The business systems approach holds considerable promise for improving our understanding of the relations between societal institutions and technological and economic outcomes. Nonetheless, there have been surprisingly few attempts to validate its proposed typology of business system types. In this paper, I take up this issue and conduct a large-scale empirical assessment of the national business systems typology. I use data on 30 OECD countries from 2000 and 2011 to assess the validity of the typology, and explore its value for comparative institutional analysis through a fuzzy-set analysis of innovation specialization patterns. The findings illustrate that while the national business systems typology needs to be extended, it remains relevant for describing variety in national institutional frameworks. In addition, the detail it adds may provide the nuance needed for exploring more complex relations between institutions and technological and economic outcomes.

Absorptive capacity is frequently highlighted as a key determinant of knowledge transfer within MNEs. But how individual behaviour translates into absorptive capacity at the subsidiary level, and exactly how this is contingent on subsidiaries' social context, remains under-addressed. This not only limits our understanding of the relationship between individual and organizational level absorptive capacity, it also hampers further research on potentially relevant managerial and organizational antecedents, and limits the implications we can draw for practitioners that seek to increase their organization's capacity to put new knowledge to use. To address this shortcoming we conduct an in-depth comparative case study of a headquarters-initiated knowledge transfer initiative at two subsidiaries of the same MNE. The findings demonstrate that social interaction is a prerequisite for subsidiary absorptive capacity as it enables employees to participate in the transformation of new knowledge to the local context and the development of local applications. Second, the findings illustrate how organizational conditions at the subsidiary level can impact subsidiary absorptive capacity by enabling or constraining local interaction patterns. These insights contribute to the absorptive capacity literature by demonstrating the scale and scope of social interaction as a key link between individual-and organizational-level absorptive capacity.

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Abstract. Despite the interest in issues of knowing and learning in the global strategy field, there has been limited mutual engagement and interaction between the fields of global strategy and organizational learning. The purpose of our article is to reflect on and articulate how the mutual exchange of ideas between both fields can be encouraged. To this end, we first conduct a review of the intersection of the fields of global strategy and organizational learning. We then present two recommendations regarding how the interaction between the two fields can be enhanced. Our first recommendation is for global strategy research to adopt a broader notion of organizational learning. Our second recommendation is for global strategy research to capitalize on its attention to context in order to inform and enhance organizational learning theory. We discuss the use of context in a number of common research designs, and highlight how the scope for theoretical contributions back to organizational learning varies with the research design that is adopted.

Formatted: Swedish Sweden 2 PRACTICE TRANSFER IN MNES AS THE SOCIALLY EMBEDDED TRANSLATION OF PRACTICES ABSTRACTPurpose -With a few exceptions the mainstream literature on learning in MNEs has shown little concern for the transformational nature and the social constitution of learning. We address this gab by drawing on Scandinavian institutionalism, social learning perspectives and comparative institutionalism.Design/methodology/approach -A comparative case study was conducted of two subsidiaries of the same MNE. The subsidiaries received similar practices from HQ but displayed contrasting learning outcomes.Findings -It is shown that learning outcomes differed based on the varying extent to which practices were translated, which depends on the participation of local actors. The difference in participation pattern in turn is rooted in differences in the institutional context of the two subsidiaries. Originality/value -This paper highlights that MNE practice transfer rests on the translation of the practice content to the local context, and that subsidiary-level learning processes may be institutionally embedded thus establishing a link between subsidiary learning and the macro-level context. As such, this paper both illustrates the value of social learning perspectives and highlights the relevance of the work of institutionalists for understanding MNE learning processes. Research limitations/implications

Recently, the state and future of organization theory have been widely debated. In this Perspectives issue, we aim to contribute to these debates by suggesting that organizational scholarship may benefit from greater understanding and consideration of societal institutions and their effects on the collective organizing of work. We also illustrate that the literature on comparative institutionalism, a strand of institutional thought with a rich tradition within Organization Studies, provides useful insights into these relations. We highlight several of these insights and briefly introduce the articles collected in the associated Perspectives issue of Organization Studies on comparative institutionalism 1 . We end with a call for greater cross-fertilization between comparative institutionalism and organization theory at large. Keywords comparative institutionalism, organization theory, organization studiesOrganization Studies: An international multidisciplinary journal devoted to the study of organizations, organizing, and the organized in and between societies -The dedication of Organization StudiesIf both research output and critical reflection are necessary requirements for a vibrant academic community, then the field of organization theory is in very good shape. The number of papers submitted to our journals and conferences continues to rise every year, and discussions in a variety of

Practice-based studies have progressed thinking in the knowledge, learning and innovation field by emphasizing the continual negotiation of social structures and meaning through participation.Yet only a few contributions discuss how participation and learning are affected by broader structures. This is an inconsistency in the understanding of 'situated' learning where learning through participation is restricted to the immediate community involved in a social activity. We aim to address this inconsistency by investigating the effects of the interplay between institutional and organizational structures on patterns of participation and, in turn, learning outcomes. We develop a framework of situated learning in MNEs, and explore its value through a comparative case study of the introduction of new practices in four subsidiaries of two MNEs in two contrasting national institutional systems. Our case findings suggest that while the interplay between institutional context and organizational structure indeed matters, it does not determine collective participation and situated learning as actors can actively create solutions when structural conditions and institutional demands are less aligned. ' (Contu and Willmott, 2003: 294) Keywords

We examine how recruiting managers cope with communal norms and expectations of favoritism during recruitment and selection processes. Combining insights from institutional theory and network research, we develop a communal perspective on favoritism that presents favoritism as a social expectation to be managed. We subsequently hypothesize that the communal ties between job applicants and managers affect the strategies that managers employ to cope with this expectation. We test these ideas using a factorial survey of the effects of clan ties on recruitment and selection processes in Kazakhstan. The results confirm communal ties as antecedents to the strategies managers use to cope with communal favoritism. Surprisingly, the results also show that these coping strategies are relatively decoupled from managers' recruitment decisions. The findings contribute to favoritism research by drawing attention to the mitigating work of managers in societies in which favoritism is common.