Emerging Multinationals from Mid‐Range Economies: The Influence of Institutions and Factor Markets

This paper revisits and extends our earlier work (in 2005) in the pages of this journal. We argue that there is a need for more fine‐grained understanding of the country context along two dimensions: (1) institutional development and (2) infrastructure and factor market development. Specifically, we propose an enriched typology of emerging economies with a focus on mid‐range emerging economies, which are positioned between traditional emerging economies and newly developed economies. Then we examine new multinationals from these mid‐range emerging economies that have internationalized both regionally and globally. We outline directions for further research based on this typology in terms of (1) government influence, (2) resource orchestration, (3) market entry, and (4) corporate governance regarding the internationalization strategy of these emerging multinationals from mid‐range economies.     

Partner Type Diversity in Alliance Portfolios: Multiple Dimensions,Boundary Conditions and Firm Innovation Performance

Our research extends the current knowledge based view on the configuration of alliance portfolios and their deployment in different external knowledge environments. We study these alliance portfolios in a longitudinal sample (1996–2010) for over three thousand firms that operate in a large number of industries in the Netherlands. Our findings indicate that partner type variety and partner type relevance, as different dimensions of partner diversity in alliance portfolios, both have an inverted U‐shaped association with firm innovation performance. However, alliance portfolios characterized by both high partner type variety and high relevance cause inferior innovation performance. Different external knowledge environments, characterized by different levels of industry modularity and scope of knowledge distribution, moderate the inverted U‐shaped associations of partner type variety and relevance in alliance portfolios with firm innovation performance in opposing directions. While for partner type variety, a high level is found to be optimal in environments with greater modularity or broader scope of knowledge distribution, for partner type relevance it turns out that a low level is optimal under more modular industry conditions.     

Environmental Strategy and Competitive Advantage: The Role of Small‐ and Medium‐Sized enterprises' Dynamic Capabilities

Drawing on the resource‐based theory and institutional theory, we develop a framework to explain the processes by which the environmental strategy of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) contributes to their competitive advantage. We test our assumption using data collected from 214 UK‐based SMEs in the technology sector. We find that the effects of environmental strategy can lead to development of their marketing competence, as well as research and development (R&D) competence, which ultimately contributes to superior financial performance. We also find that a reciprocal causal relationship exists between SMEs' marketing and R&D competences. Combined, we reveal the presence of a serial multiple mediation relationship between SMEs' environmental strategy and financial performance through marketing competence and then R&D competence, or vice versa. Our study offers important academic and managerial implications, and also points out future research directions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

A cross‐country study on the relationship between financial development and earnings management

This study investigates whether a country's level of financial development is associated with earnings management in an international setting. Financial development is likely to heighten the monitoring and scrutiny of accounting numbers because of strengthened investor protection laws and regulations as well as sophisticated market participants. Therefore, we first hypothesize that both accrual‐based and real earnings management decrease with greater financial development. However, research shows that managers tend to apply real earnings management, instead of accrual‐based earnings management, under strict accounting standards, regulations, and close auditor scrutiny. Thus, we explore the alternative hypothesis that accrual‐based earnings management decreases but real earnings management increases along with higher financial development. We examine the relationship between financial development and both types of earnings management using 56,830 observations in 37 countries covering the period 2009–2012. The results indicate that both types of earnings management are more restrained under higher levels of financial development.     

Organization‐Based Self‐Esteem,Psychological Contract Fulfillment,and Perceived Employment Opportunities: A Test of Self‐Regulatory Theory

This study addresses organization‐based self‐esteem (OBSE) development by examining the role of perceptions of employer psychological contract fulfillment, and the self‐regulatory processes by which OBSE evolves and produces its effects. Self‐regulatory theory helps reveal why psychological contract fulfillment relates to OBSE, how OBSE mediates its effects, and the ways in which OBSE might interact with perceived employment opportunities to affect job satisfaction, performance, and turnover intentions. The results show that OBSE is related to and mediates the relationships between relational contract fulfillment and employee job satisfaction and performance, but OBSE is not related to transactional contract fulfillment. Nor does OBSE mediate the relationships between transactional contract fulfillment and the dependent variables. Perceived employment opportunities moderate the relationships of OBSE with job satisfaction and turnover intentions. This study concludes with recommendations of ways managers can increase their sensitivity to the types of messages they communicate to employees. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Anti‐Communism,The Growth Machine and the Remaking of Cold‐War‐Era Pittsburgh

This article develops a new perspective on urban growth machines through an analysis of the relationship between Pittsburgh's Renaissance and cold‐war‐era anti‐communism. In order to facilitate urban (re)development, growth machines foster a shared sense of metropolitan citizenship and a corresponding ideological belief that coalitions of business, government and other elite actors can renew regions for the collective good of their residents. During the early years of the cold war, anti‐communism was a key means by which growth machines could create this shared sense of metropolitan belonging. The members of Pittsburgh's widely celebrated growth coalition used anti‐communism to advance their interests in four key ways: (1) by encouraging residents to see the Renaissance as part of the larger struggle against communism; (2) by eliminating a deeply rooted radical political culture; (3) by, in the process, curtailing opposition to their effort to remake the region into a post‐industrial economy based on free capital mobility; and (4) by having it serve as a shared tactic and ideology that stitched together and legitimated capitalist development at all scales from the factory to the globe. Pittsburgh's Renaissance provides an important example of how growth machines not only produce space, but also citizenship and the conditions of political possibility.     

Indirect Convertibility,Equity‐Based Banking and Financial Stability

Banking reform proposals put forward in the wake of the recent financial crisis maintain that equity‐based banking would be stable and would prevent bank runs. This article argues that complementing this form of banking with an indirect convertibility monetary standard and thereby dispensing with base money would enhance financial stability further. Banks would not hold a distinctive asset (base money) that would be called upon by customers at short notice, thereby removing the possibility of bank runs. No discrepancy in value between the two sides of a bank's balance sheet would arise as its assets (securitised loans) would be marked to market. Unlike other recent contributions, the intermediation model outlined here is not ‘limited purpose’ in nature as banks would not be restricted in the form of lending activity they can pursue. Common sources of banking and financial instability – liquidity risk, solvency risk, moral hazard – would be absent.     

Innovation Offshoring,Institutional Context and Innovation Performance: A Meta‐Analysis

Innovation offshoring (IO) has become a widespread management practice. Yet, evidence on the performance implications is inconsistent, and scattered across disciplines and contexts. We argue that the benefits firms can derive from IO depend on the institutional environment at home. Drawing on recent work on institutional theory in international business, we explore institutions that facilitate reverse knowledge transfer and/or institutional arbitrage with respect to innovation‐related activities. The results of our meta‐analysis that synthesizes evidence from 48 samples show that IO is related positively to innovation performance. As predicted, this relationship is moderated by differences in the institutional environments across countries. Specifically, when national innovation systems are weak at home, IO appears to enable institutional arbitrage strategy whereas Confucian cultures enable more effective reverse knowledge transfer. However, contrary to our expectations, the beneficial effects of IO appear to have diminished over time.     

Corporate governance and lesbian,gay, bisexual,and transgender‐supportive human resource policies from corporate social responsibility,resource‐based,and agency perspectives

Corporate boards are responsible for ensuring that managers enact policies that are in shareholders' best interests, and managers are responsible for implementing strategies that are not only profitable but also responsive to changing legal and societal demands and the resource needs of the firm. In this paper, we use the theoretical lenses of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the resource‐based view, and agency theory to investigate the relationship between corporate governance structure and the implementation of supportive lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) policies. We analyze 10,233 firm‐year observations and 1,594 unique firms, and our results demonstrate that LGBT‐supportive policies are positively associated with firm performance. We also offer new insight into why not all firms adopt such policies. We exploit the passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act as an exogenous shock that increased board independence, and our difference‐in‐difference estimation shows that firms forced to raise board independence in 2002 were less likely to invest in LGBT‐supportive policies. Results suggest that human resource management (HRM) policies can be guided by CSR and resource‐based views in the pursuit of wealth maximization, but agency conflict may also be a concern for external majority boards. We discuss implications for HRM research practice and corporate governance regarding LGBT policies in organizations.     

Options‐based HRM,intellectual capital,and exploratory and exploitative learning in law firms' practice groups

The current study intends to uncover the strategic contribution of human resource management by introducing a unique construct of options‐based (vis‐à‐vis project‐based) HRM and examining its links to intellectual capital and exploratory and exploitative learning in the context of law firms' practice groups. Empirical results show that options‐based HRM is positively related to the practice group's explorative and exploitative learning. The intellectual capital mediates the relationships between options‐based HRM and the practice group's learning for exploration and exploitation. This study makes a valuable contribution to the HRM literature by establishing the mechanisms by which HRM enables organizational learning and extending the scope of HRM research to professional service firms. Our findings also provide valuable implications for the literature of organizational learning. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Green indoor and outdoor environment as nature‐based solution and its role in increasing customer/employee mental health,well‐being,and loyalty

The present study was an empirical endeavor to explore the effect of nature‐based solutions (NBS) on the customer and employee loyalty generation process by considering the role of mental health and well‐being in the hotel industry. A quantitative approach was employed. A survey methodology with a convenience sampling technique was used to collect the data. A total of 303 responses and 301 responses for customer and employee groups, respectively, were used for data analysis. Our results of the structural analysis indicated that green indoor and outdoor environment as NBS helps customers and employees improve mental health perception, emotional well‐being, and loyalty. In addition, the prominent role of emotional well‐being in building customer loyalty and of mental health perception in building employee loyalty was uncovered. The developed conceptual frameworks for customers and employees contained a satisfactory ability in predicting loyalty. Mental health perception and emotional well‐being were mediators. Moreover, the relationship strength among study variables differed between customer and employee groups. Overall, our findings significantly increased our understanding of NBS and its critical role in the hotel industry.     

Alignment,integration, and consistency in HRM across multi‐employer networks

Most studies of human resource management (HRM) have been conducted within the context of the single employing organization, which is strange given the recent growth in multi‐employer networks. In this study, the authors examine whether alignment, integration, and consistency—concepts central to or implicit in most analyses of HRM—has meaning and relevance in the multi‐employer context. They focus specifically on networks in which collaboration is intended to deliver high levels of product quality or customer service, precisely where one might expect employers would be attracted to “strong” HRM systems. Data was collected via interviews and document analysis in four networks, spanning both the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom. Despite a set of potentially favorable conditions within these networks to promote alignment, integration, and consistency, implementation was impeded by other equally powerful forces, including differences in employer goals within networks, especially between public and private sector organizations; intraorganizational tensions within internal labor markets for organizations involved in networks; using divergent HR policies between organizations within multi‐employer networks; and contradictions between the pursuit of “among employee” or “temporal” consistency for workers. Rather than prescribing a one‐size‐fits‐all solution for these problems, it is argued that detailed analysis of each network is necessary. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Managing the Intangible Aspects of a Project: The Affect of Vision,Artifacts, and Leader Values on Project Spirit and Success in Technology‐Driven Projects

Successful projects are often characterized by a unique spirit. Phase one results, based on 193 employees partaking in 60 projects across organizations, support a model positing that leader building activities affect employees' emotions, attitudes, and behavioral norms that are focused on expected project outcomes, termed project spirit. Spirit affects employees' contextual performance behavior, which in turn affects success as proposed. Phase two cases, designed to ground these results in technology‐driven project contexts, highlight the value of managing the project's intangible aspects captured by spirit. Quantitative and qualitative findings imply that leaders can be coached to execute behaviors that generate a project's spirit, which boosts contextual performance behavior and increases project success.     

From Frontier to Bridgehead: Cross‐border Regions and the Experience of Yunnan,China

Drawing on recent theoretical tenets regarding cross‐border regions, this article analyzes China's state spatial policies that aim to transform Yunnan from a peripheral frontier into an economic bridgehead. The purposes of the present study are threefold: to contextualize the formation of Yunnan as China's frontier; to examine why Yunnan has been strategically selected as a bridgehead to promote China's transnational economies; and to explore the central–provincial alliance as an innovative institutional arrangement and look at how this alliance can convert Yunnan into a space of exception or new state space of development. This study finds that in order to convert regional assets into real competitiveness, the Chinese state (national, provincial and local) emphasizes transnational cooperation, endeavors to maximize Yunnan's place‐specific locational advantages and promotes the differentiation of regional developmental trajectories across China's national territory. The article contributes to studies of institutional arrangements for cross‐border cooperation in a non‐Western context and sheds light on China's regional development policies in its hinterland.     

Going green,going clean: Lean‐green sustainability strategy and firm growth

Despite the widespread recognition of the paybacks of “going green” and “going clean,” limited research has focused on the impact of lean‐green strategy on firm growth. In this study, we contribute to strategy and environmental sustainability literatures by investigating the possibility that the influence on lean‐green strategy and firm growth is driven by different levels of industry competition, managerial power, and family ties. Using panel data from 732 firms in four major industrialized economies (the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom), we found that lean‐green strategy positively relates to firm growth and this relationship is amplified at higher levels of competition, managerial power, and family ties. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.     

Innovation intensity,creativity enhancement,and eco‐innovation strategy: The roles of customer demand and environmental regulation

This study develops a contingency framework to investigate how and when innovation intensity and creativity enhancement affect a firm's eco‐innovation strategy by drawing upon the perspectives of the resource‐based view and stakeholder theory. This investigation aims to explore whether firms with high innovation intensity and creativity enhancement really pursue eco‐innovation strategy. Our examination is based on a sample of 2,126 manufacturing firms. By using a hierarchical regression, the results reveal that the effects of innovation intensity and creativity enhancement on eco‐innovation strategy depend on customer demand and environmental regulation. Specifically, customer demand positively moderates the effects of innovation intensity and creativity enhancement on eco‐innovation strategy, whereas existing regulation has a weaker effect on the relationship between innovation activities and eco‐innovation strategy than that of anticipated regulation.