Institutional origins of WOFS formal contracting: A judicial arbitrariness perspective

In drawing from neo-institutional theory and the institution-based view, this study provides new insights concerning how home and host country norms influence wholly owned foreign subsidiary (WOFS) formal contract utilization. Our analysis of 171 WOFSs operating in the Philippines suggests that parent home country uncertainty avoidance, as an institutionalized organizational practice, is positively related to WOFS utilization of formal contracts in governing interorganizational relationships. Our results also reveal that managerial perceptions of local judicial arbitrariness directly influence formal contract utilization, and moderate the positive relationship between parent home country uncertainty avoidance and WOFS formal contract utilization. Furthermore, when compared to managerial perceptions of national judicial arbitrariness, perceived local judicial arbitrariness will exhibit a stronger negative direct and indirect influence on WOFS formal contract utilization. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Institutionalization of protection for intangible assets: Insights from the counterfeit and pirated goods trade in sub-Saharan Africa

Based on inductive qualitative multiple case studies of MNE subsidiaries in a sub-Saharan African market, this study investigates how multiple political networking capabilities are developed and leveraged to institutionalize protection for strategic internationally transferrable intangible assets in weak institutional environments. The study finds that MNE subsidiaries use a three-phase process to institutionalize protection for intangible assets: diagnosis of the nature of transaction costs and risks in the weak institutional environment (Phase 1); development of political networking capabilities to generate multiple political resources (Phase 2); and leveraging of a multiplicity of political resources to institutionalize protection for internationally transferable intangible assets (Phase 3). The study concludes that an ability to develop and leverage political networking capabilities to recombine multiple political resources enables MNE subsidiaries to institutionalize protection for internationally intangible assets in challenging host-market institutional environments. The wider theoretical, managerial, and public-policy complications of these findings are discussed, and avenues for future research proposed.     

实物期权无形资产及其价值评估研究

随着知识经济的到来及金融全球化的发展,企业无形资产的内涵和外延已拓展到智力资本及实物期权。在智力资本研究的基础上,把实物期权列入无形资产确认与计量范畴将有利于企业价值的真实反映。因此,本文将对实物期权无形资产的范畴、内涵和外延及其价值评估进行分析,以顺应新经济形势下对无形资产会计制度进行改革的现实要求。     

Engaging informal institutions through corporate political activity: Capabilities for subnational embeddedness in emerging economies

This study examines how multinational enterprises (MNEs) organize internally to enhance subnational institutional fit in new frontier developing economies. We consider how corporate political activity (CPA) can facilitate local embeddedness by engaging informal institutions and nonmarket stakeholders at local community level. We apply an exploratory, qualitative, multi-case study approach to six MNEs in Uganda’s electricity generation sector. The findings suggest that in markets like Uganda, MNEs depend on being bridged with subnational informal institutions such as tribal, social, and religious norms and grassroots political networks. Such bridging in turn positions these MNEs to contribute to developmental processes by integrating recognizable informal institutions into grassroots projects.Drawing on institutional theory and an organizational capabilities perspective, we identify the diverse bridging capabilities that enable MNEs to successfully embed locally, thereby simultaneously pursuing business objectives and achieving societal relevance.     

Institutional Investors,Earnings Quality and Asset Liquidity: Evidence from China’s Stock Market

This paper investigates how institutional holding and earnings quality influence the liquidity of assets. Contrary to findings in developed markets, we document several novel results in China’s stock market: (1) institutional holding negatively affects assets’ liquidity, (2) earnings quality is negatively related with liquidity. Since earnings quality captures asymmetric information, low earnings quality induces high divergence in investor opinions and thus boosts market trading, and (3) interestingly, the effect of earnings quality on liquidity is greater if institutional investors’ holding is at a high level. Overall, our findings cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that institutional investors and earnings quality improve market liquidity. The results are robust to different measures and alternative model specifications.     

如何防范资产减值准备计提不实

资产减值准备计提不实既会给企业造成损失,也给企业利用资产减值操纵利润留下空间。为防止计提资产减值准备不实,应健全会计制度,提高会计人员的素质,把握好谨慎性原则,发挥市场自身对盈余管理行为的约束力。尤其要加强资产减值准备的外部专业评估,提高减值准备披露的清晰度,为合理资产减值准备计提提供制度保证,以有效地避免制度性虚盈实亏,确保财务会计资料的真实性,为经营者的审慎经营以及投资者的谨慎决策提供可靠和相关的会计信息。     

Self-categorization as a nonmarket strategy for MNE subsidiaries: Tracking the international expansion of an online platform

This article examines how MNE subsidiaries develop nonmarket strategies to create a fit between a global market strategy and a local nonmarket framework. Derived from an analysis of archives and interviews on eBay’s expansion into France, our findings suggest that MNE subsidiaries engage in defensive and proactive self-categorization to create their nonmarket strategic fit. Specifically, through the purposeful use of labels, rhetoric and narratives, self-categorization enables subsidiaries to strategically position themselves vis-à-vis both regulators and local incumbents, thereby exercising agency to influence the nonmarket environment in their preferred direction. The findings contribute to the institution-based view of international strategy by shedding new light on the interaction between MNE subsidiaries and local institutional authorities in a context of international expansion. Furthermore, we theorize how subsidiaries use self-categorization to transfer global organizational practices to the host country.     

Integrating nonmarket and market resources,strategy and performance in Chinese enterprises: a review of the field and a resource-based empirical study

The resource-based view (RBV) regards strategy as deploying resources to obtain a competitive advantage. This article adopts such a RBV, by a simultaneous consideration of nonmarket and market factors, and then an empirical analysis of the relationships between such nonmarket and market resources, strategies and performance, focusing specifically on Chinese enterprises. The results test hypotheses related to the integrated strategy and RBV of the firm on linkages of nonmarket and market components. Combining those two views, this study reveals that there is a high and positive correlation between nonmarket and market strategies, while nonmarket strategy has a positive indirect effect on market performance via nonmarket performance. These findings suggest that the RBV is an appropriate theory for addressing the shortcomings in integrated strategy research.     

渠道资产:知识经济条件下企业制胜之道

渠道的建立和变革正在被国际先进企业所重视,正在成为人们探索新大陆的焦点。企业应当把渠道资产视为一种特有的"资产",积极推进国有营销渠道的变革,建立有效的客户关系管理系统和个性化的销售渠道与网络,成为市场的赢家。     

Multinational country risk: Exposure to asset holding risk and operating risk in international business

We address the phenomenon of country total risk, confounded by the risk of holding assets abroad and operating them in the foreign market. The findings point to deep differences in risk patterns as ownership of intangible assets exposes the holders to a higher risk. Indeed, the asset-specific risk is the dominant component of advance market volatility, explaining more than 80 percent of the cross-sectional variance. The model in the study accounts for the deficiencies in the related research streams and attempt to alleviate the typical problems in popular estimation methods.     

Emerging-market firms’ dynamic capabilities and international performance: The moderating role of institutional development and distance

While extant research has examined the separate influences of dynamic capabilities and institutions on international performance, their interactive role has received limited attention. Therefore, we examine the role of host-country institutional conditions in the relationships between emerging-market firms’ (EMFs) innovation-related dynamic capabilities and their international performance. We use multi-source secondary data and primary data from multiple informants from 254 Turkish international firms to test our framework. The study finds that the linkages between three innovation-related dynamic capabilities (innovativeness, supply-chain agility, and adaptability) and international performance are positively and negatively moderated by institutional development and institutional distance, but that their influences are opposite. These influences demonstrate that host-country institutional conditions shape the link between dynamic capabilities and EMFs’ international performance in a multifaceted and paradoxical fashion.     

Scalability and robustness of a network resource allocation system using market-based agents

In this paper, we consider issues associated with scalability and robustness in designing a market-based multi-agent system that allocates bandwidth in a communications network. Specifically, an empirical evaluation is carried out to assess the system performance under a variety of design configurations in order to provide an insight into network deployment issues. This extends our previous work in which we developed an application that makes use of market-based software agents that compete in decentralised marketplaces to buy and sell bandwidth resources in a network that is partitioned into regions, each with a separate market server. We investigate the average call success rate and average message load per market server, as the number of markets are scaled up in a fixed size network. The same investigations are performed in the presence of single market failures. Finally, for both the failure and non-failure cases, a trade-off is found between their average call success rates and message load per server in order to find an optimum number of regions to deploy in the network.     

资产减值影响因素的实证研究

在新会计准则下,以不同盈利特征的上市公司减值准备计提为研究对象,选用2001-2006年沪深上市公司为样本,对减值准备计提与转回的影响因素进行了研究。实证研究发现:企业自身经济因素造成的价值损毁是影响减值准备计提的主要原因,在控制了企业自身经济因素、行业特征和宏观经济环境的影响后,上市公司减值准备的计提与转回受到盈余管理动机的显著影响。研究还发现,不同盈利特征的公司在运用减值准备进行盈余管理时,会选择不同的减值类型。     

论行政事业性国有资产管理体制改革

行政事业性国有资产是国有资产的重要组成部分 ,是各级行政事业单位完成工作任务和事业计划的物质基础。目前对行政事业性国有资产的管理仍存在管理机构设置不规范、管理制度不健全、管理方式不科学、“非转经”活动的规范等问题 ,影响其效能发挥。以十六大报告战略性确定国有资产管理体制的基本框架为背景 ,提出深化行政事业性国有资产管理体制改革的政策建议     

Varieties of Capitalism and the Limits of Entrepreneurship Policy: Institutional Reform in Germany’s Coordinated Market Economy

Recent debates on the comparative institutional advantages of diverse national models of capitalist development tend to differentiate between liberal market economies like the United States dominated by market coordination and coordinated market economies like Germany that highlight nonmarket coordination schemes. Institutional advantages of the liberal type inform reform initiatives in coordinated market economies, involving the domain of entrepreneurship policy. These efforts in the liberal reshaping of coordinated varieties of capitalism by the use of entrepreneurship policy need to be critically assessed. The case of entrepreneurship policy in Germany provides related insights on the prospects of these efforts. It gives evidence for the suggestion that the systemic character and institutional embeddedness of entrepreneurial activity need to be adequately reflected in the design of entrepreneurship policy.     

资产结构优化的动态不一致研究

通过构建完全信息动态博弈模型,研究了企业资产结构优化的路径依赖和动态不一致。资产结构优化策略路径依赖于预期的资产结构和产品市场竞争策略。长期来看,资产结构优化策略的依赖路径是不稳定的。资本合约驱动的变化,转化因子的变化和管理者对均衡收益率的认知变化,共同导致了资产结构优化策略的动态不一致。     

Contractibility and ownership redirection in franchising: A property rights view

This paper offers a property rights theoretical interpretation of the ownership redirection hypothesis advanced by Oxenfeldt and Kelly [Oxenfeldt, Alfred R. and Kelly, Anthony O. (1968). “Will Successful Franchise Systems Ultimately Become Wholly-owned Chains?”, Journal of Retailing, 44, 69-83]. In a nutshell, couched in resource dependence theory, the ownership redirection hypothesis argues that successful franchise systems will eventually become corporate owned systems because of the reacquisition of franchisee units by the more powerful, and resource-flush franchisors. We argue that the structure and dynamics of ownership patterns in franchising networks depends on the contractibility of the franchisor's system-specific assets and the contractibility of the franchisee's local market assets. Under the property rights view, ownership redirection will result from an increase in the contractibility of the franchisee's local market assets (local market information, financial resources, and managerial capabilities) and the resultant increase of the franchisor's bargaining power during the contract period. We extend the franchise literature by arguing that informational, financial and managerial resource constraints are only relevant for the change of ownership structure if they are noncontractible. This hypothesis is evaluated using data collected from the Austrian franchise sector. The empirical results are largely supportive of the hypothesis.     

Co-production of service innovations through dynamic capability enhancement

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of co-production practices with customers on service innovation. Specifically, we sought to determine whether dynamic capabilities (the specific abilities a company has to shape, reshape, configure, and reconfigure idiosyncratic assets to respond to changing technologies and markets) could mediate the effect of co-production on service innovation. In this paper, we examine the factors that could influence co-production practices and determine whether organizational commitment moderates the effect of co-production practice on an organization's dynamic capabilities. Using a survey approach of Taiwanese firms, we showed that dynamic capability fully mediates the effects of co-production practice on service innovation and that market orientation and customer matching have a significant influence on co-production practices. In addition, this study has empirically demonstrated that service firms would be well advised to engage in developing service innovation through enhancing their own dynamic capabilities.     

NGOs’ influence on MNEs’ social development strategies in varying institutional contexts: A transaction cost perspective

In this paper, we examine the effect of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on the transaction costs multinational enterprises (MNEs) assume in their nonmarket social development strategies. We develop propositions to predict the effect of three important aspects of the institutional context on how NGOs affect MNE transaction costs: institutional development, institutional distance and institutional dynamism. We also propose how these relationships are moderated by the level of civil society development in the countries in which these entities interact. We conclude with suggestions for further research.     

中国环境下的跨国企业市场与非市场战略、策略以及战术间的关系

许多管理者认为,在中国市场上非市场环境应该与市场环境受到同样的高度关注,跨国企业经营战略应该由市场(或竞争)部分和非市场两部分组成。因此,本文提出了一个市场与非市场战略、策略以及战术之间关系的概念性理论模型。该模型反映了跨国企业在中国市场上是如何进行贸易或投资选择、策略选择和制定实施战略的。