AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings - Academy of International ...

MONDAY
Cultural Aspects of Innovation
Kalanit Efrat, Ruppin Academic Center
Innovation's centrality and importance in international operations undergo changes in scale and scope in the
age of globalization. One such change concerns the effect of national culture on the ability to be innovative.
Based on Hofstede's (1980) cultural dimensions, possible changes that occur in their impact on nations'
innovativeness are examined here, following Shane's (1992, 1993) research. While controlling for nations'
investments in innovation, cultural dimensions are found still to impact all types of innovation examined, with
even greater force. (For more information, please contact: Kalanit Efrat, Ruppin Academic Center, Israel:
kalanite@ruppin.ac.il)
Emigrants' Willingness to Share Knowledge with Compatriots Still Living in their Country of Origin
Helena Barnard, GIBS, University of Pretoria
Catherine Pendock, GIBS, University of Pretoria
Migrants are increasingly recognized as "bridges" between their original and adopted countries, sources of
knowledge and innovation for their country of origin. However, previous work focused on individuals with an
ongoing commitment to their country of origin, rather than emigrants who choose to seek a new future in an
adopted country. But migrants often experience strong and even contradictory emotions about their decision to
emigrate, and knowledge sharing is known to be affected by attitudes, and it cannot be assumed that
knowledge will be shared. This study on South African emigrants connects the literatures on emigration, country
of origin attitudes and knowledge sharing, and finds that emigrants' willingness to share knowledge is affected
by their attitudes towards their country of origin: The willingness to share knowledge increases when emigrants
have a positive attitude to their country of origin, but decreases when they experience it negatively. (For more
information, please contact: Helena Barnard, GIBS, University of Pretoria, South Africa: barnardh@gibs.co.za)
Optimizing Cross-cultural Team Knowledge in Conceiving and Introducing Global Products
Karina R. Jensen, ESCP Europe
Globalization, time to market, and customer responsiveness present new challenges for achieving product
innovation across cultures. Organizations need to leverage cross-cultural collaboration in order to facilitate idea
generation and knowledge-sharing that produce successful market solutions. How can organizations facilitate
collaboration for conceiving and delivering new products An exploratory study is used to examine this question
through interviews with 45 executives and senior team managers responsible for global product introductions
and cross-cultural teams in 35 multinational organizations based in Europe, Asia, and the US. By examining
organizational processes and tools that influence knowledge-sharing between the project leader and the globally
distributed team, this study contributes to the understanding of cross-cultural collaboration and knowledgesharing
challenges for new product introductions while highlighting research needs for a topic that has
significant impact on the MNEs international market performance. (For more information, please contact: Karina
R. Jensen, ESCP Europe, France: karina.jensen@escpeurope.eu)
Global Dissemination of the Toyota Way in Sales & Marketing
Osamu Tsukada, Kagawa University
Besides building a global organization capable of identifying new consumer trends in one country, it must link
those trends through new technologies to other countries, innovate knowledge, and diffusing the knowledge
rapidly around the world. How can a corporation facilitate the knowledge exchange required for this globally
Toyota has been striving to disseminate its corporate philosophy and values, the so-called Toyota Way 2001
and Toyota Way in Sales & Marketing (hereafter called TW/TWSM), among 170 distributors around the world.
AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings
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