Liability of Foreignness and the Constitutive Legitimation of Foreign Firms in a Host Country

We examine population density effects on foreign firms’ likelihood to exit from a host country. The lack of constitutive legitimacy is an important aspect of the liability of foreignness experienced by foreign firms. Both foreign firms from a focal firm’s home country and foreign firms from other countries can provide constitutive legitimation for the focal firm. These intrapopulation and interpopulation legitimation effects strengthen with a greater psychic distance between the home and host countries; they also interact with and strengthen each other. Results based on a dataset containing 68,723 firm-year observations on 29,843 foreign firms in China support our predictions.     

Some Bad News Is Good News for Foreign Investors: The Case of Intellectual Property Rights Infringement in China

Despite China's attractiveness to foreign investors, intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in China has not caught up with international standards. This research aims to quantify the relationships between IPR violations, government effectiveness, and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the context of China. Our econometric modeling and estimation based on provincial level data over 2002‐2012 show that in an early development stage of law and regulatory enforcement, the bad news of a rising number of IPR dispute cases signals the good news of an improvement in law and regulatory enforcement, which encourages IPR owners to raise legal cases. By contrast, in the later development stage, when law and regulatory enforcement has become much more effective, the bad news of a rising number of IPR disputes manifests itself as very bad news. Furthermore, this study confirms that FDI inflows enhance IPR protection through improving government effectiveness, and government effectiveness is one of the key factors promoting FDIs. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Intellectual property rights,FDI, and technological development

This paper presents two simultaneous trade-offs faced by a developing country in protecting intellectual property rights (IPRs), namely (1) between attracting foreign direct investment and deterring international technology spillovers, and (2) between encouraging domestic innovation and suppressing technology diffusion. The optimal level of IPR protection depends on the technological capability of the host country. In less developed countries, IPRs should be just strong enough to induce FDI since international technology spillovers are the dominant source of technological development. A stronger level of IPR protection is instead recommended for more advanced emerging economies as a tool to exploit the potential of their domestic innovators. The results cast doubt on the adequacy of globally harmonized IPR standards that do not consider the level of development.     

Environmental Legitimacy,Green Innovation,and Corporate Carbon Disclosure: Evidence from CDP China 100

Firms worldwide are increasingly required to disclose (and make efforts to reduce) their carbon emissions due to the environmental damage associated with climate change. Because there has been no previous literature focusing on the determinants of corporate carbon disclosure integrating environmental legitimacy and green innovation, the present study attempted to develop an original framework to fill the research gap. This study explored the influence of environmental legitimacy (an external informal mechanism) on corporate carbon disclosure, and investigated the role of green innovation (an internal formal mechanism) as a mediator. With the samples of Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) in China from 2008 to 2012, the results demonstrate that environmental legitimacy significantly negatively influences the likelihood of corporate carbon disclosure, and that green process innovation mediates the relationship, while green product innovation has no significant mediating effect. It means that environmental legitimacy not only directly affects the likelihood of corporate carbon disclosure, but also indirectly affects it via green process innovation. Hence, companies must increase both informal and formal mechanisms, i.e., external environmental legitimacy and internal green process innovation, to engage in carbon information disclosure and ensure sustainability.     

Is certification an effective legitimacy strategy for foreign firms in emerging markets?

This study explores the effect of certification on profitability in a transition economy. Obtaining a certification is a strategic legitimacy action that positively affects a firm’s profitability, specifically for a foreign firm in a transition economy, where institutions are less developed and stable. However, we argue that certification is particularly effective if legitimacy based on adaptation to local circumstances is weak. An analysis of data from 319 MNE subsidiaries in China over the period 1998–2009 largely supports our hypotheses. Certification is an effective strategic action which improves profitability. However, the strength of this effect is influenced by the level of marketization of the host region, the institutional quality in the home country, the density of the foreign firm community in the host country, the number of years the foreign firm has been in the host country, and the size of the foreign firm. These findings throw light on the role certification can play in helping firms overcome the liability of foreignness in a transition economy.     

母国税制对东道国税收优惠政策的影响——基于美国对华直接投资的研究

国际直接投资研究领域,人们普遍认为,当母国对来源于外国的所得实行抵免制以避免国际重复课税时,东道国对外资企业的税收优惠往往转化为母国政府的财政收入,母国的投资者无法获得东道国给予的税收优惠.针对该观点,文章比较了1990～2004年实行抵免制的美国及实行豁免制和饶让抵免制的其它西方发达国家在华直接投资,未发现美国与其它西方发达国家在华直接投资的积极性存在显著差异.由于美国对该国投资者给予税收递延,使得投资者依然能够获得东道国的税收优惠,美国实行的抵免制并未阻碍该国投资者在华投资热情.该结论对预测内外资企业所得税合并对外资流入的影响具有重要的现实意义.     

合理使用规则在网络音乐领域的确立与适用

著作权的实质在于法律赋予著作权人对其作品的合法垄断。建立合理使用制度其理论依据在于利益平衡考量,即创作者、传播者、使用者的个人利益与社会公众利益的基本平衡。而对于网络音乐下载是否收费的问题,归根到底是市场行为,受市场规律的影响,应由网络服务提供商和音乐作品著作权利人来共同决定。我国知识产权法学界应当深入研究国外相关理论和判例,细化我国《著作权法》的"合理使用"规则,让其真正成为一柄利器,为我国文化界形成百花齐放、百家争鸣的氛围做出应有的贡献。     

Legal distance and entrepreneurial orientation of foreign subsidiaries: Evidence from Southeast Asia

How will variation in legal distance influence a foreign subsidiary's propensity to engage in entrepreneurially orientated initiatives within the context of an emerging market environment? We answer this question by combining elements of institutional theory to suggest that legal distance between a foreign subsidiary's parent home and host country, as well as managerial perceptions of deficiencies in the host country legal service sector, will influence EO initiatives. By analyzing 352 multinational enterprise foreign subsidiaries operating in the Philippines and Thailand our results indicate the complexity of these relationships in that there is a curvilinear (U-shaped) relationship concerning the legal distance between a foreign subsidiary's parent home and host country and its propensity to engage in EO initiatives. Our findings also suggest that this curvilinear relationship will strengthen as managerial perceptions of host country legal deficiencies increase, particularly when the parent possess an in-house legal affairs department. Following these insights, we discuss theoretical implications and future research opportunities.     

Economic Reform,Skill Formation and Foreign Capital

Does trade liberalisation promote skill formation and positively influence the inflow of foreign capital in an economy? How do incentives offered to foreign capital affect skill formation and skilled‐unskilled wage inequality? Is liberalisation of agricultural exports counterproductive to skill formation and foreign capital inflow in the economy? We try to capture these relationships between foreign capital and skill formation in a small open economy facing various exogenous shocks. Among other results, we show that import liberalisation increases skill formation and the inflow of foreign capital in the country. We explore the evolving state of the skilled‐unskilled wage gap in a regime of greater skill formation.     

The liability of foreignness reconsidered: New insights from the alternative research context of transforming economies

Institutional theory has been increasingly used to decipher implications of the liability of being a foreign firm. Earlier studies have argued that multinational corporations bear social costs arising from lack of legitimacy and thus need to engage in isomorphism to increase their likelihood of survival. Drawing on insights gained from transforming economies, this study reconsiders the espoused relationships among legitimacy, local isomorphism, and overcoming the liability of foreignness. We argue that idiosyncrasies of transforming economies could engender (1) varying levels of need for gaining legitimacy of local constituents and (2) alternative ways other than local isomorphism for gaining legitimacy from local institutional actors.     

Legitimacy of team rewards: Analyzing legitimacy as a condition for the effectiveness of team incentive designs

This article illustrates how the legitimacy of pay and evaluation processes in teams affect the effectiveness of team-based incentive designs in organizational work teams. We present a theoretical model of the development of legitimacy in team-based incentive designs and propose that the development of legitimacy for both pay dispersion in teams (i.e., difference in allocations of incentives among team members) and for the use of interdependent evaluations of performance promote team effectiveness. Our model introduces a new perspective to theorize about the conditions under which team rewards are an effective incentive design.     

Union legislation and export platform FDI

Abstract

This paper examines Foreign Direct Investment in the presence of labour unions. An oligopoly model is developed in which identical firms locate in a host country in order to export to a foreign country. These firms are unionized and compete with foreign firms on the foreign market. We consider the incentives for social dumping via restrictive labour legislation, which we assume can be used by the host country government to affect the bargaining power of unions. We ask whether it is in the interest of the importing foreign country for the host country to relax or to tighten labour laws.     

外资并购对我国的影响及法律对策

随着经济全球化的发展,外资并购已成为国际直接投资的主要方式,这一方式在推动东道国经济的发展的同时,也会对东道国经济和社会的发展造成冲击.主要表现在:冲击国内市场份额、民族工业及国有品牌;冲击政府经济政策;阻碍获得国际先进技术等方面.对外资并购,我国应采取反并购的法律手段,健全关于规制外资并购的法律制度,完善外资并购的法律环境,有效规范、控制外资并购行为.     

我国频频招致反倾销诉讼原因新论

2001年以来国外对华反倾销数据表明，我国在反倾销问题上的处境在我国加入WTO后日益严峻，尤其是近几年这种状况不仅没有缓解反而愈演愈烈。许多学者都从不同的角度做了解释。但笔者认为这一现象背后的根本原因是国际经济发展的不平衡性，并由此引发了一系列问题。因此要解决反倾销问题，我们应采用内外结合的措施，以内为主，以外为辅。其次，还应处理好经济发展与国外对华反倾销的关系。针对我国的反倾销诉讼在一定程度上也反映出我国在发展中的缺陷。     

《能源宪章条约》下可再生能源投资仲裁案及启示——以西班牙投资仲裁案为主线的考察

为了加速可再生能源产业的发展,多数国家都制定了相关激励措施以吸引跨国公司的投资。但是,随着政策的变化,相关的法律争端也随之产生。除了国际贸易争端以外,与可再生能源相关的投资争端也大量出现,其中以西班牙最为典型,所涉投资案件也最多。随着"一带一路"倡议的推进,我国投资者在海外可再生能源领域的投资会大幅增加。与此同时,我国能源领域对外开放的幅度正在加大,可再生能源领域的外资也会越来越多,但我国现有法律制度并不足以规范可再生能源的未来发展。本文分析西班牙相关法律政策变化及仲裁庭的裁决,以期对我国可再生能源法律政策的发展和完善,以及可再生能源领域的海外投资者保护提供启示,也为我国分析评估是否加入《能源宪章条约》提供借鉴。     

Strategic and institutional effects on foreign IPO performance: Examining the impact of country of origin,corporate governance,and host country effects

Integrating signaling and institutional perspectives, we develop and test hypotheses relating institutions and corporate governance to foreign IPO success. Our investigation highlights the importance of three important drivers of foreign IPO success: home country legal institutions, corporate governance, and host capital market choice. This research demonstrates that board independence and country of origin effects are powerful signals. However, these factors do not have a universal impact on foreign IPO success. Instead, the value of home country institutions along with corporate governance signals are contingent upon the institutional environment in which international entrepreneurs choose to seek capital resources.     

我国对外反倾销的特点、存在问题及其完善

《中华人民共和国反倾销和反补贴条例》颁布以来,我国对外反倾销工作取得了显著成绩。截至2004年5月底,针对韩国、美国、日本等20多个国家和地区的倾销行为,我国在化工、钢铁、轻工、纺织、通讯等重点行业,共发起了30起反倾销案件调查,涉案金额累计59亿美元。从这30起案件来看,呈现出立案数大幅增加、涉案产品与国家和地区高度集中、标的巨大、胜诉率高和反倾销终裁税率较低等特点。另一方面,在我国对外反倾销实践中还存在诸如立法上存在不足、涉案产品与国家和地区过分集中、对外反倾销工作力度不够、企业和行业协会未能发挥应有作用等诸多问题,需进一步采取措施加以完善。     

Foreign direct investment in Central and Eastern Europe

Foreign direct investment is an important catalyst for the economic changes in transition economies offering host countries external resources, technology, management, and access to foreign markets. It is therefore high on the public policy agenda in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and figures prominently among assistance activities at the bilateral and multilateral level. This article analyses the legal and institutional framework and the economic performance of foreign direct investment in fourteen European economies in transition at the beginning of 1993.     

The characteristics of intellectual property rights regimes: How formal and informal institutions affect outward FDI location

This study examines the institutional arrangements that define the characteristics of national legal systems that are used to protect intellectual property (IP) assets embedded in outward FDI. The focus of the study is on how the institutional underpinnings of IPR regimes affect the costs and risk of using legal arenas to enable effective use of IP assets. Following a property rights approach it is postulated that formal and informal institutional arrangements influence how IP regimes affect the transaction costs and risk associated with converting ownership rights over IP into economic rights. Informal institutions are considered to affect the behaviour of agents involved in enforcing legal rights. This behaviour influences how IP law is implemented in legal arenas and thereby impacts on the efficacy of IPR regimes to help secure economic rights from the use of IP assets. Using data on outward FDI from the USA to 42 host countries the results find that the strength of informal institutions connected to the enforcement of IP in a country directly affects outcomes and positively moderates the effect of formal legal aspects of IP law on FDI flows. The results highlight the importance of informal institutional aspects connected to the behaviour of enforcement agents when using national legal systems to protect IP rights in cross-frontier transactions.     

Support for Rapid-Growth Firms: A Comparison of the Views of Founders, Government Policymakers, and Private Sector Resource Providers

The paper contrasts the perspectives of firm owners, government policy advisers, and external resource providers on how rapid-growth firms should be supported. Qualitative data were analyzed to identify similarities and differences in groups' perspectives. The research indicates that each group sees its roles as critical. Policymakers and external resources providers have incentives to interact with rapid-growth firms. Rapid-growth firms have incentives to obtain advice from government sources and external resource providers but prefer to obtain advice from their peers. These findings suggest a network-based approach to the support of rapid growth that is consistent with a new Ontario-based program, the Innovators Alliance.