The Impact of Cultural Differences on Multinational Corporations

With the development of globalisation,more and more international enterprises expand business overseas,aiming to seek new marketing opportunities.During this process,multinational corporations(MNCs)would face different kinds of factors.Culture is one of the critically significant factors.Cultural differences between the home country and host country would affect consumer behaviour and product preferences.Therefore,the importance of cultural differences could be not ignored.

Earnings Management of Chinese Listed Multinational Corporations

This study evaluates the quality of accounting information provided by Chinese multinational corporations(MNCs)in relation to the issue of earnings management.Using a combined dataset of outward foreign direct investment and financial statements by Chinese firms publicly listed on A-share markets between 2012 and 2017,we investigate whether Chinese MNCs are more inclined to manage earnings.We discover that these firms exhibited significant earnings management behavior and typically adjusted their earnings downward.We demonstrate that these effects were more pronounced among private MNCs than state-owned firms,and in host countries with weaker institutional quality.Further research reveals that after delaying the confirmation of current earnings,Chinese MNCs received higher government subsidies,and this pattern was particularly prevalent among private MNCs.We find no evidence that Chinese MNCs manipulated earnings to avoid paying taxes.

Multinational corporations and infectious disease: Embracing human rights management techniques

Background:Global health institutions have called for governments,international organisations and health practitioners to employ a human rights-based approach to infectious diseases.The motivation for a human rights approach is clear:poverty and inequality create conditions for infectious diseases to thrive,and the diseases,in turn,interact with social-ecological systems to promulgate poverty,inequity and indignity.Governments and intergovernmental organisations should be concerned with the control and elimination of these diseases,as widespread infections delay economic growth and contribute to higher healthcare costs and slower processes for realising universal human rights.These social determinants and economic outcomes associated with infectious diseases should interest multinational companies,partly because they have bearing on corporate productivity and,increasingly,because new global norms impose on companies a responsibility to respect human rights,including the right to health.Methods:We reviewed historical and recent developments at the interface of infectious diseases,human rights and multinational corporations.Our investigation was supplemented with field-level insights at corporate capital projects that were developed in areas of high endemicity of infectious diseases,which embraced rights-based disease control strategies.Results:Experience and literature provide a longstanding business case and an emerging social responsibility case for corporations to apply a human rights approach to health programmes at global operations.Indeed,in an increasingly globalised and interconnected world,multinational corporations have an interest,and an important role to play,in advancing rights-based control strategies for infectious diseases.Conclusions:There are new opportunities for governments and international health agencies to enlist corporate business actors in disease control and elimination strategies.Guidance offered by the United Nations in 2011 that is widely embraced by companies,governments and civil society provides a roadmap for engaging business enterprises in rights-based disease management strategies to mitigate disease transmission rates and improve human welfare outcomes.

Translation Studies in/and International Business Studies:Mapping the Main Research Topics

Over the past two decades,the convergences of translation studies and international business studies have attracted a growing amount of attention from stakeholders in the respective research field.This is particularly because professionals and scholars in international business and management realize the importance of the role of language and translation in international trade and multilingual communication.The research results in this interdisciplinary field could provide basis for making critical decisions,such as the staff recruitment,company language policy and company development strategy.However,few reviews have been available that provide a comprehensive overview of relevant practice and research in this cross-disciplinary efforts.The present article therefore aims to offer a state-of-the-art review and investigate the existing literature to map the main research topics and discover future agenda.This article first provides an overview of the perception of“translation”,the role of translator,and translational activities in international business studies.Second,the review focuses on the translation and knowledge transfer in multinational corporations.Lastly,it identifies future directions towards the cross-fertility of the interdisciplinary collaboration.

Kingfisher Attacks the China Market

This article examines the entry to the Chinese market of Kingfisher plc under its B＆Q brand, operating in the DIY or home improvement market. It is a pedagogically oriented case in the international strategy area, which deals with both the mode of market development by the company in China and some of the softer issues arising from that process relating to HR in the company and the inevitable cultural challenges it faced. The story begins in the mid-1990s and goes through to the early summer of 2010. On the one hand, the entry has been successful： B＆Q is now a significant presence in China, holding number one position in their chosen market, which is primarily highly fragmented; there is some concentration in four key cities in the wealthy east coast region; and it has made profits over a fair portion over the last decade. Lessons were learned from the initial mistakes and the core sales proposition in China has been crafted to differ from that in the original UK home base. However, for the last three completed financial years, losses have been booked and significant changes have been made or were planned at the time of writing. Some changes were inevitable, but which were they （other than those where the Chinese government changed its rules）？