Innovation is crucial to managing ever‐increasing environmental complexity. Creativity is the first stage of the innovation process and is particularly relevant in modern new product development (NPD) projects. In response to a call for further empirical research on collective creative performance combining individual and team levels in a comprehensive framework, this paper offers useful evidence for the design of NPD teams to foster creative performance. The results suggest that different sets of individual traits and collective processes combine and interact, enabling a similar level of creative performance from different configurations of individual and team “ingredients.” There are no consistently good‐quality or poor‐quality NPD teams or processes. However, equifinal configurations—based on team composition, and interpersonal, coordination, control, and diversity management processes—can be effective in producing creative products. Through a large‐scale study of 119 teams of students involved in an NPD activity, this paper contributes by expanding creativity and NPD team design literature, providing the basis for a “first right” approach to real‐world, in‐company research. It first proposes and tests the adoption of the configurational equifinality approach in the NPD team design domain, introducing the concept of complementarities among different types of “team ingredients,” both at the individual and team level. Second, it introduces different multidimensional measures of team creative performance, relevant to generalizing and comparing the research results. Third, it offers several guidelines for designing real‐world NPD teams through the combination of diversity and interpersonal management, as well as coordination and control processes, which have not been studied to any great extent but are at times controversial in creativity literature.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to address the internationalization of Russian multinationals by critically challenging existing assumptions about "springboard" foreign market selection by emerging market firms. Design/methodology/approach -The authors studied foreign market selection decisions for 497 international merger and acquisition (M&A) and joint venture ( JV) deals completed by Russian multinational enterprises (MNEs) between 1997 and 2009. The statistical model tests the impact of the geographic, political and economic distances of the host country from Russia on Russian MNEs' foreign market selection decisions. Findings -Contrary to existing assumptions, the host country's geographic closeness to Russia, and its being an ex-USSR republic or a tax haven, positively affected the country's probability of attracting an M&A or JV deal by a Russian MNE, while the similar level of economic development did not significantly influence the MNEs' foreign market selection decisions. The patterns of significance among the explanatory variables vary for Russian MNEs operating in the natural resources industries. Research limitations/implications -Further studies may extend the observation period, enlarge the database with Greenfield and export deals by Russian MNEs, and add cross-country cultural distances to the explanatory variables. Practical implications -Russian managers should consider the "distances" that might influence firms' foreign investment decisions. This paper also allows host country governments willing to formulate policies aimed at the attraction of Russian outward foreign direct investments to obtain a better understanding of Russian MNEs' international strategies. Originality/value -One of the few quantitative studies on the topic, this research suggests that Russian MNEs choose their own means of foreign market selection, combining gradual and leapfrog approaches to internationalization.

PurposeWith reference to IAS/IFRS, the purpose of this paper is to examine the value relevance of the two amortised cost/fair value measurement methods applied to loans, and test whether loan fair values are an incremental explanatory factor for a bank's stock price, beyond that provided by loan book values.Design/methodology/approachThe value relevance of 83 European banks from 2005‐2008 is analyzed. The authors employ a regression model in which the stock price (dependent variable) is related to accounting variables typically affecting the firms' market value (book value and earnings).FindingsBook values and earnings affect banks' market values. Investors appreciate the difference between loan book and fair values, and attribute to this difference an expected negative value. Furthermore, the control variable for banks headquartered in countries most affected by the financial crisis proves to be strongly significant as the crisis dummy variable itself.Research limitations/implicationsThe results have important implications for bank managers, who should consider the importance that financial markets attribute to loan fair values. There are also implications for regulators and standard setters, though these are less obvious.Originality/valueThis is the first study on the explanatory power of loan fair values in Europe. It addresses loan fair values, and the European market, while previous literature has mainly concerned the US market. In addition, the authors use an original dataset containing information on the loan fair values of European banks during a timeframe which covers both pre‐crisis and crisis periods.

A domestic credit insurance contract is a policy that covers the risk of the nonpayment of future commercial credit as a result of the failure to pay within the agreed terms and conditions (protracted default) or the insolvency of the buyer. To evaluate the effective level of financial protection offered by trade credit policies, we collected a database of contracts issued between 2006 and 2013 by a number of Italian insurance companies, which account for 80-85% of the Italian market. We find that, to be considered as able to mitigate credit risk, the policies must have their contract clauses changed. In that case, such a policy, if accepted by the supervisory authority, could permit banks to reduce the capital requirement connected with the discount of trade credits. These results are particularly important for insurance companies.

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