The determinants of foreign direct investment in China: The case of Taiwanese firms in the IT industry

This study illustrates the factors that affect a firm's intention to engage in foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, using Taiwanese firms in the Information Technology (IT) sector as an example. By building upon the literature, we investigate a firm's decision to engage in FDI by taking industry and firm factors into consideration. This study applies an event history technique to perform an empirical analysis, taking into account the conditional probability of the element of time. These factors are analyzed in a dynamic context using a sample of 667 Taiwanese firms in 10 industries between 1996 and 2005. We find that network linkages, the expansion of markets, and China's incentive policies positively affect the intention to engage in FDI. A firm with a higher degree of export orientation and larger firm size also has a strong effect on motivating FDI.     

Organisational form and industry emergence: Nonprofit and mutual firms in the development of the US personal finance industry

Economic theories of commercial nonprofits and mutuals usually emphasise the advantages of such organisational forms in reducing agency and monitoring costs in markets that suffer from information asymmetries in exchanges between firms and their customers. This article examines the ability of such transaction cost theories to account for historical variations in the ownership and governance of firms in the US personal finance industry between the early nineteenth century and the Great Depression. It focuses, in particular, on mutual savings banks and their role in the development of the intermediated market for savings accounts. While I find some evidence in support of transaction cost theories of organisational form, I also find that entrepreneurial and socio-political factors played crucial roles in the choice of ownership and governance structures; mutual savings banks predominated in the early years of the industry because the form offered entrepreneurial advantages over investor-owned corporations and because in some states they benefitted from regulatory and political advantages that joint-stock companies lacked. Their relative decline by the early twentieth century was the result of increasing competition in the market for savings deposits, the loosening of regulatory barriers to entry, and changes in public policy that reduced the transaction, innovation and regulatory advantages that the mutual savings bank form had once held. The article draws out the theoretical implications for our understanding of the historical role of nonprofit and mutual firms.     

Small firms and networks in capital intensive industries: The case of Spanish steel wire manufacturing

This article uses an interdisciplinary approach to gain a better understanding of the organization of the Spanish industry in a long-term perspective. Sociological concepts about networks, and studies about family firms from management and business history literatures, are combined to illuminate the dominance of family ownership in capital intensive industries. Popp, Toms and Wilson's work on the spatialization of resource distribution and resource dependence has been used to understand the dominance of small family firms co-ordinated by networks in the particular case study of the Spanish steel wire manufactures. The article also has important implications for questioning Casson's interpretation about the difficulties dynastic family firms may have in science-wire rod industries.     

Post-M&A technological capability-building of emerging market firms in China: the case of Lenovo

Technological acquisitions have become a strong motivation for cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) activities by firms in emerging countries. However, whether these companies achieve their objectives remains an open question. This article presents a case study of Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s PC division with a focus on inventor productivity after acquisition. Our case study suggests that while a ‘light-touch’ integration approach helped avoid the all-too-common post-M&A productivity drop, intra-firm knowledge transfers to veteran inventors of the acquirers remained difficult due to the knowledge gap. However, M&A events create other opportunities to improve the technological capability of the acquiring company by sourcing new talent globally, offering unignorable merit that justifies outbound M&A activities by emerging market firms.     

Development banking and technological development: a case study of industrial development banks in the GCC countries

This article explores the important role of Industrial Development Banks in promoting the quality of technological development. It is argued that the historical experiences of the developed economies and several developing economies during recent times support the need and potentials of a more pro-active role by Industrial Development Banks. Against this background, the specific experiences of Industrial Development Banks in the Gulf Co-operation Council Countries are examined and the results of a select field survey are reported. This exploratory study suggests that some fundamental steps are needed in order to develop Industrial Development Banks from being comparatively passive conduits of technological aid to more active promoters of technological development.     

International acquisition and other growth strategies: Some lessons from the food and drink industry

This article explores profitable international growth strategies when markets are mature through a two‐stage study of companies in the food and drink industry. The first stage assessed 400 announcements about such strategies made by medium‐ and large‐sized food and drink firms in the period 1998–2001. The second stage examined in depth the international growth strategies of the world's 35 leading food and drink companies over the period 1985–2001. Both stages showed that acquisition was the most widely used method of international expansion. The second stage suggested that organic international growth (i.e., based on the company's current product portfolio) was the other main option for such expansion. Importantly, the international acquisition route was usually focused on the existing product portfolio of a company. In this sense, there was clear convergence between the purpose of an international acquisition (i.e., to support or enhance the existing product portfolio outside the home country) and the broader company purpose of delivering successful organic growth from its current range of products. The second study also suggested that international acquisitions can bring faster sales growth than organic activity but come with greater risk and other potential problems. The research identified some practical lessons derived from such strategies in the food and drink industry. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Exploring the influence of resource environments on absorptive capacity development: The case of emerging market firms

Research recognizes that emerging market firms (EMFs) have relatively underdeveloped absorptive capacity. Yet, scarce attention has been paid to the conditions that constrain or facilitate EMFs’ absorptive capacity development. In this article, we explore how differences in home country resource environments influence EMFs’ absorptive capacity. We suggest that home country institutions and factor markets influence EMFs’ choice among three learning strategies: duplicative imitation, creative imitation, and innovation. Building on the organizational learning perspective, we then explore how learning strategies of EMFs’ from different emerging economies influence their preferences with respect to sources of new knowledge, and consequently the implications of these strategic choices for their absorptive capacity.     

Small-scale industry and technology in India: The case of the computer industry

This article finds that small firms in newly industrializing countries can serve as a conduit for technical change. Small firms in India's computer industry have helped narrow the technology gap between the domestic industry and its international counterpart. Successful innovator firms have grown larger. Changes in government policies were essential for the maturation of the nascent Indian high-technology industry.     

Worlds apart: The changing market geography of the German machinery industry

German producers of advanced machinery have long enjoyed a reputation for technical excellence and export success. The literature attributes much of the industry's success, inter alia, to various forms of interfirm cooperation between SMEs within spatial clusters such as that found in Baden-Württemberg. However, this industry entered a period of relative crisis in the early 1990s, experiencing stagnant or declining sales and growing competition from foreign firms. Among the reasons commonly advanced to explain this crisis are the decline of intraregional cooperation (especially with other machinery producers), the loss of domestic sales in the wake of the German car industry's downturn, and excessively costly wages and benefits for workers in the machinery industry. This paper offers an alternative interpretation, based on geographical shifts in the industry's markets and the difficulty of sustaining close, mutually beneficial interaction with customer firms abroad. Evidence comes from a study of the production and use of advanced manufacturing technologies, involving interviews with machinery producers in Germany and user firms in Canada. Interviews reveal that, in the light of less than satisfactory relations with German machinery firms, North-American customers are turning increasingly to domestic sources of supply. In responding to these challenges, the German machinery industry is now instituting changes to its spatial organization which may undermine the future integrity of its traditional home production regions.An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, CA, April 1, 1994.     

浅谈医疗行业安装POS机的作用

医疗行业安装POS机,实行刷卡收费是非常必要的举措.不但方便患者,还可以提高工作效率和医院形象.     

Competition for firms in an oligopolistic industry: The impact of economic integration

We set up a model of generalised oligopoly where two countries of different size compete for an exogenous, but variable, number of identical firms. The model combines a desire by national governments to attract internationally mobile firms with the existence of location rents that arise even in a symmetric equilibrium where firms are dispersed. As economic integration proceeds, equilibrium taxes initially decline, but then rise again as trade costs fall even further. A range of trade costs is identified where economic integration raises the welfare of the small country, but lowers welfare in the large country.     

When marketing and innovation interact: The case of born-global firms

Previous research on born-global firms (BGs) has emphasized their strong dependency on establishing a competitive positioning from the early days of their existence. While many researchers emphasized BGs’ innovativeness as a driver of their competitiveness, the capabilities underlying BGs’ innovativeness are still under-researched, specifically, marketing, and innovation-related capabilities. Based on a preliminary stage of in-depth interviews with senior managers, we identified three capabilities, market intelligence generation, marketing adaptability, and team cohesion, that underscore the interaction between innovation and marketing. We then performed a SEM analysis based on data collected from 127 BGs. Our findings indicate that marketing intelligence and team cohesion directly and positively impact BGs’ innovativeness. Marketing adaptability was found to be moderated by environmental conditions—economic development and technological development. When economic development is high, salesforce adaptability enhances BGs’ innovativeness, while product adaptability or communication adaptability decreases BGs’ innovativeness. When technological development is high, product adaptability enhances BGs’ innovativeness, while salesforce adaptability decreases BGs’ innovativeness.     

The role of planning in small firms: Empirical evidence from a service industry

The relation between planning behaviour and performance is analyzed for a large number of small real estate firms in the Netherlands. A firm's planning behaviour appears to be influenced by the way it perceives its environment (in terms of complexity and dynamics) as well as its own characteristics (size, age and activities). The explanation of performance is dominated by a firm's size and the nature of its activities. Hardly and effect of planning on a firm's performance is found, though it appears that in an environment perceived as highly dynamic, planning is merely counter-productive.The authors wish to thank Jan Eppink and Ingrid van Rijn, and are especially grateful to Roy Thurik and two anonymous referees for valuable comments on earlier drafts. It goes without saying that errors and omissions remain the full responsibility of the authors.     

The dual role of local sites in assisting firms with developing technological capabilities: Evidence from China

As strong local knowledge bases emerge in some developing countries and regions, more research efforts are devoted to examine the role of local sites in technological-capability development of firms from developing countries. However, most of these studies illuminate the direct input (e.g., knowledge, human capital) and the role of motivating multinational companies (MNCs) to upgrade their local operations in developing countries so as to perform more innovation activities. Few articles are presented that examine the role of local sites in the learning and technological-capability building processes that take place during technology import activities. This study investigates how local sites in developing countries help their firms benefit from the spillovers of international technology diffusion, by empirically scrutinizing Chinese licensee firms. The empirical results support the hypothesis that Chinese local sites assist with their firms’ technological-capacity building, driven by international technology licensing-in activities, in three indirect ways. That is, the enrollments of sufficient R&D personnel from local sites, the collaborations with local universities and research institutes, and the collaborations with local industrial community firms positively influence the relationship between firms’ international inward technology licensing and technological capabilities.     

The role of industry variety in the creation of innovative start-ups in Italy

Small Business Economics - This paper aims to ascertain whether related and unrelated industry variety affects the creation of innovative as opposed to other start-ups in Italian local labor market...     

Altruistic nonprofit firms in competitive markets: The case of day-care centers in the United States

Day care for young children is provided in the United States by a wide range of individuals and organizations, both for-profit and nonprofit, public and private. Some children receive direct public subsidies; others do not, but any type of center may, if it wishes, become eligible to accept subsidized children. How can such a heterogeneous industry structure persist? How well has this mixture of organizations and financing arrangements been in responding to the current growth in the labor force participation of mothers? Using cross-section state-by-state data, this paper provides evidence demonstrating that the industry is very responsive to demand conditions (e.g., the level of female labor force participation, the number of children in single-parent families), but that subsidy money is distributed across the nation in a way that bears little relation to the relative needs of the population. Furthermore, interstate differences in regulatory stringency affect relative costs and appear to limit supply where regulations are most restrictive. I also argue that the current mixed industry structure is stable. Many nonprofits provide high-quality services at low prices because they are managed by altruists and receive private donations. Such firms do not, however, take over the market because there are not enough altruistic managers or donors to go around. Instead they ration their supply and those who cannot be served turn to other parts of the market. The marginal producers, however, appear to be for-profits which respond to profitable opportunities by entry and expansion.     

An econometric test of the self-employment model: The case of Italy

In this paper the authors put forward their attempt to test a self-employment model using an Italian data set which collects information about 78 Italian provinces (out of 95) over the period of 1985–1988. The self-employment model is introduced as a useful way to explain the formation of new small firms and subsequently previous econometric studies based on this model are discussed and compared.Once the empirical definitions of the variables are clarified, the econometric specification is introduced in Section 4 and results are discussed in Section 5 and 6.The general outcome of the estimates backs to a certain extent the self-employment approach which has already been tested with good results both in the U.K. and in the U.S. As far as the income choice is concerned, it turns out to be important in explaining the birth of new small firms. With regard to the role of job-losses, they also turn out to be significantly correlated with the high rates of firm formation.On the other hand, the discussion reported in Section 5 underlines the importance of other environmental factors which were not included in the original specification of Section 4. In particular, if the numerosity of the existing small firms is taken into account, self-employment relationships lose some of their significance. p]The laborer asks what he thinks the entrepreneur will be able to pay, and in any case will not accept less than he can get from some other entrepreneur, or by turning entrepreneur himself. In the same way the entrepreneur offers to any laborer what he thinks he must in order to secure his services, and in any case not more than he thinks the laborer will actually be worth to him, keeping in mind what he can get by turning laborer himself.Knight, 1921, p. 273     

Nature of the relationship between international expansion and performance: The case of emerging market firms

Internationally expanding companies would like to see how they compare with rivals in terms of the effect of internationalization on financial performance (for their sector and their firm). Virtually all such studies have focused on advanced nations. This study, on internationalization of firms based in an emerging economy (India), provides a unique research setting and sheds additional light on this relationship. It tests for the shape of the internationalization–performance curve for emerging market firms, and investigates differences between service firms and manufacturers in the threshold effect between the initial and later stages of internationalization. We find a U-shaped curve depicting the internationalization–performance relationship of Indian firms. Service sector firms tend to gain the positive benefits of internationalization sooner than manufacturing companies.     

The dynamics of relational competencies in the development of born global firms: A multilevel approach

From a multilevel approach, this paper focuses on the born global firms and the relational competencies that they use to initiate, maintain, and expand their international social networks. To do so, we detail the three levels of relational competencies (individual, collective, and organizational) and undertake an exploratory qualitative research based on interviews with French entrepreneurs of born global firms and experts who support their development. This study allows us to reach two sets of findings: firstly, a repository of thirteen relational competencies mobilized in born global firms as well as their development mechanisms; secondly, a dynamic view of these competencies, based on initiation, consolidation and expansion situations in which relational competencies and their development mechanisms are activated. Our study may lead entrepreneurs to identify competencies they hold at all levels (individual, collective, and organizational) but without necessarily implementing, as well as provide keys to develop any that are lacking in order to improve their internationalization strategy.