Word from the editor

This new issue of Management international (Mi) is comprised of eleven articles selected according to the review’s customarily rigorous submission evaluation process, translating in turn the commitment and professionalism of our cohort of more than 30 reviewers, to whom we are eternally grateful. Reflecting the great diversity of themes that international management academia addresses nowadays, the issue transcends more traditional items such as international finance and cooperative networks analysis to cover a host of new topics, including territorial entrepreneurship, early and rapid internationalising firms, participatory design’s usefulness in improving public services quality, the organisation of multi-member cooperatives and the impacts of artificial intelligence. We are confident that readers will thoroughly enjoy exploring all these highly enriching topics!

Synopses of articles featuring in this issue.

In “Does participatory design thinking create significant and sustainable public value? The case of the Lezoux media library”, Pascal Arnaud notes the incompleteness - in public value creation terms - of existing literature relating to the design-driven effects of public service methods, such as the latter are currently being conceptualised. The author uses the example of a cultural services department operating within a local authority comprised of rural communities to test the SERVQUAL model as well as the public marketing concepts that are associated with it. He then goes on to discuss what happens when a participatory design thinking methodology is applied, discovering that the end result has been a significant and lasting increase in the department’s perceived helpfulness, social cohesion and democratic character.

Camille Henrion’s article “The role of a meta-organiser in territorial entrepreneurship” starts by noting the proliferation of local initiatives where public, private and civil society actors leverage territorial resources and in so doing drive these spaces’ development in job creation, transition and resilience terms – a phenomenon that the Banque des Territoires (2017) calls “territorial entrepreneurship”. The article analyses the structuring of a meta-organiser whose goal is to create an environment lending itself to such outcomes. This is a key function, at least theoretically, although deeper analysis reveals that it also suffers from practical limitations. The mismatch between funding and managerial frameworks, on one hand, and the function’s deployment by a SCIC investment unit, on the other, creates both the kinds of cooperation problems that often arise when multiple independent organisations interact as well as consequential psychosocial risks. The article concludes by discussing the issues at stake whenever a function of this nature is being professionalised.

Roula Masou and Sandrine Fournier’s article “Non-permanent teachers: Integration challenges in French universities” mobilises a survey of visiting lecturers to discuss the strategic issues that precariousness creates in a French university context. As per a qualitative methodology, data was collected via participant observation, semi-structured interviews and an online questionnaire. The findings make it possible to characterise the challenges encountered by non-permanent teaching staff members, expressed in terms of their subjectivity, professional relationships and organisational involvement. The ensuing discussion refocuses on the fragility as well as the personal and professional injustices suffered by individuals in such situations, intimating a need for new managerial practice within universities.

Pierre-Louis Meuric and Véronique Favre-Bonté’s article “Growth factors for early and rapid internationalsing firms” starts by noting the numerous constraints that weigh on fast-growing internationalised organisations, justifying in turn the scientific utility of applying a Dynamic Capabilities approach, if only because it is better placed to account for the cross-border trajectories of companies seeking to operate in uncertain and dynamic markets. The article uses eight case studies to develop a micro-foundation-based modeling capable of apprehending the reasons why certain companies experience rapid international growth.

In their article “Organisational and managerial innovation in French inter-municipalities: adaptation vs. anticipation strategies”, Jérôme Dupuis and Antoine Masingue start by observing the radical changes that often affect the frameworks within which French local authorities (and particularly inter-municipalities) intervene. The variety of responses that the authors discover – some entailing real organisational and managerial innovation – need to be qualified, understood and measured as regards their impacts. The article relies on findings from both a quantitative survey and a qualitative investigation to offer early analysis of these dimensions such as they apply to a regional sample comprised of joint municipal authorities. The goal here is to better apprehend the definitions, contours and factors that are specifically relevant to such innovations in singular institutional and territorial entities of this nature.

Ghassen Bouslama and Hamadou Boubacar’s article “Internationalisation and bank financing of French SMEs” examines the effects of the former variable on the latter via an empirical study of the consequences of export-based vs. subsidiary-based internationalisation in terms of smaller French companies’ debt funding by banks. It discovers that export-oriented SMEs find it harder to negotiate bank loans that ones running overseas subsidiaries; that SMEs’ export intensity correlates negatively with their bank debt ratios; but that foreign subsidiaries’ geographic proximity to parent companies correlates positively with such ratios. The article concludes with the suggestion that each type of internationalisation is associated with a different type of funding behaviour.

Karim Messeghem, Christina Theodoraki and Elias Carayannis’s article “For a sub-ecosystem-oriented modeling of entrepreneurial ecosystems: benefits of an adaptive complex system approach” notes that notwithstanding the rapid development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) construct, literature in this domain still lacks the requisite theoretical and methodological frameworks. The paper addresses this problem by proposing a dynamic sub-ecosystem-oriented modeling that enriches existing adaptive complex systems literature by introducing Simon’s quasi-decomposability and redundancy principles, essentially revisiting the EE construct by using an analytical grid that combines structural and dynamic attributes. It is an exploratory and illustrative empirical study which demonstrates the contributions that sub-ecosystems and their interactions have made to entrepreneurial dynamics in France’s Montpellier region. The article reinforces the theorisation of EE while formulating recommendations which policy makers looking to design an entrepreneurship policy might find highly useful.

In “Governance in Africa’s Metropolises: A Study of Stakeholder Influence”, the research that nassim guennaz presents materialises in a local public action network context. The focus here is on collective decision-making involving multi-stakeholder participation. An integrative theoretical framework is developed using a literature review that identifies the attributes of different interested parties who may wish to influence collective decisions. The article’s empirical section mobilises a case study of three districts in the Algiers municipal area. The findings both call for a redefinition of interested parties’ attributes and explain their impacts on deliberation processes.

Olivier Toutain, Rachid Jabbouri and Yann Truong’s paper “Artificial Intelligence and the transformation of management education” seeks to develop a conceptual framework capable of examining the potential effects that artificial intelligence (AI) and its associated technologies exert on five dimensions of management education. Analysing the mission statements of 785 educational technology startups, the authors identify five mechanisms by means of which AI can benefit and transform the field of management education in a post-COVID-19 world. The study is one of the first to propose a global theoretical framework that enhances understanding of disruptive technology’s impact on both higher education (a traditional and largely unchanging world) and, more specifically, management education.

Benjamin Dubrion, Jean-Yves Juban and Francesca Petrella’s “Bringing organisational common purpose to life: the case of French multi-member cooperatives” analyses the extent to which multi-member cooperatives regulate the behaviour of a plurality of stakeholders in relation to a common project. The study applies a perspective first found in the theoretical framework that Barnard developed in 1938, focusing on the construct of common purpose. The authors study four French multi-member cooperatives, demonstrating that common purpose is not something which can be decreed but that instead builds up over time. Their findings both question the roles that employees fulfil in such structures and highlight the utility of an analytical grid extrapolated from current literature relating to cooperation within multi-member cooperatives.

Mireille Héral’s contribution “Intermediation on the part of internationalisation ecosystem support actors” starts with the observation that SMEs seeking to internationalise need to develop and maintain an international interorganisational network – the purpose being to ascertain how internationalisation support ecosystems (IES) affect SMEs’ overseas interorganisational networks. The study, which is rooted in social network theory and mobilises 30 interviews with IES and SME stakeholders, contributes to EE studies by offering an in-depth analysis of the connection and mediation actions underlying such ecosystems. It also enriches international support studies by explaining the processes, instruments and levers that can be used to help SMEs develop and maintain their interorganisational internationalisation networks.