International Activities of Canadian Librarians

Guest editorial for themed issue on international activities of Canadian librarians.

International volunteers at a Costa Rican organic farm : sheepish volunteers, proud tourists and unwitting developers

This thesis analyzes the practices and experiences of two groups of Canadian volunteers who visited the organic fanning and "alternative development" project ofFinca la Flor (FLF) in central Costa Rica. Using both participant observation and in-depth interviews with volunteers and other people involved with FLF, I examine volunteers' understandings of their involvement with the fann. I argue that three discursive fonnations are instrumental in shaping this particular volunteering encounter. Specifically, interpretation of these Canadian volunteers' experiences inspires the argument that the emerging practice of international volunteering (or voluntourism) exists at the intersection of discourses of development, volunteering and tourism, all of which both reflect and maintain problematic North-South relationships. The analysis shows that in spite ofFLF's construction as an (alternative / sustainable) international-development project, and in spite of volunteers' initial conceptualization of their trip as "volunteering," volunteers tend to act and describe their time at FLF in ways that look more like tourism than like volunteer labor or international development. Likewise, although FLF claims to principally be focused on alternative development, and merely to open up this authentic development space to volunteers for their participation, the organization in both practice and discourse seems primarily to construct a tourist experience and cater to the needs of foreigners as tourists. Discourses of development and volunteering do infonn the practices offann personnel and volunteers at FLF, but they become subordinated to the more dominant discourse of tourism as the volunteers' and fann management's ideals of development and volunteering capitulate to become focused on satisfying volunteers' (perceived or "real") touristic desires. The FLF participants I studied may have entered the encounter as volunteers, but they departed the site having been tourists.

Drivers of Local Firms’ Focus on Internal R&D in Emerging Economies and Their International Performance

Grounded on the resource-based view of the firm, the study of this thesis investigates the effect of four internal and external factors – engineer intensity, location, affiliation with the government, government funding – on Chinese firms’ decision to either invest in internal R&D activities or external R&D and the effect of this decision on the firms’ international market success. In addition, the moderating role of the presence of foreign firms in China is examined. To understand these relationships, the thesis’ theorization focuses on the issue of how firms can combine optimally the two options – “internal R&D” and “external R&D”. In this regard I juxtapose internal R&D and external R&D and compare their advantages and disadvantages. To test my model, I apply panel data from the Annual Industrial Survey Database provided by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics. My results show that three of the four investigated factors affect Chinese firms’ resource allocation decisions; and effective resource allocation decisions lead effectively to international market success, strengthened by the presence of foreign firms in China. Moreover the findings bear several theoretical and managerial contributions. First I propose the last dimension of the “VRIO framework” – “organization” – as an endogenous component of the VRIO framework, as my study investigated how firms can effectively combine resources to generate a competitive advantage in terms of international market success. Previous academic literature so far focused on examining whether internal and external R&D are complements or substitutes. My study fills a gap in the literature by investigating the determinants of the efficient combination of the two strategies and the outcome of the combination. One of the managerial implications is that Chinese firms can learn from foreign companies that are present in China.