对外直接投资与企业生产率——基于中国上市公司的实证分析

文章先利用K-S检验研究中国制造类上市公司的全要素生产率分布,结果与HMY模型的预期一致,对外直接投资企业的全要素生产率分布显著优于出口企业和仅在国内生产销售的企业。进一步探讨对外直接投资与生产率的关系,结果表明,企业在进行对外直接投资时不存在显著的自我选择效应,但是,对外直接投资能够促进企业生产率的提高,具有学习效应。     

Do Domestic Firms Benefit from Foreign Presence and Import Competition in Irish Services Sectors?

This paper examines whether domestic firms benefit from the pro‐competitive effects of imports from abroad and from the presence of foreign‐owned firms in the host country in three Irish market‐services sectors between 2001 and 2007. Grouping the three sectors together masks opposing effects in individual sectors. Where significant, the effect of foreign presence on domestic firms tends to be negative, this is mainly the case in wholesale and retail trade. Despite it being of lesser importance than foreign presence in these sectors, import competition from abroad is negatively associated with domestic firms' productivity in wholesale and retail trade, but positively in transport, storage and communication. There is no significant effect of foreign presence or import competition in real estate, rental and business activities. Using capital‐labour ratios as an input‐based indicator related to productivity suggests that domestic firms adapt to increased foreign competition by adjusting their inputs.     

外资冲击下的中国零售企业发展对策研究

自从中国取消了对外资零售业在地域、股权和数量等方面的限制后,以沃尔玛、家乐福等国际零售业巨头为代表的大型连锁超市蜂拥而至,对国内本土零售业造成了巨大冲击。外资零售业对我国零售业态的改革起到一定促进作用,增加了我国居民的就业就会,但同时也严重挤占了我国本土零售企业的发展空间,导致我国国内零售业地区分布进一步失衡。为应对外资造成的冲击,我国应培育本土大型零售业,营造公平竞争的市场环境,向中小城市、中西部及广大农村推进,大力提高物流配送水平。     

The impact of FDI on the performance and entrepreneurship of domestic firms

This paper examines how foreign direct investments influence the performance and entrepreneurship of domestic firms, a crucial question for economies driven by incursion of exogenous factors and especially transition economies. The intent is to investigate the way foreign direct investments shape the capabilities of domestic firms; hence, for this purpose, we take Macedonia, a Southeast European economy, as a case study. We find that (i) foreign ownership has helped restructure and enhance the productivity of domestic firms, (ii) FDI has positive influence in reinforcing the creation of new firms, and (iii) in line with the established literature, a foreign investment is likely to influence the job seeker to get employed rather to start their own business. Overall, the results confirm the influence of foreign firms in assisting entrepreneurial activity. The impact of foreign investment is, in general, positive and tends to influence the restructuring process of domestic enterprises.     

The Impact of Firm Capabilities and Competitive Advantages on Import Intermediary Performance

ABSTRACT

Import intermediary firms, domestic firms that serve U.S. industries by linking domestic wholesalers/retailers and foreign distributors/manufacturers, handled a whopping U.S. $1.85 trillion of commodity good imports in 2006. This study focused on these important firms by assessing the role of capabilities and competitive advantages as key determinants of import intermediary performance. The empirical results showed that market interpretation, sourcing, and service capabilities, overall, positively affected cost, product, and service competitive advantages. These competitive advantages, in turn, positively affected their relationship performance with business partners. Results, however, also indicated some interesting negative associations among sourcing capabilities, service advantages, and relationship performance with foreign partners, raising questions about extant firm performance theory.     

Competing to be innovative: Foreign competition and imitative innovation of emerging economy firms

We examine the effect of increased competitive pressures within and outside the home market on the innovation of local firms. We argue that the relationship between exposure to foreign competition in domestic and international markets and firm innovation is better captured by imitative innovation than by radical innovation. We hypothesize that exposure to foreign competition inside and outside the home country is positively associated with local firms’ imitative innovation. Further, we argue that this relationship is contingent on institutional factors, including the role of the government, the legal system, and natural resource endowment. Using a dataset of 949 firm-year observations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, we find empirical support for the positive impact of competitive pressure on imitative innovation.     

Achieving sustained competitive advantage in retail and consumer service firms: The role of entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial bricolage

The vital role of entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial bricolage in creating sustained competitive advantage in retail and consumer service firms is increasingly acknowledged in modern markets. Using data from 246 retail and consumer service firms (hereafter R&CSFs) in Japan, this paper develops and empirically tests a framework delineating how entrepreneurial-oriented R&CSFs strategically combine existing resources while managing risks to differentiate their service portfolios to be competitive. The findings reveal that entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial bricolage influence differentiation advantage and risk management, which, in turn, is associated with creating a sustained competitive advantage (hereafter SCA). This paper adds novel insights to the dynamic capabilities view and retail and service marketing literature by identifying entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial bricolage, and risk management as dynamic capabilities, which allows R&CSFs to create service innovations in resource-constrained environments.     

Traces of foreign retailers – local knowledge-spillovers and strategy adaption within retail internationalization

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s certain retail companies have evolved into some of the largest and most dispersed transnational corporations worldwide. However, within the ‘new era of retail distribution’ retailers are increasingly divesting from foreign markets. This study addresses these recent and under-explored dynamics by revealing the traces transnational retail corporations leave after divesting from a country. It explores the aspect of learning of host market retailers from entering transnational corporations (TNCs) and examines how foreign knowledge is adjusted in the business strategies of these local actors. It takes a fresh empirical slant using qualitative interviews with host market retail managers including former TNCs’ subsidiaries operating under domestic ownership. The emerging economy of Turkey serves as an empirical example. The paper finds that foreign retailers transfer firm-specific resources to the local retail through (1) demonstration and imitation, (2) vertical linkages with suppliers, (3) joint ventures and acquisitions, and (4) labor turnover of TNC trained staff. Certain successful local companies adjust the foreign knowledge based on their local knowledge and strengths, their high level of flexibility and deep territorial embeddedness, and create ‘hybrid’ business strategies. These findings suggest that dynamic capabilities are crucial to successful retailing in an international competitive environment. TNC managers should work with local staff in partnerships of equals and managers of locally operating companies should incorporate new knowledge by hiring TNC trained staff.     

How do local and foreign firms compete? Competitive actions in an emerging economy

When foreign and local firms compete, they face competitors acting quite differently from themselves. Specifically, their ability to engage in timely and frequent actions is influenced by, respectively, the Liability of Foreignness (LoF) and the Liability of Localness (LoL). We explore how the trade-off between LoF and LoL influences the aggressiveness of competitive actions firms take in emerging markets. Specifically, we argue that LoF results in weaker government ties that inhibit the aggressiveness of competitive actions of multinational subsidiaries, while LoL results in weaker technological capabilities that inhibit competitive aggressiveness of domestic firms. We apply structural equation modelling on Chinese survey data to test hypotheses derived from these arguments and find empirical support. Our results shed new light on competitive dynamics in an emerging economy.     

Efficiency and Ownership Structure: The Case of Poland

We examine the effects of foreign entry on productive efficiency during the Polish investment liberalisation. The performance of foreign acquisitions is compared to foreign firms entering the market through greenfield entry, as well as domestic acquisitions of privatised firms, domestic greenfields and remaining state‐owned (non‐privatised) firms during the period 1995–2000. We find that foreign privatised firms have realised larger productivity gains than all types of domestic firms and that this is not due to higher price‐cost margins, which is consistent with the idea that foreign firms bring in firm‐specific knowledge. Foreign greenfields have the highest average labour productivity, while foreign privatisations show the largest productivity increase.     

Firm heterogeneity and technology transfers to local suppliers: Disentangling the effects of foreign ownership,technology gap and absorptive capacity

In this paper, I present novel microeconomic evidence on the effects of firm heterogeneity on the creation and impact of technology transfers from foreign direct investment (FDI) to local suppliers in a developing country setting. The main findings are threefold. First, FDI firms are significantly more involved in knowledge transfer activities than domestic producer firms. In particular, FDI firms offer more technological support, support with a direct positive impact on production processes of local suppliers. Second, the type of ownership also influences the effect of the technology gap on technology transfers. A large technology gap between a producer firm and its suppliers lowers the provision of support; however, FDI firms offer more technological support to their suppliers of material inputs when the technology gap is large. Independent of the support that the suppliers receive, foreign ownership of client firms and a large technology gap make it more likely that suppliers experience large positive impacts. Third, the level of absorptive capacity of local suppliers is also important for the impact of the technology transfers, confirming the notion that heterogeneity among both producer firms and local suppliers affect the level, nature and impact of local technology transfers.     

Internationalisation and Economic Performance of Enterprises: Evidence from Polish Firm‐level Data

This article provides evidence on the relative performance of internationalised firms using Polish firm‐level data, spanning the period 1996–2005 and covering all medium and large enterprises. We distinguish between three modes of internationalisation: foreign direct investment, exporting and importing of capital goods. Our results point strongly at the superior performance of foreign affiliates vs domestic firms, exporters vs non‐exporters, and importers vs non‐importers: internationalised firms are larger, more capital intensive, pay higher wages and are more productive than purely domestic firms. Foreign ownership is the strongest factor accounting for gains from internationalisation. The premia from exporting are substantially lower, though also significantly positive. The performance of capital goods importers is also higher compared to non‐importers and is to some extent related to their involvement in other types of international activity. The results are robust to the choice of specification and productivity estimator. The analysed enterprises recorded a sizeable and broad‐based productivity improvement over the period under consideration. Not only the initial levels of productivity of exporters, importers and foreign affiliates were on average significantly higher that those of their non‐internationalised counterparts, but they also recorded faster productivity gains (manifested in increasing productivity premia), so that the discrepancies grew even larger. We also perform the analysis of productivity spillovers from internationalised firms onto own, downstream and upstream sectors. We find evidence of significant horizontal and backward spillovers from all three types of international activity. Our results suggest that trade externalities are rather of a horizontal nature, while those related to foreign direct investment operate mainly via backward linkages.     

Spillovers from Multinationals to Heterogeneous Domestic Firms: Evidence from Hungary

Firms cluster their economic activities to exploit technological and informational spillovers from other firms. Spillovers from multinational firms can be particularly beneficial to firms in less developed economies, because technological superiority and management expertise of foreign multinational firms yield various opportunities for learning. Yet, the importance of foreign firms’ spillovers might vary with respect to two key features of domestic firms: their productivity level and their export status. In line with theories on the absorptive capacity of firms, we argue on the basis of an empirical analysis of Hungarian firms that larger and more productive firms are more able than smaller firms to reap spillovers from multinationals. However, the export status is found to be of minor importance once higher productivity is controlled for.     

Managing Risk in a Transitional Environment: An Exploratory Study of Control and Incentive Mechanisms of Venture Capital Firms in China

In this study, we examine the control and incentive mechanisms of domestic and foreign venture capital (VC) firms in China. Primary findings show that most VC firms use staged capital infusion, value reassessment based on subsequent performance, and other tools reflecting the flexible and dynamic characters of the investment systems and rarely replace management team. On the other hand, domestic VC firms are less active in monitoring, less likely to retain veto rights, and less likely to introduce stock options into target firms and for all employees. They are also less motivated to provide value-added services than their foreign counterparts. Instead, they concentrate their monitoring and participation on the financial aspects of the invested ventures. We discuss these findings and suggest directions for future research.     

Firm heterogeneity and location choice of Taiwanese multinationals

This paper examines the extent to which production location decisions of Taiwanese multinationals reflect underlying patterns of firm productivity. In our theoretical model, heterogeneous firms in a middle-income country decide on the optimal production locations for serving three geographically separate markets: domestic, foreign high-income and foreign low-income. The model shows that the equilibrium decision of a firm depends on the fixed investment costs of establishing foreign subsidiaries, production costs, transportation costs, market size and its own productivity level.Using firm-level data in 2000, Taiwanese electronics firms are divided into four different categories: non-FDI, investors in China only, investors in the U.S. only, investors in both China and the U.S. We use a multinomial logit model to link firms' location choices with their productivity, controlling for country, industry and other firm characteristics. Our empirical results are consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model. We show that more productive firms engage in outward FDI, with the most productive ones investing in both China and the U.S. We also provide evidence indicating that Taiwanese multinationals investing only in the U.S. are more productive than those investing exclusively in China due to smaller fixed investment costs in China relative to the U.S.     

Firm heterogeneity and location choice of Taiwanese multinationals

This paper examines the extent to which production location decisions of Taiwanese multinationals reflect underlying patterns of firm productivity. In our theoretical model, heterogeneous firms in a middle-income country decide on the optimal production locations for serving three geographically separate markets: domestic, foreign high-income and foreign low-income. The model shows that the equilibrium decision of a firm depends on the fixed investment costs of establishing foreign subsidiaries, production costs, transportation costs, market size and its own productivity level.

Using firm-level data in 2000, Taiwanese electronics firms are divided into four different categories: non-FDI, investors in China only, investors in the U.S. only, investors in both China and the U.S. We use a multinomial logit model to link firms' location choices with their productivity, controlling for country, industry and other firm characteristics. Our empirical results are consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model. We show that more productive firms engage in outward FDI, with the most productive ones investing in both China and the U.S. We also provide evidence indicating that Taiwanese multinationals investing only in the U.S. are more productive than those investing exclusively in China due to smaller fixed investment costs in China relative to the U.S.     

从国美电器门店转型看我国零售业态的变迁

本文通过对国内外零售业态变迁史进行了对比研究,分析了影响零售业态变迁的动因。在家电连锁店扩张过快,规模太大的背景下,国美电器转变了门店业务模式,通过实行品类管理和建设自有销售队伍,逐渐探索向自有营业模式转变。国美电器开启的"新活馆"将成为家电连锁店新的增长点,对促进国零售业态的创新有积极的意义和影响。     

Firm heterogeneity and location choice of Taiwanese multinationals

This paper examines the extent to which production location decisions of Taiwanese multinationals reflect underlying patterns of firm productivity. In our theoretical model, heterogeneous firms in a middle-income country decide on the optimal production locations for serving three geographically separate markets: domestic, foreign high-income and foreign low-income. The model shows that the equilibrium decision of a firm depends on the fixed investment costs of establishing foreign subsidiaries, production costs, transportation costs, market size and its own productivity level.Using firm-level data in 2000, Taiwanese electronics firms are divided into four different categories: non-FDI, investors in China only, investors in the U.S. only, investors in both China and the U.S. We use a multinomial logit model to link firms' location choices with their productivity, controlling for country, industry and other firm characteristics. Our empirical results are consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model. We show that more productive firms engage in outward FDI, with the most productive ones investing in both China and the U.S. We also provide evidence indicating that Taiwanese multinationals investing only in the U.S. are more productive than those investing exclusively in China due to smaller fixed investment costs in China relative to the U.S.     

中国零售业创新研究

中国零售业在近20年的快速发展过程中取得了令人瞩目的成绩。自从2004年零售业全面对外资开放以来,越来越多的外资零售企业进入中国市场,给国内零售企业带来了很大的竞争压力。单纯地依靠学习、借鉴、模仿国外零售业的发展方式已经不能适应当下激烈的市场竞争,因此零售业的创新迫在眉睫。通过对国内零售业现状进行分析,阐明创新对于国内零售业的重要性以及应该走何种创新之路。     

“入世”十年:零售业对外开放初步考察

改革开放以来,在对我国零售业取得的巨大成绩的认识中,存在着对外资作用一边倒的赞美之辞现象,对此我们应有清醒的认识,不仅要认识到外资对我国零售业发展的正面效应,更应该深刻理解外资对我国零售业发展的负面效应,取消外资在税收、市场准入、外贸经营权等方面的超国民待遇,地方政府要避免因追求政绩而导致的盲目引资,各界人士要摆脱根深蒂固的轻商情结,并且必须认识到零售业开放虽然最先影响的是零售业,但最终必然会影响到制造业的发展。"十二五"期间,应该抓住机遇构建内外贸一体化、城乡一体化、批发零售物流配送一体化的商贸物流渠道体系网点,实施国外抢滩、国内整合的"两头扩网"战略,摆脱传统的"制造业思维"模式,树立"渠道是稀缺资源"、"渠道是经济命脉"的新理念、新思维,充分发挥商贸物流业影响力,推动流程变革和业态创新,将培育、构建内外贸一体化、城乡一体化的自主品牌、自主渠道纳入国家"十二五"规划。