Subsidizing Away Exports? A Note on R&D-policy Towards Multinational Firms

In this paper, I investigate whether instead of strengthening home-based production, government R&D-subsidies can induce R&D-intensive firms to locate production abroad. Investigating firm-level data on Swedish MNEs, however, I find no evidence of such relocation. R&D subsidies rather tend to encourage export production at the expense of foreign production. The theory presented suggests that this is consistent with technology transfer costs, which outweigh trade costs for physical goods.     

Staying in or stepping out? Growth strategies of second-generation immigrant entrepreneurs

Second generation immigrant entrepreneurs (SGIEs) in developed economies have contributed to the emergence of new areas of business activity, especially in information technology, business services, and creative industries. An understanding of their growth strategies can shed light on the role of individual immigrants in the founding of potentially global firms competing with large multinational enterprises. Based on eleven case studies of SGIEs of Indian origin in the UK, our findings reveal that SGIEs are heterogeneous in their growth strategies contingent on their a) founding or succession context, and b) use of social ties. Founder SGIEs combining non-co-ethnic ties with non-family co-ethnic ties geographically expand outward to other foreign countries, including their country of origin. In contrast, successor SGIEs combining non-co-ethnic ties with family ties expand their product/ service scope within the UK; they exploit foreign market links, including their country of origin, to source supplies or customers through inward internationalization. These findings contribute to the immigrant entrepreneurship, international business and international entrepreneurship literatures.     

Forgotten or not? Home country embeddedness and returnee entrepreneurship

Building on the social network and strategic entrepreneurship literature, we investigate the overall relationship between returnee entrepreneurs’ networks in different periods and locations, domestic resource acquisitions and firm performance. While the labor mobility literature emphasizes the “gone but not forgotten” networks in the prior location of migrants, other studies argue that returnees suffer from a lack of local networks. Our findings show that returnee entrepreneurs are different in the extent of their home country embeddedness while they are overseas, which indicates different degrees of enduring networks in the home countries. The effect of home country embeddedness improves the performance of returnee entrepreneurship via domestic resource acquisition, and this effect could be substituted by pre-overseas local ties and the presence of local top management team (TMT) members. This study extends returnee research by shedding light on the importance of network maintenance in determining whether the home country’s network endures or decays and by highlighting the interactions of ties in the different periods of pre-overseas, during overseas, and after return.     

Multinational corporations in Eastern Europe: Welcome trade partners or unwelcome change agents?

In the last two decades, trade between Eastern Europe and the West has grown remarkably. The multinational corporations (MNCs) have played a prominent role by offering the welcome trade benefits of technology transfer, financial and credit resources, and marketing expertise. The MNCs, however, also represent a threat as unwelcome change agents in numerous areas of trade, management, cultural change, and economic functions. Evidence is presented supporting the proposition that the traditional hostility and attitudes of restraint among Eastern bloc countries toward MNCs will have to be tempered. If not, these countries may find themselves squeezed out of the new types of trade and competition emerging in the 1980s between the developed world and nontraditional markets.     

Unethical,neurotic, or both? A psychoanalytic account of ethical failures within organizations

This paper aims to integrate insights from psychoanalytic theory into business ethics research on the sources of ethical failures within organizations. We particularly draw from the analysis of sources and outcomes of neurotic processes that are part of human development, as described by the psychoanalyst Karen Horney and more recently by Manfred Kets de Vries; we interpret their insights from a stakeholder theory perspective. Business ethics research seems to have overlooked how “neurotic management styles” could be the antecedents of unethical behavior within organizations. After showing the connection between five managerial neuroses and the corresponding potential ethical failures within organizations that have been already identified within business ethics research, we suggest three organizational strategies to counteract these failures. First, we argue that managers should pay greater attention at the complexity of human motivation, avoiding the simplistic view of compliance‐based approaches. Second, we discuss the importance of developing a conversation around values within organizations, enabling healthy individual growth and limiting the emergence of neurotic processes. Finally, we discuss the role of the business ethicist in facilitating such a process, suggesting a parallel between the role of the business ethicist and that of the psychoanalytic therapist.     

Cross-selling across stores or within a store? Impacts of cross-buying behavior in online shopping malls

Abstract

This study investigates the impacts of cross-buying behavior in an online shopping mall where customers can purchase from additional product categories from various independent stores. We focus on the extent to which store loyalty and relationship duration moderate the cross-buying effects on three behavioral traits: customers’ purchase rate, lifetime duration, and spending. The results reveal that customers who engage in cross-buying more intensely purchase more frequently, have longer expected lifetime duration, and spend higher amounts in each transaction. The impacts on purchase frequency and customer retention are even greater for customers who exhibit higher behavioral loyalty toward some stores. However, store loyalty is found to weaken the association between cross-buying and average spending. Further, relationship duration appears to weaken the effects of cross-buying on purchase rate and spending. These results provide new insights into the impacts of cross-buying on customer value as well as managerial implications for shopping mall owners.