and Master reform in German universities happens at a surprisingly rapid pace. Apparently, a higher education system which by most observers is characterized as being reluctant to change can quickly embrace the Bologna process, which aims at a common European higher education area until 2010. In this article the main driving-forces underlying the rapid reform process are identified with the help of some conceptual tools from the new institutionalism in organizational analysis and based on qualitative empirical research. According to my analysis, the process can only be explained by the strong interactions within an "organizational field". Among the organizations involved, the state as a coercive actor seems to be the single most important driving-force...

..., the analysis of "competitive groups" (Lant/Baum 1995; Baum/Lant 2003) offers promising insights in...

• Management Revue
• Band 18 Nr. 2, April 2007