Entrepreneurial orientation and SME performance in China’s changing environment: The moderating effects of strategies

Recent research has found an inverted U-shape relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance in the Chinese context. Building on Miles and Snow??s (1978) strategy framework and Scott??s (1995) country institutional profile, we propose that prospector and analyzer strategies align better with entrepreneurial orientation to allow firms to fully benefit from their risk-taking, proactiveness, and innovativeness. Data collected from 155 SMEs in China confirmed that prospector and analyzer strategies alleviated the curve significantly. The defender strategy enhanced the curvilinearity, yet this moderating effect was insignificant. Implications for policy-makers, international businesses, and entrepreneurial firms in China are discussed.     

Benefit or damage? The productivity effects of FDI in the Chinese food industry

We investigate the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the total factor productivity of Chinese food firms using firm-level census data between 1998 and 2007 (174,940 sample food firms). We test for within-firm, within-industry, and vertical effects. We find that the effect of FDI on the productivity of Chinese food firms depends significantly on the type of FDI and its countries of origin. FDI from non-HMT (Hong Kong, Macaw and Taiwan) regions can improve the productivity of the invested firm, and also increases the productivity of domestic food firms through vertical industry linkages. However, domestic food firms may be crowded out by non-HMT investment in the same industry. HMT investment can generate positive within-industry productivity spillovers, but negative vertical spillovers. Our findings have immediate implications for policymakers in China, as well as for governments of less developed countries that are formulating foreign investment policies.     

Spawned with a silver spoon? Entrepreneurial performance and innovation in the medical device industry

Entrepreneurs in high‐technology industries often have prior experience at incumbent firms, but we know little about how knowledge obtained at the prior employer impacts entrepreneurial performance. Drawing on previous work from strategy, economics, and organizational sociology, I assess the impact of industry experience on entrepreneurial performance and innovation in medical device start‐ups. I find that spawns (ventures started by former employees of incumbent firms) perform better than other new entrants. Interestingly, my findings suggest that this superior performance is not driven by technological spillovers from parent to spawn, but rather by nontechnical knowledge related to regulatory strategy and marketing. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Skill enhancement efforts and firm performance in the Brazilian chemical industry: An exploratory canonical correlation analysis—research note

The paper aims at investigating the relationship between a group of variables portraying skill enhancement efforts and a second group of performance related variables. The results show the existence of a positive relationship between R&D and training intensities and the performance of previously ISO-certified firms, whereas that for the initially non-certified firms such result does not hold.     

How do SOEs and FIEs affect POEs’ performance in emerging economies? Moderating effects of managerial ties

Asia Pacific Journal of Management - In emerging economies, informal ties are important instruments that firms use to overcome market competitiveness disadvantages. Higher proportions of...     

How do CEO emotions matter? Impact of CEO affective traits on strategic and performance conformity in the spanish banking industry

Research on how managers influence firm outcomes has generated promising explanations of differences in organizational strategies and performance within a given industry, but has largely ignored the role of emotions in shaping managers' strategic choices. This article analyzes the influence of the affective traits of CEOs—their long‐term tendency to experience positive or negative moods or emotions—on strategy and performance conformity in a sample of Spanish banks and savings banks. Our results show that managers' negative affective traits are related to more conformist strategies and more typical performance, whereas positive affective traits seem to promote outcomes that deviate from the central tendencies of the industry. Results also show that strategic conformity mediates the relationship between CEO negative affective traits and typical performance. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The analysis of economic performance of China’s industrial textiles and nonwovens industry during the first half of 2008

The yuan appreciation, together with the rising material and labor costs, China's industrial textiles factories feel the squeeze during the first half of 2008. But, the year of 2008 also witnessed a fast growing of industrial textiles after the snow havoc and earthquake.     

Reexamining the direct and interactive effects of governance mechanisms upon buyer–supplier cooperative performance

This study aims to explore the effect of governance mechanisms (including both formal and social controls) upon the buyer–supplier cooperative performance in supply chains. Empirical evidence obtained via a mail survey from 106 firms participating in the Taiwanese “Center Satellite Production System” indicates that (1) there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between formal control and cooperative performance; (2) social control has a consistent positive effect on cooperative performance; and (3) the joint use of formal control and social control could enhance cooperative performance in supply chains but only in cases with moderate usage of formal control. Otherwise, social control becomes a supportive factor that repairs cooperative performance damage from overwhelmingly applied formal control.     

The emergence of dependence and lock-in effects in buyer–supplier relationships — A buyer perspective

The industrial marketing literature frequently points to dependence in buyer–supplier relationships (BSRs) as an essential construct in understanding the development of strong, long-lasting partnerships. Although the antecedents of dependence have been discussed, extant research lacks an understanding of the explanatory mechanisms of how dependence – or even lock-in situations – actually evolve. In this article, we examine the emergence of these aspects in BSRs by analyzing the example of a logistics outsourcing relationship. Using a grounded theory approach in a real-life case involving a German mechanical engineering company and its service provider, we identify four interrelated mechanisms (convincing, tying, complementing and lock-in) that explain dependence and lock-in from a buyer's perspective. Based on our empirical findings, we develop a conceptual model that points to the theoretical importance of the interconnected influences and sub-processes between transactional, mental, and operative bonding effects. Our results inform managerial practice on how to plan and manage BSRs. The model enhances existing research on dependence in BSRs and can serve as a starting point for further investigations into buyer–supplier dependence (BSD) and lock-in in dyadic business relationships.     

Production Remains Stable and Investment Shows Recovery Signs The analysis of economic performance of China’s cotton textile industry

Indeed,there is some evidence the government's stimulus package is producing results.Investment of cotton textile industry shows recovery progress and production remains stable.     

Apparel Industry Witnesses Positive Activity Analysis of economic performance of China’s apparel industry in Jan.-Aug.

Production Recovery China's apparel industry saw a sharp increase in the output for the January-September period, according to data collected from statistics-worthy Chinese     

Why do business groups continue to matter? A study of market failure and performance among Indian manufacturers

This paper explores the nature of the influence that business groups exert in shaping performance outcomes in emerging economies. Set in India, this study used a longitudinal research design to assess the independent and collective performance impact of group affiliation and diversification both before and after economic reforms were introduced in the country. Consistent with the institutional theory perspective, results show that in the pre-reform period the group structure exerted an important positive moderating effect on the diversification-performance relationship. However, these group benefits appear to persist even after many of the sources of market failure had started to decline rapidly. This persistence of group effect may be indicative of the continued relevance of non-diversification benefits of the group structure in emerging economies. It may also be indicative of the fairly slow process of building institutional infrastructure in emerging economies where reforms are seldom introduced en masse but more a series of continuing measures as was the case in India.     

The Danish tax on saturated fat – Short run effects on consumption,substitution patterns and consumer prices of fats

Denmark introduced a tax on saturated fat in food products with effect from October 2011. The objective of this paper is to make an effect assessment of this tax for some of the product categories most significantly affected by the new tax, namely fats such as butter, butter-blends, margarine and oils. This assessment is done by conducting an econometric analysis on weekly food purchase data from a large household panel dataset (GfK Panel Services Denmark), spanning the period from January 2008 until July 2012.The econometric analysis suggest that the introduction of the tax on saturated fat in food products has had some effects on the market for the considered products, in that the level of consumption of fats dropped by 10–15%. Furthermore, the analysis points at shifts in demand from high price supermarkets towards low-price discount stores – at least for some types of oils and fats, a shift that seems to have been utilised by discount chains to raise the prices of butter and margarine by more than the pure tax increase. Due to the relatively short data period with the tax being active, interpretation of these findings from a long-run perspective should be done with considerable care. It is thus recommended to repeat – and broaden – the analysis at a later stage, when data are available for a longer period after the introduction of the fat tax.     

Legal form of the firm and overseas market choice in India’s software and IT industry

Drawing upon the economics, international business, and law literatures, we hypothesize that variations in governance characteristics, associated with firms being public limited companies, private limited companies, or unincorporated enterprises, influence the internationalization patterns of the software and information technology (IT) companies in India. The results provide some support for our hypotheses, as variations in legal form were found to significantly impact regional sales in the US and Canada, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Organizational size and business type were also significantly related to sales in a number of regions. Implications of our findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Technological systems and competent procurers—the transformation of Nokia and the Finnish telecom industry revisited?

The contribution of Nokia to the recent rapid growth of the Finnish telecom industry is significant. A conventional explanation of Nokia's success, and the growth of the telecom industry, relies on aggregate studies in the Porterian framework that misses the dynamics of the underlying interactions between technologies, institutions, and organizations. The key proposition advanced in this article is that the role of the public telecom operator (PTO), as a competent technology procurer, has played a hitherto neglected, key role in this success and growth prior to the mid-1980s, after which Nokia achieved its international breakthrough. This proposition is advanced through the application of the Schumpeterian–Dahménian tradition of technological systems and ‘competence blocs’ to case studies in the development of Nokia's switching platform technology and equipment for the NMT-standard, the crucial competence areas underlying Nokia's success.     

Power source drivers and performance outcomes of functional and dysfunctional conflict in exporter–importer relationships

Although conflict is natural in buyer–seller relations, the issue has largely been studied in domestic market settings despite increasing globalization and the surge of cross-border inter-firm relationships. This research focuses on two different types of conflict, functional and dysfunctional, and examines how these are linked to coercive and non-coercive power bases and performance outcomes in exporter–importer relationships. Using survey data from 105 pairs of exporters and their foreign distributors, we find that only in the exporter group the use of coercive power by the foreign distributor lowers functional conflict. However, the use of coercive power by the overseas partner increases dysfunctional conflict and the use of non-coercive power reduces such conflict across both exporters and importers, although in the importer group this link is not significant. The results also suggest that functional conflict enhances performance only among importers. The use of problem solving conflict resolution boosts functional conflict's impact on performance among exporters, but adversely affects the performance effect of such conflict in the importer group. Nonetheless, problem solving resolution negatively affects the impact of dysfunctional conflict on performance in both the exporter and importer groups. Moreover, we find that power distance boosts the impact of dysfunctional conflict on performance in the relationship across the groups of exporters and importers. Implications of the findings for international marketing theory and practice are discussed, and limitations of the study considered along with future research directions.     

Effects of perceptions on LMX and work performance: Effects of supervisors’ perception of subordinates’ emotional intelligence and subordinates’ perception of trust in the supervisor on LMX and, consequently, performance

There are few studies on how the perception of supervisors by their subordinates contributes to high-quality leader-member exchange (LMX). We thus propose that the trust perception of supervisors by their subordinates can help explain the development of high-quality LMX. Furthermore, the trust perception may interact with supervisor-rated emotional intelligence to influence the quality of LMX, and, consequently, work performance. Using a longitudinal study on a sample of 285 supervisor-subordinate dyads from a manufacturing firm in China, we found that (1) supervisor-rated emotional intelligence of subordinates (Time 1) positively predicts the quality of LMX (Time 2); (2) this relationship is stronger when subordinates highly trust their supervisors (Time 1); (3) LMX (Time 2) positively predicts work performance (Time 3); and (4) LMX (Time 2) fully mediates the interactive effect of emotional intelligence (Time 1) and trust in the supervisor (Time 1) on work performance (Time 3).