The effect of international venturing on firm performance: The moderating influence of absorptive capacity

Companies have vigorously pursued opportunities for profitability and growth through international venturing. Yet, research evidence on the performance benefits of international venturing activities has been contradictory. Applying an organizational learning framework, we propose that the expected effects of international venturing activities on financial performance depend on companies' absorptive capacity. Data from 217 global manufacturing companies show that absorptive capacity moderates the relationship between international venturing and firms' profitability and revenue growth. These results urge executives to build internal R&D and innovative capabilities in order to successfully exploit the new knowledge acquired from foreign markets.     

From the Editor

This article revises the thesis that exporting firms learn to be more innovative and efficient as they have contact with certain information flows from their foreign activity. It begins by exploring the connections between two concepts: self-selection and learning-by-exporting. The study proceeds with a comparative analysis of the most recent literature and presents common facts and key issues still open to debate. Learning-by-exporting should be measured directly using firms' innovative performance. Given the lack of suitable data on firms' innovative activities, most studies—although without consensus—have followed an indirect approach using productivity measures.     

Returns to alliance portfolio diversity: The relative effects of partner diversity on firm's innovative performance and productivity

This study considers the impact of diversification in types of technological alliances, resulting in alliance portfolio diversity, on various dimensions of a firm's performance, as they relate to exploration and exploitation. Using a large panel of innovative firms in the Netherlands, this study shows that partner type diversity in a firm's alliance portfolio has an inverted U-shaped relationship with productivity and radical innovative performance and a positive relationship with incremental innovative performance. Moreover, the results suggest that a lower level of diversity is needed to achieve an optimal level of productivity compared to radical innovative performance, whereas for incremental innovative performance a higher level of portfolio diversity appears to give the best performance.     

Do customers respond to the disclosure of internal control weakness?

In this study, we investigate the effects of firms' internal control weakness (ICW) disclosures on their customers. We hypothesize that ICW disclosure adversely affects customers' perceptions of firms' ability and incentive to honor implicit commitments to customers, and as such, customers are less willing to buy from such firms. We thus expect a decline in firms' sales growth after ICW disclosure. We find a significant decline in sales growth subsequent to Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) Section 404 ICW disclosure after controlling for firms' past sales growth and other factors affecting sales performance and internal control. This result is robust to the consideration of selection bias in ICW disclosure. We also find that the decline is more pronounced for firms with company-level ICW disclosure, with industrial customers, in the durable goods industries, with high research and development (R&D) intensity, or without subsequent remediation of ICW. Taken together, these results are consistent with the argument that ICW concerns customers more when the implicit contracts between the firms and their customers are more intensive.     

Innovation efforts and performances of Brazilian firms

We analyze the relationship between innovation and firms' performance in Brazil using a comprehensive database that cross-references innovation information by PINTEC (Technological Innovation Research) of the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) and financial information from Serasa and Gazeta Mercantil. Results from the structural equation modeling suggest that variables associating with investments in innovation, which are connected to the innovative effort of a company, do not explain financial performance significantly.     

An Exploration of Factors Influencing Inward Technology Licensing Performance

This article describes an exploratory study of firms' performance in the use of technology licensed from foreign non-affiliate companies. It focuses on identifying the factors that distinguish between licensee firms with high and low performance. The results suggest that a firm's internal distictive competencies in manufacturing and marketing; and mangers' perceived costs and bengits of inward licensing significantly explain the firm's performance in the use of licensed technology.     

International technology spillovers and innovation: Evidence from Taiwanese high-tech firms

This paper uses Taiwanese high-tech firms’ data from 2003 to 2007 to investigate the impacts of international technology spillovers and firms’ R&D activities on firms’ innovation performance. We also consider absorptive capability and examine whether the technology spillovers have different effect on firms' innovation performance. We choose patent application counts to measure firms' innovation performance, and adopt panel Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) with fixed-effect and random-effect models as well as System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model to estimate. The empirical findings indicate the innovation performance of high-tech firms is positively affected by their R&D efforts, export performance, and the presences of multinational corporations. Furthermore, when absorptive capacity is taken into account, the technology spillovers by exporting and technology import would affect the innovation performance more.     

How Environmental Management Competitive Pressure Affects a Focal Firm's Environmental Innovation Activities: A Green Supply Chain Perspective

Recently, environmental management offers firms a source of competitive advantage in the marketplace. The development of environmental innovations is critical to the success of today's firms. Drawing on the Schumpeterian perspective of competition, this research examines how the perception of rival firms' green success influences a firm to pursue and produce environmental innovation through its green supply chain integration activities. Using survey data from 230 firms, a conceptual model is developed and tested using structural equation modeling. We find that the firms in our sample do perceive pressure from their competitors' success in environmental management activities, and thus take supply chain action to pursue integration activities. By differentiating incremental and radical environmental innovation, this study also reveals the role of three dimensions of green supply chain integration (internal, supplier, and customer integration of green product development) on incremental and radical environmental innovation separately. Specifically, findings suggest that green supply chain integration has a positive impact on developing incremental environmental innovation, while only customer integration has a significant positive impact on developing radical environmental innovation.     

Internationalization Factors of Thai Multinationals and Thailand's Bilateral Trade Policy

This article investigates the impact of Thailand's recent bilateral free-trade agreements (FTAs) on the internationalization of Thai multinational enterprises (MNEs). The results highlight the relative importance of internal and external factors in the internationalization of developing country MNEs. The empirical evidence indicated that Thai MNEs judged bilateral FTAs as a critical facilitator of internationalization success. The FTAs facilitated firms' exports to a certain degree and marginally expedited firms' international purchasing activities. The influence of FTAs on firms' foreign investment was not discernible.     

The impact of institutional investors' corporate site visits on corporate social responsibility

Using the unique data of China, this paper finds that institutional investors' corporate site visits will promote firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, the main conclusions remain unchanged when we mitigate endogeneity concerns and consider a series of robust tests. Further, the mediation analyses confirm the mediating roles of internal control and information disclosure rating. We also conduct tests based on China's institutional settings and find that: (a) firms visited by institutions have better CSR performance after mandatory information disclosure, (b) firms visited by institutions have higher probability to disclose CSR reports voluntarily.