National institutional systems,foreign ownership and firm performance: The case of understudied countries

We analyse the relationship between institutional systems (configurations of countries with similar institutional characteristics) and firm performance. We use a large sample of firms from understudied countries to explore whether the performance impact of these configurations is the same (“equifinality”), whether this holds across different measures of firm performance (“Tversky effect”), and whether some institutional configurations better support foreign-owned firms. We find that it is possible to rank institutional systems according to their impact on firm performance, but the ranking differs according to the performance measure. Although foreign ownership on average confers performance advantages, the magnitude of the impact depends on the configuration. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the importance of institutional similarities across countries, and to the implications of these similarities for the theory of the MNE.     

Country effect on firm performance: A multilevel approach

The debate about the impact of environmental constraints on firm performance in developing countries is relevant for business enterprises and governments. However, the academic literature offers limited empirical evidence comparing firm performance in emerging and developed countries. This paper performs a statistical analysis based on a sample of more than 10,000 firms in a 10-year span. A cross-classified 3-level hierarchical linear model allows the estimation of country, industry and country-industry interaction effects, which have roughly the same relative importance each. The analytical procedure is able to estimate the influence of each specific country on firm performance and produce a ranking of nations based on this effect. Country effects have a greater positive influence on firm performance in emerging countries than in more developed economies.     

The questions we ask: Opportunities and challenges for using big data analytics to strategically manage human capital resources

Big data analytics have transformed research in many fields, including the business areas of marketing, accounting and finance, and supply chain management. Yet, the discussion surrounding big data analytics in human resource management has primarily focused on job candidate screenings. In this article, we consider how significant strategic human capital questions can be addressed with big data analytics, enabling HR to enhance overall firm performance. We also examine how new data sources that help assess workforce performance in real time can assist in the identification and development of the knowledge stars that contribute to firm performance disproportionately as well as help reinforce firm capabilities. But in order for big data analytics to be successful in the HR field, regulatory and ethical challenges must also be addressed; these include privacy concerns and, in Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We conclude by discussing how big data analytics can facilitate strategic change within HR and the organization as a whole.     

The intermediating role of big data analytics capability between responsive and proactive market orientations and firm performance in the retail industry

Big data analytics capability (BDAC) is the key resource for competitive advantage in the drastically changing market. Although some studies have investigated the impacts on firm performance, there is limited understanding of how firms enhance their BDAC. This study draws on organisational culture and investigates the effects of responsive and proactive market orientations on BDAC and firm performance. The results show that both responsive and proactive market orientations increase BDAC. Further, BDAC fully mediates the relationship between these two market orientations and firm performance. Our findings suggest that BDAC researchers should focus on market orientations that enhance BDAC.     

Strategic management training and commitment to planning: critical partners in stimulating firm performance

Few studies to date have been able to establish a clear link between training activities and firm performance. This study shows a relationship between a firm’s level of commitment to planning, management development and training activities and firm performance. The relationship is demonstrated by a higher return on equity for investors. Data from 157 small financial firms in the US were collected and analysed to find out if there was a relationship between the frequency and type of strategic management training, commitment to a strategic planning process, and firm performance. Findings from this study show that there is a significant relationship, resulting in greater return on tockholders’ equity, between the frequency that senior managers attend strategic management training and a firm’s level of commitment to the planning process.     

Performance feedback and location choice of foreign direct investment

Integrating the behavioral theory of the firm and the OLI paradigm, this paper studies how performance feedback affects the location choice of emerging market firms between developed countries (DCs) and less developed countries (LDCs) during the process of internationalization. Using the sample of 1,306 Chinese public listed firms which established new foreign subsidiaries between 2008 and 2019, we find that the further a firm’s performance is below aspiration, the more likely it will invest in LDCs than DCs, whereas the further a firm’s performance is above aspiration, the more likely it will invest in DCs than LDCs. In addition, technology-based capability and labor intensive production capability have moderating effects on the relationship between performance feedback and location choice between DCs and LDCs. This paper complements and extends the OLI paradigm by injecting dynamic and non-economic factors to explain OFDI location choice.     

Enterprise‐level training in developing countries: do international standards matter?*

Several studies have examined the determinants of training in developing countries but few have paid attention to the potential importance of international standards such as ISO 9000 or ISO 14000 on the firm's training decision. This article examines training determinants using recent employer surveys for five developing countries: Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Morocco and Nicaragua. It finds that ISO certification status is an important determinant of training, even after controlling for other characteristics such as workers’ formal schooling, firm size, industry and foreign ownership. This points toward the importance of international standards, including product quality and production standards, for firm training. The article also discusses policy implications related to the findings and provides directions for further research.     

Internet resources and capabilities: Japanese SME risk-taking,industry and performance

This study investigates how Internet-related resources and capabilities are influencing performance in Japanese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We use a structural equation modelling approach to test these relationships between Internet readiness, Internet capability, risk-taking perceptions and performance within Japanese SMEs (350 SMEs). Unlike other counterpart countries, such as South Korea, Japanese SMEs have been relatively slow in implementing Internet technologies into business practice. However, the results indicate that if Japanese SMEs allocate appropriate resources and deploy Internet capabilities these firms will benefit with performance gains. Further, we find that both the perception of risk-taking and the industry in which the firm operates are key factors in either inhibiting or enhancing the firm’s ability to leverage Internet-related capabilities for firm performance.     

Performance Heterogeneity in Latin America: An Investigation into the Transient Effects of Country of Origin

The heterogeneity of firm performance has been studied from the perspective of factors, including the firm effect, the industry effect, and the country effect. This study emphasizes the importance of country transient effects in light of the volatility present in Latin American countries. Variance decomposition was carried out for the economic and operational performance of five countries in the period from 1998 to 2007. The results show that country effects matter for Latin America, its transient effects increase in periods of higher turbulence, and have a greater effect on a firms' economic performance than on its operational performance.     

Realised absorptive capacity,technology acquisition and performance in international collaborative formations: an empirical examination in the Korean context

The research objectives of this paper are twofold. First, it attempts to identify the critical factors facilitating the acquisition of technology from foreign partner firms and performance enhancement in international collaborative formations. Second, it compares these factors across Western and Japanese sub-samples. A new concept, realised absorptive capacity, is employed to achieve these objectives. Using a sample collected through a questionnaire-based survey, our results show that trust and communication are critical components in transforming new knowledge, while active managerial involvement of the foreign firm and the participation of foreign expatriates are the keys to applying it for business operations. In particular, components consisting of the ability to exploit new knowledge (i.e. active managerial involvement of foreign firm, participation of foreign expatriates and provision of training) are closely associated with performance enhancement. In addition, our results confirm that there clearly exist different patterns of learning mechanisms and incompatible behaviours in improving performance between the two sub-samples. Based on the results, the authors suggest implications and future research avenues.     

In search of the best human resource practices in chain stores in China

This paper is based on a recent survey of human resources (HR) practices from 83 chain stores in China. It differentiated managerial staff and operating employees according to different types of HR configurations. It also identified high and low adoption based on bundling of HR practices using cluster analysis. The impact of HR practices alignment on enhancing firm performance was evaluated using high adoption cluster. The findings advance our knowledge in the High Performance Work Systems literature and offer important insights for executives in formulating effective HR management strategies.     

Board diversity and firm performance: The role of business group affiliation

There is little consensus globally on the relationship between board diversity and firm performance. Using the resource dependence and agency views, this paper examines how business group affiliation influences the relationship between board diversity and firm performance as a contextual/confounding factor. Based on data for listed firms in India, we find that board demographic diversity is positively associated with the firm performance (Tobin’s Q) of standalone firms, but this association is negative for group-affiliated firms. This negative effect of group affiliation is confirmed in a test based on a novel measure of firm performance using the stock market reaction to the announcement of mergers and acquisitions. For both measures of performance, we show that business group affiliation impairs the positive firm value effects of board demographic diversity. These findings imply that the relationship between board diversity and firm performance requires re-examination in the many countries where group affiliation is common. Our results also provide evidence of a new cost of group affiliation and show in a fresh context that cross-country studies should account for international variations in ownership and institutional structures.     

The performance of cross-border acquisitions targeting African firms

This paper examines the performance of cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) of fims domiciled in Africa. We examine 503 deals involving firms from 23 developed and 20 emerging countries, acquiring targets in 33 African countries. We find that, on aggregate, Africa bound CBAs significantly underperform, and that emerging economy acquirers outperform their developed economy counterparts. Further, significant variations in deal performance is documented when the target firms are categorised according to the level of development of African financial markets, industries, and to some extent, economic blocs. The results are robust to various firm, industry, deal and country specific characteristics.     

Human resource outsourcing: Market and operating performance effects of administrative HR functions

Using event study methodology and two-stage regression analysis on a sample of firms announcing human resource outsourcing (HRO) contracts, this study tests the association between administrative HRO and firm-level capital market and long run operating performance, with archival financial data controlling for endogeneity and outsourcing decision optimality. The results demonstrate that the equity capital market responds positively to client firms announcing administrative HRO, particularly service firms and those outsourcing transactional HR tasks. Additional statistical analysis shows that suboptimal outsourcing is negatively associated with long run operating performance measured as return on assets and operating return on assets. This study contributes to outsourcing literature by more precisely quantifying outsourcing performance through archival financial data and employing capital market empirical tests. Further, it controls for outsourcing decision optimality in examining long run operating performance effects. This research focuses on HR, a critical function within the firm and value enhancing to the firm.     

Interdisciplinary Research Within a Modified Competing Values Model of Organizational Performance

Abstract

An interdisciplinary model of firm performance based on a modified and extended Competing Values Model of Organizational Culture combines elements drawn from three different research traditions-organizational culture and climate from organizational behavior, innovativeness from economics, and market orientation from marketing. The model has been used to analyze firm performance in business-to-business markets in a number of countries in the industrial and the industrializing worlds. In general, successful firms are found to be innovative, market oriented, and to have organizational cultures and decision-making climates which are externally oriented. In most countries, there are also identifiable national culture-specific patterns. In this paper, we focus on the inter-relationships among the streams of research upon which the model is built. Using Brazil, previously unstudied in this context, we attempt to identify a structure among the model elements to test hypotheses about (1) the inter-relationships of the explanatory variables, and (2) the relationships of the explanatory variables to each other and to firm performance. We find that the contributing disciplines produce interpretable results, and that performance is improved by achieving good results simultaneously along several inter-related dimensions.     

Knowledge-flows and firm performance

This study advances the understanding of how knowledge-flows impact on firm performance. Incorporating recent research on the knowledge-based view of the firm, this paper tests and extends the knowledge flow model by using more fine-grained measures and by proposing a nonlinear effect. This study tests the predicted effects in a longitudinal research design with data on a global sample of public biopharmaceutical firms. The results largely support the expectation that knowledge-flows largely have a nonlinear impact on firm performance. However, one traditional measure of knowledge-flows, geographical location, turns out to have no significant influence in the extended model. The paper explains the implications of these findings for practice and research.     

How does R&D internationalization in multinational firms affect their innovative performance? The moderating role of international collaboration in the energy industry

This paper examines the effects of the degree and geographic diversification of a firm’s R&D internationalization on its innovative performance. We use an unbalanced panel dataset of 401 observations from 110 multinational firms operating in the energy industry over a period of six years to support the argument that both the degree and the geographic diversification of a firm’s R&D internationalization have an inverted U-shaped relationship with a firm’s innovative performance. Our results also show that collaboration among R&D units located in different countries moderates this relationship by reducing both the positive effects and the challenges of the degree of R&D internationalization. This paper extends the emerging innovation focus in the headquarters–subsidiary literature by contributing to our understanding of the implications of the international R&D activities of firms and supports the utilization of social exchange theory in order to identify the moderating influence of the collaboration among a firm’s R&D units located in different countries.     

Where does ESG pay? The role of national culture in moderating the relationship between ESG performance and financial performance

This study investigates the moderating role of a country’s culture as an external contingency factor in the relationship between a firm’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and financial performance. Using ESG performance data of 4978 firms from 48 countries for 17 years, we argue that the financial return from engaging in ESG varies depending on the countries’ cultural aspects because stakeholder evaluations and appreciations for a firm’s ESG performance differ across nations. We find that a country that espouses a culture of high individualism or masculinity tends to appreciate and reflect on this more explicitly, strengthening the relationship between a firm’s ESG performance and financial performance. Contrastingly, in a country with a culture of high power distance or uncertainty avoidance, firms’ ESG efforts are less likely to be associated with financial performance. Our findings have important implications for multinational enterprises facing various cultural environments when dealing with heterogeneous stakeholder demands across countries.     

The effect of institutional quality on firm export performance in emerging economies: a contingency model of firm age and size

It is widely accepted that countries with sound formal and informal institutions create more robust environments for firm performance. However, due to the liabilities faced by firms without available slack and/or market power, we contend that institutions are especially important for new and small firms. Unfortunately, there is little research examining the potential moderating effect of firm size or age on the relationship between institutional quality and export performance. In response, we hypothesize that institutional quality will be more important to increasing the export performance of new and small firms compared with their large, established counterparts. We test our hypotheses using data from the World Bank’s World Business Environment Survey. The results of our analyses offer support for our model, although some institutional variables appear to be more important to export performance than others. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results.     

企业能力、竞争优势与人力资源管理关系研究——基于能力的人力资源管理和战略人力资源管理的比较与整合

与员工能力与员工绩效关系的研究相比,目前对企业人力资本和员工与企业绩效和竞争优势关系的研究要抽象、模糊的多.论文在对基于能力的人力资源管理和战略人力资源管理研究分析的基础上,结合企业战略管理相关理论,将企业视为一个能力系统,阐明了员工能力,企业能力、企业竞争优势、企业绩效与人力资源管理的相互关系,进而将从个体视角探讨员工能力与员工绩效关系的基于能力的人力资源管理与从企业视角探讨人力资本、人力资源管理与企业绩效、竞争优势关系的战略人力资源管理二者有机联系起来,并指出企业可以通过构建和应用基于企业战略的员工胜任力模型来实施战略人力资源管理.