Exchange Rate Effects on Domestic Prices in Bulgaria and Poland: Progress in Making Markets?

The economic liberalization which has occurred in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) over the past 15 years generally has involved establishing domestic markets and privatizing state‐owned firms, both with the intention of integrating the CEE economies into the global economy and allowing the benefits of competition to be realized. We explore how well this has been accomplished in two countries, Poland and Bulgaria, and the domestic conditions that contribute to its accomplishment. The sensitivity of domestic markets to international shocks, as reflected in exchange rate effects on domestic prices, may be viewed as an indicator of how integrated a country’s markets are into the global economy, and a proxy for competition in those markets. In explaining variation in exchange‐rate pass‐through, we examine the impact of market structure, economic liberalization and infrastructure as factors contributing to the development of competitive markets. We find that although integration into global markets can significantly increase market competitiveness, domestic factors also play a significant role.     

Learning by doing: Cross-border mergers and acquisitions

We rely on organizational learning theory and strategic momentum research to examine the international merger and acquisition (M&A) activities of a sample of S&P 500 firms. We hypothesize that the learning associated with a firm's prior acquisition experience increases the likelihood the firm will engage in subsequent international acquisitions. Results from a sample including company-country level data indicate that both prior domestic acquisitions and international acquisitions influence the likelihood of acquisitions in foreign markets by U.S.-based firms. We also find that prior experience with international acquisitions is more predictive of subsequent international acquisitions than prior domestic acquisition experience. Moreover, we find that the acquisition experience within a host country had a stronger influence on subsequent acquisitions within that country than other prior non-host country international acquisition experiences.     

Global networks as a mode of balance for exploratory innovations in a late liberalizing economy

This article suggests that under weak institutional arrangements, adverse economic conditions, and institutional voids in a late liberalizing economy, local firms that are part of the global value chains of multinational enterprises develop international networks as a balancing strategy to engage in exploratory innovations. We argue that local firms do so in order to counter the negative influences of local institutions on exploratory innovations. Using exploratory in-depth qualitative analysis, we study the suppliers of motorcycle parts in Pakistan that are working with leading Japanese and Chinese motorcycle assemblers. The results suggest that in adverse economic situations local institutional factors can sustain only the development of exploitative innovations. As a balancing strategy, motorcycle part suppliers develop international networks with global Tier 1 suppliers, international trade fairs, and international institutions. This strategy helps circumvent the negative influence of home institutional factors on developing exploratory innovations. Our study highlights the importance of global networks as a balancing strategy for creating exploratory innovations by firms in a late liberalizing economy.     

Are entrepreneurs special? Evidence from board appointments

As shown in previous studies, founder-led firms perform better than those run by professional managers. Does this reflect the special relation of founders to their firms or do entrepreneurs possess attributes and experiences that are valuable even at firms not founded by them? Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we study this question by evaluating the effect of entrepreneurs who serve as outside directors of other firms. We find that the stock market reacts positively to appointments of outside entrepreneur directors and that firms with these directors have higher long-term value as measured by Tobin's q. Entrepreneur directors are also associated with increased R&D investment and higher sales growth, and their effect on firm value is larger among firms in R&D-intensive and competitive industries. We conclude that outside entrepreneur directors enhance firm value through their propensity to take risk and their ability to anticipate demand patterns and create new markets.     

Do Foreign Investors Promote Stock Price Efficiency in Emerging Markets?

This paper examines the role of foreign investors in promoting stock price efficiency in emerging stock markets relying on the fact that stock prices in these markets are influenced by both local and global factors. We employ a data sample of Vietnamese‐listed firms on the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange over the period from 2006 to 2015. We utilize the panel data estimation analysis. The results show that foreign investors accelerate the incorporation of available information into local stock prices. The finding reinforces the important role of foreign investors in domestic stock markets of emerging economies.     

Leveraging local knowledge or global advantage: Cross border bank mergers and acquisitions in Africa

This paper examines global financial markets perception of value creation for banks from across the world initiating or expanding their operations on the African continent through mergers and acquisitions (M&As) over the period 2000–2018. Especially before and during the financial crisis, we document a strong advantage of Pan-African Banks (PABs) over domestic and emerging market banks and a slight advantage over advanced market banks. These results are in line with the hypothesis that PABs benefitted from both a global expertise and local knowledge advantage in the market for corporate control. We also document how retrenchment of global banks during and in the aftermath of the global financial crisis have created opportunities for PABs.     

What drives capital flows? The case of cross-border M&A activity and financial deepening

What key roles do macroeconomic and financial variables play in the foreign direct investment (FDI) decision of firms? This question is addressed in this paper using a large panel data set of cross-border Merger & Acquisition (M&A) deals for the period 1990-1999. Various econometric specifications are built around the simple “gravity model” commonly used in the trade literature. Interestingly, financial variables and other institutional factors seem to play a significant role in M&A flows. In particular, the size of financial markets, as measured by the stock market capitalization to GDP ratio, has a strong positive association with domestic firms investing abroad. This result points to the importance of domestic financial conditions in stimulating international investment during the boom years of 1990s, and accords with the significant drop in cross-border M&As in recent years.     

Cross-Border Mergers & Acquisitions Policy in Service Markets

We provide facts showing that in service markets: (i) restrictions on foreign direct investment (FDI) are under reform, (ii) cross-border Mergers & Acquisitions dominate as the entry mode of FDI, and (iii) there is often a high market concentration. Based on these facts, we present a model for analyzing cross-border merger and acquisition policy in liberalized service markets taking into account efficiency and market power effects. Our findings suggest that a merger policy, but not a discriminatory policy towards foreigners, seems warranted. Moreover, policies ensuring competition for domestic target firms seem warranted. In this vein, harmonization of the EU takeover regulations may particularly benefit assets owners in countries with many target firms.     

Subsidiary strategy of emerging market multinationals: A home country institutional perspective

We examine the effects of home country institutional factors, namely, home country government support, domestic institutional weaknesses, and state ownership on the subsidiary-level strategy of global integration (I) and local responsiveness (R) of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs). We draw upon the home country institution-based view and the I/R framework to develop our theoretical model. We empirically test our hypotheses using an original new survey data collected from Chinese multinational subsidiary managers supplemented with parent-level and country-level data. We find that home country government support and domestic institutional weaknesses have significant and negative effects on global integration strategy of Chinese multinational subsidiaries. On the other hand, domestic institutional weaknesses push foreign subsidiaries to pursue local responsiveness strategy. Nevertheless, those with greater degree of state ownership in their parent firms are neither willing to disintegrate from their parent firms nor motivated to pursue local responsiveness strategy in order to deal with home country institutional deficiencies and develop new sources of competitiveness in foreign markets. Our findings have advanced the literature on subsidiary strategy in the context of EMNEs, and provide important implications for subsidiary managers and policy makers.     

Moderators on international diversification of advanced emerging market firms

Firms from advanced emerging markets are becoming notable players in the global marketplace. This study seeks to examine how these firms expand to international markets successfully. Drawing on R&D intensity and learning capability, this study finds that an s-shaped relationship exists between firm internationalization and performance. The results also show that R&D intensity and learning capability significantly strengthen the impact of internationalization on firm performance. These results imply that R&D intensity and learning capability are the main drivers of success for firms from advanced emerging markets in foreign markets.     

Digital power: Value chain upgrading in an age of digitization

We investigate whether and how digitization may affect the power relationships that constrain the upgrading of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in global value chains (GVCs). Combining GVC literature and Resource Dependency Theory, we examine the three features that shift upgrading constraints: asset-specificity, market disintermediation, and innovation sources. The outcomes of a multiple case study encompassing Brazilian firms intentionally sampled from the Digital Games Industry refine our propositions, leading to the concept of digital power as the potential difference in the power imbalance that a supplier may experience in relation to lead firms when performing similar functions in value chains with different digitization degrees. We contribute to International Business literature regarding the relatively unaddressed effects of digital technologies on power relationships in value chains, and deepen the extant understanding of value chain upgrading as a phenomenon. For practitioners, our results inform ways of benefiting from digital industries.     

Endogenous market structure and the growth and welfare effects of economic integration

This paper studies the growth and welfare effects of integration in a world economy populated by global oligopolists. In economies that move from autarky to trade, growth and welfare rise because exit of domestic firms is more than compensated by entry of foreign firms so that integration generates a larger, more competitive market where firms have access to a larger body of technological spillovers that support faster growth. The effects of a gradual reduction of tariffs are different because economies start out from a situation where all firms already serve all markets. In this case, the global number of firms falls so that the variety of consumption goods and the diversity of innovation paths fall. The surviving firms, on the other hand, are larger and exploit static and dynamic economies of scale to a larger degree. These homogenization and rationalization effects work in opposite directions. Under plausible conditions, the rationalization effect dominates and growth and welfare rise.     

The moderating role of local embeddedness on the performance of foreign and domestic firms in emerging markets

This paper examines the impact of the firm’s degree of local embeddedness on its performance in emerging markets using the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey Manufacturing Sector Module data on 15,715 firms covering 78 emerging markets. We use the degree of localization of sourcing and sales to measure the degree of embeddedness in the host country market. We argue that since embeddedness brings the firm into closer interaction with local firms and institutions, the costs of embeddedness should be lower for local firms than for MNE subsidiaries, since local firms can be assumed to be better able to decipher local institutions. We find that both dimensions are subject to a reversed U-shaped function. That is, by extending the degree of local sales and local sourcing up to a certain percentage, a firm can realize positive performance growth by becoming more embedded into the emerging market, but beyond this point, the performance impact is negative. We also find that foreign firms involved in local sales seem to lose part of their ability to exploit their ownership advantages as compared to foreign firms that export their production.     

Exploitative and exploratory innovations in emerging economies: The role of realized absorptive capacity and learning intent

This paper investigates the mediating effect of learning intent in transforming local suppliers’ potential absorptive capacity into realized absorptive capacity and its impact on exploitative and exploratory innovation. Using survey data from 155 auto parts manufacturers in Pakistan, we find that local firms’ realized absorptive capacity enables them to develop both exploitative and exploratory innovations. The findings further suggest that local suppliers’ learning intent mediates the relationship between potential and realized absorptive capacity which in turn lead to both types of innovation. In the context of the emerging economy of Pakistan, local suppliers’ absorptive capacity is found to be critically important in spurring exploitative and exploratory innovation, but learning intent enables realized absorptive capacity and thus in conjunction with realized absorptive capacity supports innovation. Consequently, there would be a strong case for policy intervention to assist emerging economy firms in building their absorptive capacity and strengthening their learning intent as a route for promoting innovation and improving their value added position in the global value chains of multinational enterprises.     

Local integration and co‐evolution of internationalizing Chinese firms

This study investigates the integration of internationalizing Chinese firms into local host markets. We explore the market‐driven investment of a new wave of Chinese private and local state‐owned firms in Australia since 2012, which has replaced the initial large‐scale investment in resources by central state‐owned enterprises. Using an in‐depth analysis of nine Chinese firms operating in various sectors of the Australian market, we argue that market integration, adaptation, and bilateral institution‐building through co‐evolution and empowerment of local subsidiaries of Chinese multinational enterprises results in entrepreneurial autonomy and characterizes a new generation of Chinese investors. We propose that Chinese multinational subsidiaries have transferred domestic practices to the Australian market and have reconfigured domestic and host market resources to gain a competitive advantage in their original investment industry and new industries. Our study advances middle‐range theory building and provides a practical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese investors, their potential to disrupt local markets, and their responsiveness to market‐oriented institutional guidance. The results of this study suggest that the bilateral institution‐building and resource reconfiguration capabilities of Chinese enterprises can be transferred to other developed and developing markets, including Belt and Road Initiative countries.     

The Growth of Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains: Mission Impossible for Western Small- and Medium-Sized Firms?

Multinational corporations (MNCs) have come under pressure to adopt private regulatory initiatives such as supplier codes of conduct in order to address poor working conditions in global supply chain factories. While a well-known literature explores drivers and outcomes of such monitoring schemes, this literature focuses mainly on large firms and has ignored the growing integration of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into global supply chains. Furthermore, the literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in SMEs primarily emphasizes domestic initiatives and not global challenges. Focusing on the Business for Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), this article examines the positions of private actors, who demand and supply private regulation as well as the positions of those firms, who are the targets of such schemes. As the BSCI has grown its membership, MNCs increasingly request that SMEs meet BSCI requirements in global supply chains even though compliance is a “mission impossible” for many smaller firms. As a result of this development, the private regulatory system is facing growing strain.     

Can outstanding performance also be long‐standing?

Best practices in the business world are often identified by benchmarking in relation to products and the processes by which those products are created and delivered. This can take place inside a specific industry, but also in other industries and different countries. There, the main challenge for global firms is to decide how and how far to adapt those practices to the local environment, which is, in most cases, very different from their domestic markets. This article examines the performance of selected companies from various industries that have, in recent years, successfully developed and implemented new business concepts and new business processes in both their domestic and global markets while implementing their global strategy. The article also seeks to identify and evaluate the pitfalls or difficulties they had to face, as well as to compare their results with the objectives they wanted to achieve. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

R&D Investments in Markets with Network Effects

We consider process R&D investments of firms in markets with network effects and incomplete product compatibility. Our results indicate that network effects increase the firms’ individual investments in R&D. The presence of network effects weakens the positive impact of R&D cooperation on firms’ R&D investments. Further, we show that R&D competition can bring socially optimal level of investment, and this is not possible in markets without network effects. Finally, our results suggest that innovation policy oriented at promoting R&D cooperation between enterprises can be counterproductive in markets with network effects and incomplete product compatibility.