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This study aims to investigate the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on national digital capability, specifically differentiating the impact between FDI greenfield and mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The research also investigates factors shaping digital capabilities, encompassing government transparency and absorptive capability, while exploring the mediating influence of absorptive capability in the FDI–digital capability relationship.

An econometric model has been developed to examine the interrelationship between national digital capability, FDI inflows, national absorptive capability and government transparency. The data set encompasses 55 countries over a period of nine years (2013–2021). National digital capability data is derived from the well-established index published by the World Competitive Centre (WCC). The sources of the explanatory variables align with standard practices, drawing from reputable institutions (UNCTAD and the World Bank, among others).

The findings reveal a significant positive impact of FDI, particularly in greenfield investments, on national digital capability. Government transparency and research and development (R&D) investment are crucial factors contributing to digital capabilities. Additionally, the absorptive capacity, reflected by R&D investment, also emerges as a potential moderating factor, influencing the impact of FDI inflows on digital capabilities.

The results recommend that policymakers and stakeholders should carefully consider the role of FDI, especially in greenfield investments, as a catalyst for enhancing national digital capability. The findings also underscore the significance of promoting government transparency and directing investments towards R&D to nurture digital capabilities. Moreover, understanding the mediating role of absorptive capability can inform strategies aimed at optimizing the impact of FDI on digital capabilities.

This study contributes uniquely to the existing literature by being the first to systematically explore the influence of FDI on national digital capability. Furthermore, it presents innovative empirical findings on the role of absorptive capability in enhancing the FDI impact on national digital capability, an area that remains relatively uncharted in current literature.

This study aimed to identify a specific taxonomy of entry modes for international construction contractors and to develop a decision-making mechanism based on case-based reasoning (CBR) to facilitate the selection of the most suitable entry modes.

According to the experience orientation of the construction industry, a CBR entry mode decision model was established, and based on successful historical cases, a two-step refinement process was carried out to identify similar situations. Then the validity of the model is proved by case analysis.

This study identified an entry mode taxonomy for international construction contractors (ICCs) and explored their decision-making mechanisms. First, a two-dimension model of entry mode for ICCs was constructed from ownership and value chain dimensions; seven common ICC entry modes were identified and ranked according to market commitment. Secondly, this study reveals the impact mechanism of the ICC entry mode from two aspects: the external environment and enterprise characteristics. Accordingly, an entry mode decision model is established.

Firstly, sorting out the categories of entry mode in the construction field, which provide an entry mode list for ICCs to select. Secondly, revealing the impact mechanism of ICC entry mode, which proposes a systematic decision-making system for the selection of ICC entry mode. Thirdly, constructing a CBR entry mode decision-making model from an empirical perspective, which offers tool support and reduces transaction costs in the decision-making process.

The study on entry modes for ICCs is still in the preliminary exploratory stage. The authors investigate the entry mode categories and decision-making mechanisms for ICCs based on Uppsala internationalization process theory. It widens the applied scope of Uppsala and promotes cross-disciplinary integration. In addition, the authors creatively propose a two-stage retrieval mechanism in the CBR model, which considers the order of decision variables. It refines the influence path of the decision variables on ICCs' entry mode.

This study aims to critically examine the effects of COVID-19 social discourses and policy decisions specifically on older adult volunteers in the UK, comparing the responses and their effects in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, providing perspectives on effects of policy changes designed to reduce risk of infection as a result of COVID-19, specifically on volunteer involvement of and for older adults, and understand, from the perspectives of volunteer managers, how COVID-19 restrictions had impacted older people’s volunteering and situating this within statutory public health policies.

The study uses a critical discourse approach to explore, compare and contrast accounts of volunteering of and for older people in policy, and then compare the discourses within policy documents with the discourses in personal accounts of volunteering in health and social care settings in the four nations of the UK. This paper is co-produced in collaboration with co-authors who have direct experience with volunteer involvement responses and their impact on older people.

The prevailing overall policy approach during the pandemic was that risk of morbidity and mortality to older people was too high to permit them to participate in volunteering activities. Disenfranchising of older people, as exemplified in volunteer involvement, was remarkably uniform across the four nations of the UK. However, the authors find that despite, rather than because of policy changes, older volunteers, as part of, or with the help of, volunteer involving organisations, are taking time to think and to reconsider their involvement and are renewing their volunteer involvement with associated health benefits.

Working with participants as co-authors helps to ensure the credibility of results in that there was agreement in the themes identified and the conclusions. A limitation of this study lies in the sampling method, as a convenience sample was used and there is only representation from one organisation in each of the four nations.

The paper combines existing knowledge about volunteer involvement of and for older adults.

The paper aims to understand how state and non-state domestic terrorism impacts MNEs in foreign markets. Despite the burgeoning literature on terrorism within international business (IB), most research has focused on international terrorism, or terrorism generally. Consequently, there has been limited research examining how domestic or local based terrorism impacts foreign firms.

This is a conceptual paper.

Domestic terrorism is the most common form of terrorism in the world today and involves the state and non-state actors. Non-state domestic terrorism can be low intensity or high intensity. High intensity non-state-domestic terrorism typically involves regular and protracted political violence, along with inter-communal violence. This can expose MNEs to considerable operational, governance and legitimacy pressures.

The paper contributes to the gap in IB terrorism research with regards domestic or local based terrorism. Drawing on IB theory and critical terrorism research, the paper addresses the nature and impact of domestic terrorism within IB. The authors’ paper shows the operational, governance and legitimacy pressures of both state and non-state domestic terrorism for MNEs in host markets. While most IB scholars consider the threat of non-state terrorism for international firms, this study shows how domestic state terrorism benefits and constrains foreign firms.

This paper aims to explore how accounting is fostering neoliberal citizenship through the participants of Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). More specifically, this paper aims to understand how accounting discourse and the management accounting technique of budgeting, when intertwined with automated administrative processes of the NDIS, are giving rise to a pastoral form of power that directs people’s behaviour toward certain ends.

Publicly available data has been crafted into an autoethnographic case study of one fictitious person’s experiences with the NDIS – Mina. Mina is an amalgam created from material submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on the NDIS. Mina’s experiences are then analysed through the lens of Foucault’s concept of pastoral power to explore how accounting has contributed to marketising and digitising public disability services.

Accounting rhetoric appears to be a central part of rationalising the decision to shift to individualised disability funding. Those receiving payments are treated as self-governable, financially responsible subjects and are therefore expected to have knowledge of management accounting techniques and budgeting. However, NDIS’s strong reliance on the accounting concepts of funds, budgets, cost and price is limiting people’s autonomy and subjecting them to intervention and control.

This paper addresses calls to explore the interplay between accounting and current disability policies. The analysis shows that incorporating accounting into the NDIS’s algorithms serves to conceal the underlying ideology of the programs, subtly driving behaviours towards neoliberal objectives. Further, this research extends the Foucauldian accounting literature by revealing the contribution of accounting to reinforcing the authority of digital pastors in contemporary times.

This research aims to examine the moderating role of digital orientation (DO) on the relationship between innovation and internationalization by framing the relationship under an agency, resource-based view (RBV) and organization orientation (OO) theory.

This study focuses on a sample of 392 listed companies in Malaysia from 2011 to 2018 and estimates the model under the double clustered regression, dynamic GMM panel model and one-lagged model to tackle endogeneity and reversal causality. This study also did a logit model as an additional robustness check.

The findings support the RBV perspective: Companies with intensive innovation have high internationalization. However, the findings refute OO theory by revealing the evidence that DO leads to low internationalization. Supplemental analysis suggests that innovation impact on internationalization occurs in assets and sales internationalization (exports).

According to the RBV theory, innovation is strategic value creation for the organization to achieve competitiveness. A company can expand its market internationally when the business process is more productive and efficient due to innovation. The innovation process is closely related to DO. Hence, this research explores whether DO may strengthen the effect of innovation on the internationalization process.

This study examines the effect of DO on innovation and internationalization implementation by contesting agency theory, RBV theory and OO theory within an emerging country context.

Building on resource dependence theory and the dynamic institution-based view, this paper examines the influence of government affiliations on firm product innovation in a dynamic institutional environment.

Using unique panel data of Chinese manufacturing firms covering a period of 12 years (1998–2009) with 2,564,547 firm-year observations, this study chooses the panel Tobit model with random effects to explore the influence of government affiliations on firm product innovation, followed by an analysis to test the moderation effects of dynamic institutional environments.

The study findings suggest that Chinese firms with higher-level government affiliations have a relatively high product innovation performance. It finds that this innovation stimulating effect is contingent on the dynamic nature of the institutional environment. To be specific, a high speed of institutional transition may depress the positive innovation effects of government affiliations, while a more synchronized transition speed of institutional components may enhance the positive innovation effects of firms' government affiliations.

This study adds to a better understanding of the drivers of product innovation in Chinese firms that are situated in environments that are characterized by institutional change, using and contributing to resource dependence theory and the dynamic institution-based view.

Many town centres in England exhibit high retail property vacancies and require regeneration. Several alternatives for the replacement of town centre retail (TCR) have been suggested, one of which is healthcare. The healthcare sector in England is in distress, with the National Health Service (NHS) tackling extensive patient waiting lists, whilst operating from an ageing estate. This paper is an introductory study that uses seven carefully selected personalised surveys to raise academic awareness of the importance and potential of integrating healthcare into town centres and calls for large-scale research to establish the statistical validity of the reported observations.

This study is developed from an interpretative standpoint. Through semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders specific to retail-to-healthcare conversions, this study reports stakeholders' perspectives on opportunities and limitations for such conversions to give direction for large statistical research in the future.

All participants support the integration of healthcare into town centres and agreed that diagnostic services, mental health support and primary care services are appropriate for provision within town centres. The participants advocate large-scale change in town centres in England, with integrated healthcare co-located with complementary services to fit with wider regeneration plans. Participants prefer adaptation of existing buildings where technically feasible and emphasise the importance of obtaining the buy-in of other stakeholders whilst expressing concerns about the uncertainty of capital funding availability.

This is the first study to analyse the practice of retail-to-healthcare conversions in town centres. These are still rare in England and projects are complex. The market experience is limited, and thus, the literature is scarce. This study fills this void and provides a starting point for future quantitative research in this area and informs the new town-planning policies.