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1 – 10 of over 4000Zhenzhong Ma and Zhenning Yang
The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of internationalization and its associated risk of marginalization for the emerging Chinese multinationals; also to examine…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of internationalization and its associated risk of marginalization for the emerging Chinese multinationals; also to examine typical strategies emerging Chinese multinationals employ to deal with this challenge in order to provide insights for Chinese firms that are planning to enter the global market.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of Chinese multinationals that are listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, this study conducts a multiple‐case analysis on three different Chinese multinationals to explore their experiences in the process of internationalization and their unique approaches to the risk of marginalization.
Findings
The results show that internationalized Chinese firms are strengthening their control over core businesses, designing effective corporate governance policy and adjusting their capital structure to increase their actual control in order to minimize the risk of marginalization accompanying their internationalization process.
Originality/value
While an increasing number of Chinese firms are on a fast track of internationalization to enter the global market, the risk of marginalization has become a prominent concern for emerging multinationals and many newly internationalized Chinese firms are faced with a crisis of identity, and consequently they may be marginalized, with the risk of losing control over their own companies and being excluded from major government projects or significant R&D funding opportunities in China. This paper explores Chinese firms' risk of marginalization in their internationalization process and their approaches to dealing with this risk. The paper's findings will provide important insights for Chinese firms that plan to go international and will make an important contribution to the literature and enrich our understanding of Chinese multinationals and their strategic expansion in the era of globalization.
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Peter Nugus, Joanne Travaglia, Maureen MacGinley, Deborah Colliver, Maud Mazaniello-Chezol, Fernanda Claudio and Lerona Dana Lewis
Researchers often debate health service structure. Understanding of the practical implications of this debate is often limited by researchers' neglect to integrate participants'…
Abstract
Purpose
Researchers often debate health service structure. Understanding of the practical implications of this debate is often limited by researchers' neglect to integrate participants' views on structural options with discourses those views represent. As a case study, this paper aims to discern the extent to which and how conceptual underpinnings of stakeholder views on women's health contextualize different positions in the debate over the ideal structure of health services.
Design/methodology/approach
The researchers chose a self-standing, comprehensive women's health service facing the prospect of being dispersed into “mainstream” health services. The researchers gathered perspectives of 53 professional and consumer stakeholders in ten focus groups and seven semi-structured interviews, analyzed through inductive thematic analysis.
Findings
“Women's marginalization” was the core theme of the debate over structure. The authors found clear patterns between views on the function of women's health services, women's health needs, ideal client group, ideal health service structure and particular feminist discourses. The desire to re-organize services into separate mainstream units reflected a liberal feminist discourse, conceiving marginalization as explicit demonstration of its effects, such as domestic abuse. The desire to maintain a comprehensive women's health service variously reflected post-structural feminism's emphasis on plurality of identities, and a radical feminist discourse, holding that womanhood itself constituted a category of marginalization – that is, merely being at risk of unmet health needs.
Originality/value
As a contribution to health organizational theory, the paper shows that the discernment of discursive underpinnings of particular stakeholder views can clarify options for the structure of health services.
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The global call to ‘leave-no-one behind’ cannot be achieved without tacking the intractable social issues faced by the most excluded people. There is increasing interest in using…
Abstract
The global call to ‘leave-no-one behind’ cannot be achieved without tacking the intractable social issues faced by the most excluded people. There is increasing interest in using visual methodologies for participatory research in contexts of marginalisation, because they offer the potential to generate knowledge from people’s lived experience, which can reveal subjective, emotional, and contextual aspects missed by other methods; alongside the means for action through showing outputs to external audiences. The challenge is that the perspectives of those in highly inequitable and unaccountable contexts are – by definition – rarely articulated and often neglected. The author thus begins by assuming that there are unavoidable tensions in using visual methods; between perpetuating marginalisation by inaction, which is ethically questionable; and the necessary risks in bringing unheard views to public attention. Many experienced practitioners have called for a situated approach to visual methods ethics (Clark, Prosser, & Wiles, 2010; Gubrium, Hill, & Flicker 2014; Shaw, 2016). What is less clear is what this means for those wanting to apply this practically. In this chapter, the author addresses this gap through the exemplar of participatory video with marginalised groups. Drawing on cases from Kenya, India, Egypt, and South Africa, the author contributes a range of tried-and-tested strategies for navigating the biggest concerns such as informing consent; and the tensions between respecting autonomy and building inclusion, and between anonymity and supporting participant’s expressive agency. Through this, the author provides a resource for researchers, including prompts for critical reflection about how to generate solutions to visual ethical dilemmas in context.
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Lisa Grow Sun and Sabrina McCormick
The intensifying effects of climate change and the growing concentration of population in hazardous locations mean that, for many communities, disasters are increasingly becoming…
Abstract
The intensifying effects of climate change and the growing concentration of population in hazardous locations mean that, for many communities, disasters are increasingly becoming not only foreseeable, but inevitable. While much attention is, and should be, focused on what these foreseeable disasters require in terms of disaster planning and mitigation, attention should also be focused on a related and equally pressing phenomena: mismanagement of disaster response, particularly as climate proves an increasing stressor. Like disasters themselves, disaster mismanagement – while not entirely predictable – may exhibit some predictable patterns. This chapter explores past disaster management failures, considers how climate change may alter or exacerbate certain response pathologies, and evaluates some potential remedies that might mitigate these challenges.
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Reshmi Lahiri-Roy and Ben Whitburn
This paper emerged from the challenges encountered by both authors as academics during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Based on their subsequent reflections on inclusion in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper emerged from the challenges encountered by both authors as academics during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Based on their subsequent reflections on inclusion in education for minoritised academics in pandemic-affected institutional contexts, they argue that beyond student-centred foci for inclusion, equity in the field, is equally significant for diverse teachers. Working as tempered radicals, they contend that anything less is exclusionary.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a reciprocal interview method and drawing on Freirean ideals of dialogue and education as freedom from oppression, the authors offer dual perspectives from specific positionings as a non-tenured woman academic of colour and a tenured staff member with a disability.
Findings
In framing this work dialogically and through Freirean ideals of conscientização, the authors' collective discussions politicise personal experiences of marginalisation in the teaching and researching of inclusion in education for preservice teachers, or more pointedly, in demonstrating the responsibility of all to orientate towards context-dependent inclusive practices. They assert that to enable educators to develop inclusion-oriented practice, the contextual frameworks need to ensure that they question their own experiences of inclusion as potentially precarious to enable meaningful teaching practice.
Research limitations/implications
It offers perspectives drawing on race, dis/ability and gender drawing on two voices. The bivocal perspective is in itself limitation. It is also located within a very Australian context. However, it does have the scope to be applied globally and there is opportunity to further develop the argument using more intersectional variables.
Practical implications
The paper clearly highlights that universities require a sharper understanding of diversity, and minoritised staff's quotidian negotiations of marginalisations. Concomitantly inclusion and valuing of the epistemologies of minoritised groups facilitate meaningful participation of these groups in higher education contexts.
Social implications
This article calls for a more nuanced, empathetic and critical understanding of issues related to race and disability within Australian and global academe. This is much required given rapidly shifting demographics within Australian and other higher education contexts, as well as the global migration trajectories.
Originality/value
This is an original research submission which contributes to debates around race and disability in HE. It has the potential to provoke further conversations and incorporates both hope and realism while stressing collaboration within the academic ecosystem to build metaphorical spaces of inclusion for the minoritised.
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Heikki Silvennoinen and Hanna Nori
The purpose of this paper is to examine the distribution of learning and training opportunities in the Finnish workforce. It will concentrate on the sectors of the workforce that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the distribution of learning and training opportunities in the Finnish workforce. It will concentrate on the sectors of the workforce that lack these opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
The Working Conditions Barometer (WCB) data from 2008, 2009 and 2010 are used (N = 3,326) in this investigation. The focus of the study is to examine those employees whose learning and training opportunities fail to match the positive visions of the current “super professional hype”. The problems associated with the workforce training margin are considered as a part of the so-called work process debate.
Findings
Findings suggest that age, gender, type of industry and socioeconomic status have an independent influence on an individual’s presence in the training margin: women, older employees, employees in manufacturing and the private service sector and manual workers have a greater risk than others do. The relative differences between the social classes are still prevalent: incapacity and marginalization are primarily working class problems.
Practical implications
The workers should collectively demand certain benefits more forcefully, even when working under fixed-term contracts. Employers should be pressured to organise development opportunities and training for the fixed-term employees, including the type of training that not only benefits an employee in that one company but also the employees’ working life in general. Employers should be persuaded to organise the type of training that improves the chances of a fixed-term or otherwise powerless employee to find a new, perhaps better and more secure job.
Originality/value
Because the percentage of response to the WCB is exceptionally high, 80 per cent on average, the information obtained from the random sample can be generalised to represent all of the working wage earners in Finland and in a European context as well.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide a synopsis of what academic literature says about internal audit (IA) effectiveness ten years after Bailey et al. (2003) presented research…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a synopsis of what academic literature says about internal audit (IA) effectiveness ten years after Bailey et al. (2003) presented research opportunities in IA. A new set of research questions that may help to bring the best out of IA is proposed.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical studies based on internal auditors’ self-assessments (“inside-out”) and empirical studies based on other stakeholders’ perspectives (“outside-in”) are reviewed through an “effectiveness lens”. The “outside-in” perspective is regarded as particularly valuable.
Findings
First, common themes in the empirical literature are identified. Second, the main threads into a model comprising macro and micro factors that influence IA effectiveness are synthesized. Third, promising future research paths that may enhance IA's value proposition were derived.
Practical implications
The “outside-in” perspective indicates a disposition to stakeholders’ disappointment in IA: IA is either running a risk of marginalization (IIA, 2013; PWC, 2013) or has to embrace the challenge to emerge as a recognized and stronger profession. The suggested research agenda identifies empirical research threads that can help IA practitioners to make a difference for their organization, be recognized, respected and trusted and help the IA profession in its pursuit of creating a unique identity. This paper wishes to motivate researchers to explore innovative research strategies and probe new theories, as well as benefit from cross-fertilization with other research streams.
Originality/value
This paper summarizes the state of research on IA effectiveness and proposes a guide for future IA research. It provides pointed questions that may further advance the understanding of what constitutes IA and how IA can enhance its value proposition.
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Geraldine Hardie, Shamika Almeida, Kanchana Wijayawardena, Betty Frino, Hui-Ling Wang and Afshan Rauf
This paper examines the experiences of a team of female academics (teaching a large cohort of undergraduate students) and the coping mechanisms used to combat the challenges they…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the experiences of a team of female academics (teaching a large cohort of undergraduate students) and the coping mechanisms used to combat the challenges they confront in the Australian higher education sector.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a reflective autoethnographic method and strengths perspective, the authors share experiences as female professionals whose intersectional identities presented challenges that extend beyond those typically found in the current higher education setting.
Findings
The individualized nature of academic work exacerbates the systemic marginalization of female academics. Adopting a flock culture serves as a support network for addressing the various intersectional challenges. The authors liken the “flock cultural approach” to a “sisterhood” where individuals impacted by intersectional challenges build a strong and cohesive unit to support each other by utilizing their combined strengths to create positive synergy to cope with ongoing workplace challenges.
Research limitations/implications
The study highlights the benefit of the strengths perspective to understand how female academics with intersectional identities can overcome the challenges of their highly individualized profession.
Practical implications
This paper highlights the importance of building team-based work, cultivating collective achievement and high trust in a highly individualistic profession.
Social implications
Using the strength perspective, the authors disrupt the conventional and currently narrow usage of sisterhood to help develop strong, adaptive, flexible and responsive bonds among diverse female academics. The findings point to how using a “flock culture” – a membership-based philosophy – became the key support mechanism for the marginalized groups, empowering them to confront the systemic barriers within their profession.
Originality/value
First, the findings of this study are shaped by the intersections of factors such as ethnicity, age, race, religion and mode of employment, which all influences the participants’ lived experiences. Second, this study contributes to the transnational feminist movement by unveiling the contextualized barriers that junior academic females from various migrant backgrounds face and identify how they synergized their collective strengths to survive the challenging academic environment. Third, using the strength perspective, the authors disrupt the conventional and currently narrow usage of sisterhood to help develop strong, adaptive, flexible and responsive bonds among diverse female academics.
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