Björn Ambos
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Prof. Ph.D.
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Ambos
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Björn
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bjoern.ambos@unisg.ch
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+41 71 224 7610
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Publication

The nature of innovation in global value chains

2021 , Ambos, Björn , Brandl, Kristin , Perri, Alessandra , Scalera, Vittoria G. , Van Assche, Ari

Global value chains (GVCs) have revolutionized production processes and many companies no longer produce goods and services entirely in one single country or within their own organizational boundaries. Through off- shoring and outsourcing, value chains are sliced up and activities are dispersed to locations and actors where they can be produced or executed most efficiently. The fine slicing of GVCs also implies that innovation activities can be geographically dispersed and separated from other GVC activities. However, there have been inconsistent arguments on the impact of this dispersion on innovations and on the effect of innovations on GVC activities, as research on the topic has been sporadic, inconclusive, and fragmented. Thus, this paper conceptually discusses the nature of innovation in GVCs by reviewing literature and raises important questions that should be addressed. It also outlines a variety of possible research directions and future research foci that can and should be taken to develop the field.

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Understanding the Formation of Psychic Distance Perceptions: Are Country-level or Individual-level Factors more Important?

2019-08 , Ambos, Björn , Leicht-Deobald, Ulrich , Leinemann, Alexander

This study investigates individual managers’ formation of psychic distance perceptions to foreign countries. Adopting a social psychological perspective, we propose three social-cognitive mechanisms - social comparison, mere exposure, and social learning - to help explain why and how country- and individual-level characteristics affect the formation of such perceptions. Based on an international survey of 1,591 managers located in 25 countries, we find that country-specific international experience, formal education, and a match between a managers’ first language and the language of the target country reduce psychic distance perceptions. Surprisingly, and in contrast to conventional wisdom, managers’ international and overall work experiences do not seem to have any effect on their distance perceptions. However, relative to country-level factors, individual-level antecedents seem to have rather limited explanatory power as predictors of overall psychic distance perceptions, lending support to the widely-employed practice of operationalizing psychic distances through country level indicators. In addition to these empirical findings, the study contributes by providing a theoretical social psychological framework for the understanding of how psychic distance perceptions are formed.

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THE ANTIDOTE TO ENVY? – THE ROLE OF SOCIALIZATION IN ALLEVIATING THE NEGATIVE INFLUENCE OF ENVY IN HEADQUARTERS-SUBUNIT ALIGNMENT

2017-10-29 , Zobel, Nina , Ambos, Björn

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