Antecedents and consequences of global responsiveness: An empirical examination of MNCs in the global sourcing context

As global responsiveness (GR) has been recognised as critical for global market advantage, we draw upon social capital theory and develop a theoretical model which clarifies the determinants and consequences of GR. Based upon a cross-national sample of 118 MNCs from the U.S., Europe, and Asia, we found that intra-firm structural and inter-firm relational social capital, as reflected in integrative mechanisms and joint problem solving respectively, are positively associated with GR. In addition, whilst negatively related to global sourcing barriers, GR has a positive effect on MNC performance. Our findings also indicate that GR plays an essential role by fully mediating the associations of information-based mechanisms, people-based mechanisms, and joint problem solving with global sourcing barriers and MNC performance.     

在华跨国公司利润转移与投资税收弹性估计

利用1999～2007年中国工业企业数据库中的在华跨国公司数据,对跨国公司进行潜在分类,采用负二项回归和有限混合模型,首次估算出了利润可转移跨国公司和利润不可转移跨国公司的比重及投资税收弹性.结果发现,在华跨国公司中,利润可转移跨国公司所占比重大约为25％,利润不可转移跨国公司大约为75％;利润不可转移公司的投资税收弹性较大,且显著高于利润可转移公司的投资税收弹性.税率每上升1％,将导致利润不可转移跨国公司的投资下降2.16％,但仅导致利润可转移跨国公司的投资下降0.39％.本文还考察了企业异质性和行业异质性对跨国公司利润转移和投资税收弹性的影响.本文的研究能够为防止税基侵蚀和利润转移的实践提供明确具体的政策建议.     

Investing for strategic resources and its rationale: The case of outward FDI from Chinese companies

As more Chinese companies become engaged in foreign direct investment (FDI), particularly in industrial countries, a crucially important issue must be addressed: what is the motivation of Chinese outward FDI, and what is its rationale? Based on a detailed analysis of both primary and secondary data sources, this article argues that when investing in advanced economies, Chinese multinational corporations (MNCs) are motivated primarily by the quest for strategic resources and capabilities, and that the underlying rationale for such asset-seeking FDI is strategic needs. The examination of this premise will hopefully prompt business practitioners to think about this important issue in new and innovative ways, thereby identifying an appropriate policy and strategic response.     

Strategic capabilities and the emergence of the global factory: Omron in China

Omron Shanghai provides a detailed case study of a multinational subsidiary's long-term evolution. The study assesses three streams of international business literature that emphasize the seemingly competing roles of parent firm strategy, national institutions or local management in the development of subsidiaries. It looks at each business function separately to reveal which capabilities were effectively transferred from Japan to China. In tracing Omron Shanghai's development from international joint venture into wholly owned enterprise and then global factory, it is the strategic intent of the parent multinational corporations that emerges as the consistent formative influence on management practices and capabilities.     

跨国公司在华竞争环境、经营状况与满意度的实证分析

本文通过对100家大型跨国公司的问卷调查,在分析中国外商投资的趋势、影响和回报的基础上,梳理了在华跨国公司及母公司的基本状况和相互关系,以及在竞争环境、经营自由度、决策权、竞争力、长期经营战略、投资满意度等方面的具体情况,总结出近年来跨国公司在华战略调整的重点,并针对中国企业提出对策建议。     

Expatriate utilization,subsidiary knowledge creation and performance: The moderating role of subsidiary strategic context

Little research examines the mechanisms for the relationship between expatriate utilization and subsidiary performance. Building on the knowledge-based view of the firm, we propose a multi-stage mediation model to explain how expatriate staffing promotes subsidiary financial performance. Our results underscore that expatriate utilization has an indirect, mediated effect on subsidiary financial performance through its links with subsidiaries’ knowledge creation and product performance. Adopting a moderated mediation approach, we also find that the indirect relationship between expatriate utilization and subsidiary product performance via subsidiary knowledge creation is strengthened by the context of transnational strategy as a moderating contingency.     

Boundary-crossing and the localization of capabilities in a Japanese multinational firm

We conducted a case study to explore the challenges encountered by a foreign subsidiary of a Japanese multinational firm when localizing its organizational capabilities in China. Drawing on the concepts of boundaries and boundary-crossing, we identify pragmatic and cultural knowledge boundaries, which denied opportunities for the host-country employees to contribute their local expertise to augment the firm's core capabilities within the domains of research and development and operational protocols. However, within those domains that were regarded as complementary to or peripheral to the firm's core capabilities, host-country employees were granted more scope to cross the associated pragmatic boundaries.     

Japanese Foreign Direct Investment in the UK Electronic Industry: The Eclectic Approach

This article analyses the combined effects of Japanese firms' ownership and location advantages on the size of foreign direct investment (FDI). The size of FDI is measured by two proxies, the firm's employment level and its total assets. Econometric models are estimated. The estimated regression models show that the parent company's firm-specific resources and the external economies in the located region determine the flow of FDI at the time of entry of Japanese electronic firms in the UK. This result shows that empirical analysis on FDI flows should combine both the ownership and location advantages, as suggested by Dunning's eclectic paradigm.     

日本出境旅游现状及我国拓展日本客源市场对策

我国国际旅游业的发展与日本客源市场有着非常密切的关系。日本旅游者主要前往亚洲国家旅游,目前韩国是接待日本旅游者最多的国家。我国可以采取改善旅游基础设施,提高服务质量,培养精通日语的服务人才,开发温泉旅游和滑雪旅游等措施拓展日本客源市场。     

The relative importance of old and new decision specific experience in foreign ownership strategies: an exploratory study

In this paper, we examine the relative importance of old and recent decision specific experience for MNC's foreign ownership structure decision. Using established procedures to measure decision specific experience construct, we find, from data for Japanese MNCs for the period 1969–1991, empirical evidence that firms tend to rely on both old and recent decision specific experiences for their current ownership structure decision, but that they rely more on recent decision specific experience than on old decision specific experience, contrary to the conventional organizational learning view on the temporal importance of decision specific experience. Sub-sample analysis involving developed and developing countries indicates that both old and new decision specific experience are important for both groups of countries, but old (new) decision specific experience is marginally more important for investments made in developing (developed) countries.     

日本整车厂商变革与广东汽车供应链体系的构想

日本三大汽车跨国巨头齐聚广州,为广东发展汽车产业提供了很好的机遇。及时了解和把握合作伙伴最新的动态和发展趋势,明确自身的潜在优势,对制定广东汽车产业发展的长远规划和行动计划具有重要意义。     

Internationalization of Japanese Multinational Corporations in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The paper focuses on the internationalization activities of Japanese MNCs in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) analyzing data on national level considering Japan's modes of market entry in the CEE region and some of the countries in it. Major trends and the development of Japanese internationalization in CEE are presented. Individual mini case studies contribute to the analysis using the experience of several major Japanese MNCs that have invested in the region. The goal of the paper is to uncover the specifics of the internationalization process of Japanese corporations in the CEE region. Main characteristics of the penetration of Japanese MNCs in CEE are unveiled and discussed in the concluding part of the paper. The management implications and conclusions from the study are discussed further in the final part of the paper.     

当前中国农村土地所有制改革模式研究综述

探讨对当前农村土地所有制改革模式,学者们从农村集体土地所有制存在的缺陷出发,提出了各种改革主张,大致来说主要有以下几种观点:实行农村土地私有化,取消集体土地所有权;实行农村土地国有化,取消集体土地所有权;部分取消集体土地所有权,实行农村土地国家所有、集体所有和农民私人所有三者并存土地混合所有制或复合所有制;保留现有的集体土地所有权,对其进行改革与完善。     

The preparedness of critical success factors of IT service management and its effect on performance

Recently, information technology service management (ITSM) has emerged as a challenging research area. ITSM implementation often involves huge investment with unexpected risks. Therefore, understanding the preparedness of critical success factors (CSFs) and its effect on the organizational performance can help in not only reducing the risks but in also providing helpful guidance for enterprises. This empirical study explores the preparedness of ITSM-relevant CSFs and its effect on the organizational performance. The findings show that (1) the more important a CSF is, the more prepared the CSF is; (2) the organizational performance is mostly beneficial from customer and internal business process perspectives; and (3) only a few CSFs can significantly affect the organizational performance. Finally, the implications based on the findings are given for the management of ITSM implementation.     

Innovation and export performance of emerging market enterprises: The roles of state and foreign ownership in China

This article examines the role of ownership for the relationship between innovation and exports. Analyzing a large firm-level data set on Chinese manufacturing firms during 2000–2007, we find that state ownership has a positive moderating effect on the innovation–export relationship. We ascribe this effect to state-owned firms’ privileged access to complementary resources and networks that strengthen their ability to use innovation to generate exports. In contrast to many earlier studies, we also find that foreign ownership has a negative moderating effect. One likely reason is that indicators of local innovation do not reflect the flows of knowledge between foreign-owned firms and their parent companies. This finding highlights the fact that innovation and production may be geographically separated within multinational enterprises. A policy implication of the analysis is that public support to innovation is likely to have stronger effects on exports when it targets firms that carry out most of their activities in domestic market.     

The crisis of Japanese retailing at the turn of the millennium: a crisis of corporate governance and finance

The year 2000 saw a sudden rise in failures of prominent Japanese retailers. With problems of corporate finance and governance being pointed out as early as the 1970s, the recent problems as well as the continuous rise of companies up to then have to be explained. This article contends that a major explanatory factor is the weakening of the existing stable relationships between retailers and financial institutions. Banks functioned as lenders, shareholders and providers of management resources. Changes in the banking sector led to changes in the relationship at the end of the 1990s. Problems in corporate governance surfaced that might result in a major reorganization of the Japanese retail scene.     

The dynamic role of small- and medium-sized multinationals in global production networks: Norwegian maritime firms in the Greater Shanghai Region in China

This article examines the role of small- and medium-sized multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the dynamic development of global production networks (GPNs) in the maritime industry. It studies the dynamism between subsidiaries of Norwegian maritime firms and regional actors and institutions in the Greater Shanghai Region of China from the perspectives of the subsidiaries. It argues that strategic coupling, recoupling and decoupling are partly the results of regional selection mechanisms. However, in the cases where the subsidiaries are embedded within the host region, the strategies and behaviour of MNEs are of decisive importance for the dynamic development of GPNs.     

The efficacy of marketing skills and market responsiveness in marketing performance of emerging market exporting firms in advanced markets: The moderating role of competitive intensity

Emerging market exporting firms in advanced economies must manage a highly dynamic landscape owing to factors such as changing market needs and fierce competition. Hence, these firms need to develop unique marketing skills for superior performance. Accordingly, this study draws on the resource-based and dynamic capability theory to empirically examine the role of marketing skills in developing a dynamic capability—market responsiveness—for improved marketing performance, and the changes in this relationship under highly competitive intensity. Using a sample (n = 98) of firms originating from an emerging market (Pakistan) mainly exporting to advanced markets (the United Kingdom, the United States or both), the findings show that marketing skills, positively mediated by market responsiveness, influence the marketing performance of such firms in advanced markets. The indirect relationship is positively moderated by a higher level of competitive intensity. This study extends the dynamic capability and export marketing streams of literature, particularly for emerging market exporting firms in advanced markets, and provides useful performance implications to export marketing managers.     

Entrepreneurial leadership in the Meiji cotton spinners' early conceptualisation of global competition

The superior competitiveness of the Japanese cotton industry became so obvious in the interwar period. The sources of the Japanese competitive advantage have thus collected considerable scholarly interest. A series of past studies stressed the significance of planned coordination and managerial innovations within the industry as a whole, and this involved their findings that the leading spinners and trading companies realised the efficient coordination. This paper inquires into the Meiji industrial leaders' conceptualisation of the new nature of entrepreneurial management. This entails an analysis of their early entrepreneurial leadership in the 1880s that provided the developing industry with a long-range plan for exponential growth since then. The essence of industrial competitiveness resided in the noticeable cognitive commonality in their sustainable core competence for the upcoming global competition.     

我国所有制结构的变迁及其发展趋势分析

建国以来,我国所有制结构的变革大致经历了四个阶段。根据所有制结构变革的规律来考察,我国所有制结构呈现如下发展趋势:非公有制经济的蓬勃发展,会给公有制的主体地位带来越来越大的挑战;混合所有制将成为未来主要的所有制形式;所有制结构的变革将带来我国市场结构、产业结构的变化,并促进国内资本走向国际舞台。