Search results for "Business operations"
showing 4 items of 14 documents
Smart ICT Support for Business Networks
2005
Modern companies lean increasingly towards innovating and renewing their business operations in a more value-adding and customer-centric direction. As a prerequisite to this, a number of companies are willing to combine their knowledge and resources, for instance by forming strategic alliances supported by a mixture of open ICT infrastructure and proprietary and interoperable ICT applications. This study examines a network of three focal companies that are seeking cost-efficient expansion of their services. As the potential market for these complex customer services is worldwide, the objective is expected to be met only with the help of ICT. Furthermore, the view among the companies is rela…
Racism and ethics in the globalized business world
2002
This paper analyzes the concept of racism in the context of business ethics and globalization. It first introduces three ethical traditions to understand moral issues in business: deontological, utilitarian and virtue ethics. Then it discusses about the challenges and demands that globalization has set to multicultural and multinational business operations. Third, it clarifies how racism works when it is understood as an ideology‐based phenomenon. It argues that there is a great value of knowing how racism works for the development of an anti‐racist and nondiscriminating organization. Although any of the three traditions on ethical thinking does not give direct answer to the question of how…
Exploring the Anatomy of Franchising: A Cross-National Examination of US and Finnish Franchise Contract Provisions
2004
The present study focuses on describing and comparing the provisions of the franchise contracts and pre-sale disclosures to prospective franchisees in the USA and Finland. A fact that makes the investigation especially interesting is that no franchising specific legislation exists in Finland. Whereas in the USA franchisors are by a directive of the Federal Trade Commission required to publicly disclose key information on their franchise systems. The information is of paramount importance for potential franchisees who need to analyze franchise offering(s) before their buying decision. Two separate samples were developed for the study. The member franchisors of the International Franchise Ass…
Distance Factors in the Foreign Market Entry of Software SMEs
2010
Recent studies have indicated that the internationalization process of software SMEs is somewhat independent on the effect of psychic or geographic distance. However, these studies have analyzed the general pattern of entries where software SMEs not commonly follow a step-wise entry route from nearby countries to distant ones. Thus, it remains unknown what the effect of psychic and geographical distance is when these firms enter a distant foreign market. The findings in this case study reveal that psychic and geographic distance inhibited the foreign market entry of software SMEs. However, the distant foreign market entry of these firms was facilitated by distance-bridging and distance-comp…