Dr. Carl F. Fey is a Professor of Strategy at BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway which he joined in September 2022. Fey was a Professor of International Business at Aalto University School of Business in Helsinki, Finland from January, 2016 to August, 2022. Fey was Dean and Director of Executive Education at Nottingham University Business School China from 2011-2015. The profile of Nottingham University Business School China increased significantly during Professor Fey’s tenure as Dean helped by developing a focus around the three Is of International, Innovative, and Interactive and a big move to faculty development and interactive teaching. From 1997-2011 Fey was an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and then Full Professor of International Business at Stockholm School of Economics where among other things he helped start and lead the development of a branch campus in Russia which became one of the top two players in Russia for EMBAs and executive education on which it focused. Fey is an elected fellow of the Academy of International Business and is recipient of the 2013 Journal of International Business Studies Decade Award which is an award given for the article published one decade ago which has had the largest influence on the field of international business.
Fey is an expert in international business, innovation, leadership, knowledge transfer, organizational culture, virtual work, internationalization, and international mergers and acquisitions. Professor Fey’s work helps firms to understand which management practices can help increase organizational effectiveness in today’s increasingly dynamic and international world taking into account the future of work and cultural/institutional differences between countries. This culture-specific management practice fine-tuning provides companies a competitive edge. Professor Fey has a special interest in understanding what works well in China and other large transforming economies. Fey is an highly sought-after executive educator and public speaker and also frequently in the media trying to have his research have broader impact. For example, see Fey on CGTN's business/economics talkshow talking about his innovation research at: https://www.cgtn.com/tv/replay?id=BECAAAA
In response to the increasing uncertainty and rapid change around them, firms are looking to implement new management methods to become more flexible and less hierarchical. One of the most popular of these methods is agile, which aims for reactiveness, collaboration, decentralized decision-making, and increased autonomy. However, agile was designed to work best with teams where members are co-located, whereas during the COVID-19 pandemic and likely in the post-COVID world, many employees are working remotely from home at least part of the time. We explore how to adapt agile to remote work, drawing from an in-depth case study of OP Financial Group, the largest bank in Finland. We highlight five problems and solutions to implementing agile in a remote setting and discuss the situations and types of teams in which the different aspects of remote agile are likely to work and not work. Our findings provide guidance for companies looking to become agile in “the new normal.”
Fey, Carl; Xu, Tianyou & Delios, Andrew (2023)
Why should we care about effect size and how to measure and communicate it in management research.
The measurement and communication of the effect size of an independent variable on a dependent variable is critical to effective statistical analysis in the Social Sciences. We develop ideas about how to extend traditional methods of evaluating relationships in multivariate models to explain and illustrate the statistical power of a focal independent variable. Even with a growing acceptance of the need to report effect sizes, scholars in the management community have few well-established protocols or guidelines for reporting effect sizes. In this editorial essay, we: (1) review the necessity of reporting effect sizes; (2) discuss commonly used measures of effect size and accepted cut-offs for large, medium, and small effect sizes; (3) recommend standards for reporting effect sizes via verbal descriptions and graphical presentations; and (4) present best practice examples of reporting and discussing effect size. In summary, we provide guidance for authors on how to report and interpret effect sizes, advocating for rigor and completeness in statistical analysis
Outila, Virpi & Fey, Carl F. (2022)
We have performance appraisal every day and every hour”: Transferring performance management to Russia.
Performance management (PM) of employees is an important established practice in multinational corporations (MNC) and therefore one of the key practices to be transferred to subsidiaries. In this study, we use the concept of institutional logics to show how Russian employees experience PM practices that are based on the institutional logic of a Finnish MNC which is contradictory to the one prevailing in Russia where the subsidiaries operate. Our findings contribute to the practice transfer and PM literature by showing how the Russian subsidiaries responded to competing institutional logics by consciously selecting certain elements from each logic, demonstrating “institutional bricolage”, to address both the headquarter's (HQ) requirements and the fast pace of change and uncertainties in an emerging post-Soviet market. Our study also enhances the international business (IB) literature by using the concept of institutional logics in IB and international management (IM) research, where it has been infrequently used.
Tinits, Priit & Fey, Carl F. (2022)
The effects of timing and order of government support mechanisms for SME exports.
When small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) enter export markets, they face liabilities of smallness and foreignness. Their chances of success increase if they receive some support. Thus, many governments provide some export support for SMEs having realized that success in exports helps firm success and creates positive spillovers. We test the efficacy of three such support mechanisms: support for strategic export planning, support for trade fair participation and participation in ministerial visits and compare their relative results in various “time dimensions” (Jones & Coviello, J Int Bus Stud 36(3):284–303, 2005). Unlike past studies, we go beyond testing the effect of one support mechanism and compare the effect of the above different support mechanisms. We also show the importance of considering different dimensions of time – chronological “clock” time, “stopwatch” reference time, time sequence, and effect length time. We found evidence for the benefit of receiving multiple support mechanisms and we explored the sequence of receiving multiple support mechanisms. More specifically, our results suggest that exports are best facilitated by first receiving support to attend a trade fair, then developing an export plan; and then participating a ministerial visit abroad. Also, our study suggests that effect length is an important, previously ignored, dimension of time to consider. Empirically, hypotheses are tested on a longitudinal data set of Estonian SMEs receiving different types of government export support during 2009–2017. The data set was constructed from registry data covering the entire population of Estonian firms.
Fey, Carl F. (2022)
A Perspective on the Potential of Chinese Business Schools: A Call for Greater Attention to Context, Differentiation, and Developing an Indigenous Model
Chinese business schools have made impressive progress in improving their quality, but there is still room for improvement. However, they have improved largely by copying the traditional American model of business education at a time when this model is coming under increasing critique for good reasons, including placing great effort on producing much rigorously conducted research, which makes little practical impact. Thus, having learned much from foreign business schools, the time has come for Chinese business schools to be bold and pursue their own model. Such a model should focus more on research that pays increased attention to context, including indigenous research, and is of greater practical relevance. Furthermore, given ongoing change inside Chinese business schools and in their external environment, it may be easier to make needed changes in China. Regarding teaching, business schools are encouraged to move beyond a focus on teaching content well to teaching content in ways that it can be readily applied; do more to develop understanding of how to leverage modern technologies like AI, big data, internet of things, and digitalization; focus more on adjusting teaching to the local context; and focus more on developing innovation/creativity and analytical ability, rather than memorization of facts.
Kwok, Chuck C. Y.; Grosse, Robert, Fey, Carl & Lyles, Marjorie A. (2022)
The 2020 AIB curriculum survey: The state of internationalization students, faculty, and programs
Twenty years after the prior survey, the seventh international business curriculum survey was conducted in 2020 under the sponsorship of the Academy of International Business (AIB) and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). This paper reports the survey’s findings and makes relevant comparisons with the results of the two previous curriculum surveys. This study is not only an update but also explores new directions of international business (IB) integration into the business schools’ programs. Although the percentage of matrix structures and separate IB departments is higher in the 2020 survey than earlier, the majority of IB faculty are still scattered across functional departments without IB recognition. Essentially, with few exceptions, we found that European schools are consistently more international than their counterparts elsewhere. Business school deans also consider experiential learning very effective in equipping students with IB knowledge and are generally quite satisfied with the overall progress of their internationalization efforts. The survey findings contribute to understanding how IB is integrated into business schools and offer insights for identifying future opportunities.
Fey, Carl F.; Xu, Xiaoshi & Birkinshaw, Julian (2022)
The ambidextrous nature of management practices which drive innovation: Comparative evidence from Finland and China.
[Academic lecture]. European Academy of International Business Conference.
Akademisk grad
År
Akademisk institusjon
Grad
1997
Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario