Balancing global and local strategic contexts: Expatriate knowledge transfer,applications, and learning within a transnational organization

We investigate how expatriates contribute to the transnational firm's strategic objectives of global efficiency, national (”local”) responsiveness, and worldwide learning. We focus on expatriate knowledge application and experiential learning achievements, two assignment‐based outcomes of potential strategic value to the firm. We assess how the individual's everyday knowledge access and communication activities, measured by frequency and geographic extent, affect these assignment outcomes. Within our case organization, a prototype transnational firm, we find that expatriate knowledge applications result from frequent knowledge access and communication with the corporate headquarters and other global units of the firm. In contrast, their experiential learning derives from frequent access to hostcountry (local) knowledge that subsequently is adapted to the global corporate context. From a practical perspective, we conclude that experiential learning is an invaluable resource for both present and future corporate assignments. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Corporate Value, Managerial Stockholdings and Investments of Japanese Firms

We use a simultaneous equation model which treats firm value, investments and management ownership as endogenous to the firm. Our results show a feedback relation between corporate value and management ownership, i.e., corporate value is positively impacted by management ownership, which in turn is positively impacted by corporate value. Corporate value also affects investments made by the firm. We also find that the effect of the main bank on corporate value is positive but only up to a certain point; then, it turns negative. Supporting the argument that keiretsu firms have lower agency cost, we find that firms belonging to a keiretsu have higher valuations during the sample period. Finally, we find that management ownership increases as the ownership of the main bank, ownership of institutional holders and cross‐holdings decreases, suggesting a substitution effect among these monitoring forces. Our results indicate that ignoring the web of these relationships leads to incorrect inferences.     

The moderating effects of knowledge characteristics of firms on the financial value of innovative technology products

The development of innovative technology products is both costly and risky, and their economic value is highly uncertain. Based on a sample of 312 innovative technology products introduced between 1987 and 2006 in the U.S. and a long-horizon event study with control firms, we study the impact of innovative technology products on the long-term financial performance of a firm. In particular, we examine how the knowledge characteristics of the firm, which embrace its knowledge absorptive capacity, knowledge impact, and knowledge diversity, moderate such an impact. We find that on average an innovative technology product increases the firm's return on assets (ROA) (relative to control firms) by 2.18% in the second year after product introduction. However, the value of an innovative technology product varies with the knowledge characteristics of the firm that invented it. We find that the financial impact of technology products is stronger when firms have higher knowledge absorptive capacity, and more impactful and less diversified knowledge (as measured by patents). We classify firms into three categories based on their knowledge characteristics. We find that firms with a high knowledge fit increase their ROA by 4.55% after product introduction, while those with a low knowledge fit receive no benefit from the innovative technology products at all.     

Value Relevance of Multinationality: Evidence from Korean Firms

The purpose of this study is to examine the valuation effects of multinationality in Korean firms and to identify the role of multinationality in internalization theory. We hypothesize that the market positively values the multinational activities of Korean firms, which are operating in a small open economy in which firms have strong motivations for internationalization. We use Ohlson's (1995, Contemporary Accounting Research, 11, 661) value model and document the positive effect for multinational firms compared to domestic firms, as well as the positive effect of multinationality on firm value. These results are robust across studies, as indicated by Tobin's q measure, as well as across years. We also hypothesize that multinationality mediates or moderates the relationship between intangibility and firm value that is proposed in internalization theory. We do not find supporting evidence for a mediated influence of intangibility through multinationality on firm value nor for a moderated influence of intangibility on firm value. We find that multinationality and intangibility directly and independently influence firm value, without any interference from each other. These results are also robust across studies, as indicated by Tobin's q measure. Finally, we find that multinationality in Korean firms has never lost its importance, even during the global financial crisis in the year 2008.     

The Influence of Technological Knowledge Base and Organizational Structure on Technology Collaboration

This study investigates how an incumbent company's internal characteristics influence its propensity to form learning alliances. A firm may be reluctant to enter a research alliance when it has deep knowledge in a certain technological field due to concerns about knowledge leakage and the low possibility of being able to learn much from collaboration. On the contrary, when the firm has a broad knowledge base, it may have high propensity to enter alliances due to more self‐confidence in its ability to learn fast from partners. In addition, we argue that when a firm concentrates its R&D at a central location, this neutralizes the positive and negative influences of the two knowledge base features on alliance formation. We tested and found support for the hypotheses using a database of 1550 alliances undertaken by 78 large incumbent pharmaceutical, chemical, and agro‐food companies active in the biotechnology sector during 1993–2002.     

Cost management and value creation: the missing link

Understanding of the relationship between the costs of the firm and the value the firm provides to its customers is the key to the ability of the firm to reach its profit potential. From this perspective the firm needs to have a thorough understanding of its activities, their costs and their relation to market prices. Advanced cost management studies and practices suggest a variety of different tools that help us understand the relationship between value and cost. However, most of these studies provide us with qualitative tools only. An exception is studies related to product cost planning, as in the case of target costing or value analysis/value engineering. This paper, while being a part of emerging literature on strategic cost management, extends the existing knowledge of the relationship between costs and value by introducing the value creation model (VCM). In particular, the VCM model defines the firms' cost structure in terms of value added, non-value added but required activities, as well as of waste. A firm's cost structure is aligned with value attributes embedded in products and services. The VCM model seeks to understand the trade-off between what the customer is willing to pay for a product/service bundle (value) and the cost the firm bears to provide what the customer desires. Based on these trade-offs, VCM defines value multipliers, which help the firm determine which activities the firm should focus on in order to develop a competitive advantage.     

The application of learning theories to improve cross-cultural training programs in MNCs

Cultural intelligence and intercultural competence are concepts that have been identified as antecedents for success in global management, and both depend on the acquisition of cultural knowledge. However, although a lack of cultural knowledge is cited in the international management literature as a frequent source of failure in expatriate assignments, there is scant research about how cultural knowledge is created and diffused within organizations. We cite evidence that cross-cultural training programs, which are widely utilized for cross-cultural knowledge transfer, tend to be ineffective in transferring cultural knowledge, and we examine in detail how cultural knowledge is acquired in MNCs and reveal the importance of its tacit component. Then, drawing upon five relevant learning models, we propose a framework for the effective transfer of cultural knowledge. Based on this theoretical underpinning, we offer four sets of effective cross-cultural training methods, as a function of the resources available, that the firm can apply to achieve more effective cross-cultural training for global managers.     

企业愿景和使命应对金融危机真的有用吗——关于中国上市公司500强的实证研究

本文选取中国500强企业为样本,运用内容分析法统计分析企业愿景和使命陈述情况,实证方法探索了不同环境下企业愿景与使命对企业价值的影响,尤其考察了其应对金融危机的作用。研究发现相对稳定的环境下,企业愿景和使命的存在能够增加企业价值。我们同时提出了企业愿景和使命一致性的概念,并验证了其在不同环境下对企业价值的影响。研究发现在环境高度不确定性的情况下,企业愿景和使命的一致性可以降低企业价值的降低;而环境相对稳定的情况下,这种作用并不明显。本研究战略领导力和和新兴市场国家的企业行为做出了理论和实践贡献。     

Resources,Capabilities and Entrepreneurial Perceptions*

abstract We review and develop a subjectivist theory of entrepreneurship that focuses on individuals, their knowledge, resources and skills, and the processes of discovery and creativity, which constitute the heart of entrepreneurship. First, we establish the fundamental importance of subjectivity in entrepreneurial discovery and creativity. Second, we build on Penrose (1959 ) to elaborate how entrepreneurs' perceptions and personal knowledge shape a firm's subjective productive opportunity set. Third, we explain that entrepreneurial perceptions and knowledge partly originate from entrepreneurs' experiences in specific business settings such as the firm, the management team, and the industry. Fourth, we highlight the causal connections between subjectivity in entrepreneurship and observed heterogeneity in firm‐level economic performance. Lastly, we suggest directions for further advancing a subjectivist resource‐based approach to future entrepreneurship research.     

Knowledge spillovers in US patents: A dynamic patent intensity model with secret common innovation factors

During the past two decades, innovations protected by patents have played a key role in business strategies. This fact enhanced studies of the determinants of patents and the impact of patents on innovation and competitive advantage. Sustaining competitive advantages is as important as creating them. Patents help sustaining competitive advantages by increasing the production cost of competitors, by signaling a better quality of products and by serving as barriers to entry. If patents are rewards for innovation, more R&D should be reflected in more patent applications but this is not the end of the story. There is empirical evidence showing that patents through time are becoming easier to get and more valuable to the firm due to increasing damage awards from infringers. These facts question the constant and static nature of the relationship between R&D and patents. Furthermore, innovation creates important knowledge spillovers due to its imperfect appropriability. Our paper investigates these dynamic effects using US patent data from 1979 to 2000 with alternative model specifications for patent counts. We introduce a general dynamic count panel data model with dynamic observable and unobservable spillovers, which encompasses previous models, is able to control for the endogeneity of R&D and therefore can be consistently estimated by maximum likelihood. Apart from allowing for firm specific fixed and random effects, we introduce a common unobserved component, or secret stock of knowledge, that affects differently the propensity to patent of each firm across sectors due to their different absorptive capacity.     

Walking and Talking Corporate Social Responsibility: Implications of Firm Size and Organizational Cost

In this paper we address two interrelated research gaps in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature. The first results from a lack of understanding of different patterns of CSR engagement with respect to CSR talk (impression management and the creation of symbolic images and documentation) and CSR walk (substantive implementation of CSR policies, structures and procedures). Related to this, the second gap concerns limited knowledge about the influence of firm size on CSR engagement. We develop a conceptual model that explains differences in CSR talk versus walk based on organizational cost and firm size. This allows us to theorize the antecedents of what we call the large firm implementation gap (large firms tend to focus on communicating CSR symbolically but do less to implement it into their core structures and procedures) and vice versa the small firm communication gap (less active communication and more emphasis on implementation). Our model expands a new theoretical understanding of CSR engagement based on as yet underemphasized firm‐level antecedents of CSR, and opens up several new avenues for future, and in particular comparative, research.     

Whose Human Capital? The Challenge of Value Capture When Capital is Embedded

abstract    Current approaches that position human capital as central to value generation in knowledge-based industries obscure the importance of the relational nature of knowledge production. That is, separable and embodied forms of capital are interdependent in value creation and capture processes. We identify a relational form of capital, embedded capital, which we argue is the critical resource in knowledge-based industries such as professional services firms, because it allows us to include agency and interdependency in the value capture process. These dimensions have previously been overlooked by the resource-based view of the firm. Examples of embedded capital include brand value, processes and procedures. The deployment of embedded capital is also not clearly controlled by either the firm or individual employees. A model is developed to illustrate the links between each form of capital, and the processes of value capture. This conceptual identification of the embedded form of capital is therefore of importance to future value creation and capture debates.     

Knowledge Management as the Basis of Sustained High Performance

abstract    By deconstructing some of the key elements of the resource-based view and the knowledge-based view of the firm, we suggest that there are three components to knowledge management systems that influence firm performance: the firm's ability to produce new knowledge, its ability to build on that knowledge, and its effectiveness in capturing a high proportion of the subsequent spin-offs. Using regression analysis to analyse data from 30,022 patent records from 42 firms, we find that a firm's growth rate is positively associated with its ability to generate rare and valuable knowledge, and to build on that knowledge.     

The Economic Consequences of Increased Disclosure: Evidence from Cross-Listings of Chinese Firms

In this paper, we investigate the impact of cross‐listings on information asymmetry risk, the cost of capital and firm value of a group of cross‐listed Chinese companies. Our paper is the first to examine the effect of cross‐listing on information asymmetry risk. Because cross‐listed firms are subject to increased disclosure requirements, increased regulatory scrutiny and increased legal liability, we propose that Chinese cross‐listed firms have lower information asymmetry risk, lower cost of capital and higher firm value than their non‐cross‐listed counterparts. We find in both univariate and multivariate tests that cross‐listed firms enjoyed lower information asymmetry risk in the domestic market compared with the non‐cross‐listed firms. We also find that cross‐listed firms have lower cost of capital in the cross‐listing market than non‐cross‐listed firms in the domestic markets. Finally, we find that cross‐listed firms are associated with higher firm value as measured by Tobin's Q. These results have implications for international investors and companies seeking cross‐listing opportunities.     

浅析Web2.0思想在旅游电子商务中的应用

基于"长尾理论"构建web2.0时代的旅游电子商务,对web2.0部件在旅游电子商务中的应用进行初步探讨。最后提出,Web 2.0与Web 1.0各有特色,前者不是后者的替代,旅游2.0和旅游1.0也如此,不是替代关系,而是主要体现在经营理念上的前进,两者互为补充、和谐发展。     

Internal Knowledge Development and External Knowledge Access in Venture Capital Investment Performance

abstract    We examine the performance effects of two knowledge-driven strategies – internal knowledge development and external knowledge access through inter-firm relationships – in the context of venture capital investing. Using longitudinal data on the investments, syndication, and performance of 200 US-based venture capital firms, we find that investing in industries in which a firm has more knowledge and investing with more or familiar external partners enhances investment performance. In addition, we reveal important interactions between the two strategies, such that access to external knowledge is particularly beneficial when the investment exposes gaps in the firm's own expertise. Thus, access to external knowledge is more effective when an incongruity exists between what the firm knows and what it intends to do. We discuss the study's implications for organizational knowledge and learning, strategic alliance, and venture capital literature.     

Through the Looking‐Glass: The Impact of Regional Institutional Logics and Knowledge Pool Characteristics on Opportunity Recognition and Market Entry

This study investigates how regional variations in institutions and knowledge pools impact new firm entry into emerging industry sectors. Using the cleantech industry sector as a research context, we hypothesize and find that supportive regional institutional logics – shared meaning systems in a community that confer legitimacy upon particular goals and practices – generate cognitive schemas (mental models) that facilitate opportunity recognition and increase new firm entry rates. Drawing from research on socially situated cognition, we demonstrate that supportive institutional logics have a greater impact on new firm entry when a regional knowledge pool is larger, but a reduced impact on new firm entry when the knowledge pool is more specialized. These findings integrate previously distinct perspectives from institutional theory and knowledge economics, while contributing to research on how new industry sectors emerge.     

Simultaneous search with heterogeneous firms and ex post competition

In this paper we study the allocation of workers over high and low productivity firms in a labor market with coordination frictions. Specifically, we consider a search model where workers can apply to high and or low productivity firms. Firms that compete for the same candidate can increase their wage offers as often as they like. We show that if workers apply to two jobs, there is a unique symmetric equilibrium where workers mix between sending both applications to the high and sending both to the low productivity sector. But, efficiency requires that they apply to both sectors because a higher matching rate in the high-productivity sector can then be realized with fewer applications (and consequently fewer coordination frictions) if workers always accept the offer of the most productive firm. However, in the market the worker's payoff is determined by how much the firm with the second highest productivity is willing to bid. This is what prevents them from applying to both sectors. For many configurations, the equilibrium outcomes are the same under directed and random search so our results are not driven by random search. We discuss the effects of increasing the number of applications and show that our results can easily be generalized to N-firms.     

Corporate sustainability and financial performance: Collective reputation as moderator of the relationship between environmental performance and firm market value

Markets value superior corporate sustainability performance in part because investors use a firm's environmental performance as a signal of desirable but difficult-to-observe attributes, such as the firm's integrity capacity. Yet a signaling conflict can arise when a firm belongs to an organizational form that has a collective reputation for being unethical. In such circumstances, the firm's environmental performance may no longer credibly signal its underlying integrity capacity, leading markets to adjust downward the value they would otherwise place on the firm's environmental performance. Using longitudinal data on South Korean firms, we find that improvements in firm environmental performance lead to smaller increases in market values for firms belonging to a poorly reputed organizational form. However, firms can partially recover lost value by adopting firm features that reduce the signaling conflict, thereby restoring the notion of corporate sustainability performance driving firm market values.     

Do Investors Really Value Corporate Governance? Evidence from the Hong Kong Market

To examine the relation between corporate governance and firm value, we develop an instrument to assess the corporate governance practices of listed companies in Hong Kong. Based on the Revised OECD Principles of Corporate Governance (OECD) and the Code of Best Practices (HKEx), we construct a corporate governance index (CGI) for Hong Kong listed companies. Unlike measures used in other studies, the CGI score reflects the presence of good corporate governance practices as well as variation in the quality of corporate governance practices. Empirical evidence shows that a company's market valuation is positively related to its overall CGI score, a composite measure of a firm's corporate governance practices. We also find that the transparency component of the CGI score drives the relation with market valuation. In summary, this study provides supporting evidence for the notion that, in Hong Kong, good corporate governance practices are consistent with value maximization.