Outward Foreign Direct Investment by Chinese National Oil Companies

Developed countries have become increasingly suspicious about the rapid growth of Chinese investments in their home countries and abroad, commonly citing potential threats to national security and global governance as the main sources of anxieties. As a result, policy measures in some developed markets have been put in place to create additional regulation and oversight, specifically in highly regulated and strategic industries, such as the oil sector. This article refutes a number of popular myths about Chinese investments in the global oil industry, and suggests a more rigorous dialogue with the Chinese authorities relating to their integration into international institutions.     

Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets: New Insights and Directions for Future Research

In recent years, the entrepreneurship and emerging markets research streams have intersected. Emerging markets provide an opportunity to examine entrepreneurship in different contexts and forms. This article discusses the current literature that interconnects both research streams in general, comments on the contributions of the articles published in the special issue on entrepreneurship and emerging markets in particular, and sketches out future avenues for research. These contributions span several theoretical lenses, including institutional theory, internationalization theory, transaction cost economics, and the resource‐based view, as well as multiple geographic regions, including China as the largest emerging economy and other countries in East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. We weave a discussion of the extant literature and these contributions inside three key themes: Emerging Markets and China's Uniqueness, Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets, and Future Research on Emerging Markets Entrepreneurship. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Executive perks: Compensation and corporate performance in China

Many studies have examined CEO compensation in developed countries, where a long tradition of disclosure renders data readily available. In emerging economies, particularly in China, where market-based compensation is a relatively new phenomenon, there are few studies of CEO compensation. In addition, information on the use of non-cash compensation is almost absent. Building on the general literature on CEO compensation, and Chinese economic and management studies, this article singularly contributes to the extant literature by (1) examining the motivational determinants of CEO perk compensation, on the one hand, and (2) exploring the relative contribution of perks to performance. We anticipate that perks can serve two roles in China: (1) to provide incentives to deter managerial shirking, and (2) to facilitate work and improve production. We find that perks are positively associated with current and future returns on assets, supporting the view that some types of perks may improve firm profitability and/or that perks are paid as a bonus to reward performance. Our findings from stratified samples suggest that perks may incentivize managers, even after controlling for firm fundamentals, such as firm size, growth opportunity, and leverage.     

Group diversity and decision quality: Amplification and attenuation of the framing effect

Do groups make better judgments and decisions than individuals? We tested the hypothesis that the advantage of groups over individuals in decision-making depends on the group composition. Our study used susceptibility to the framing effect as a measure of decision quality. Individuals were assigned to one of two perspectives on a choice problem. The individuals were asked to indicate their individual preference between a risky option and a risk-free option. Next, they were asked to consider the same (or a related) choice problem as a group. Homogeneous groups were composed of similarly framed individuals, while the heterogeneous ones were composed of differently framed individuals. In comparison to individual preferences, the homogeneous groups’ preferences were polarized, and thus the framing effect was amplified; in contrast, the heterogeneous groups’ preferences converged, and thus the framing effect was reduced to zero. The findings are discussed with regard to group polarization, the effects of heterogeneity on group performance, and the Delphi forecasting method.     

What Works in Fighting Diarrheal Diseases in Developing Countries? A Critical Review

The Millennium Development Goals call for reducing by half theproportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinkingwater. This goal was adopted in large part because clean waterwas seen as critical to fighting diarrheal disease, which kills2 million children annually. There is compelling evidence thatprovision of piped water and sanitation can substantially reducechild mortality. However, in dispersed rural settlements, providingcomplete piped water and sanitation infrastructure to householdsis expensive. Many poor countries have therefore focused insteadon providing community-level water infrastructure, such as wells.Various traditional child health interventions have been shownto be effective in fighting diarrhea. Among environmental interventions,handwashing and point-of-use water treatment both reduce diarrhea,although more needs to be learned about ways to encourage householdsto take up these behavior changes. In contrast, there is littleevidence that providing community-level rural water infrastructuresubstantially reduces diarrheal disease or that this infrastructurecan be effectively maintained. Investments in communal waterinfrastructure short of piped water may serve other needs, andmay reduce diarrhea in particular circumstances, but the casefor prioritizing communal infrastructure provision needs tobe made rather than assumed. JEL codes: Q56, Q52, O22     

National distances,international experience,and venture capital investment performance

This study examines how the performance of cross-border venture capital investments is affected by national institutional and cultural distances between the environments of venture capitalists (VCs) and investee ventures. We propose that institutional and cultural distances will decrease VCs' effectiveness in conducting venture capital activities and negatively affect investment performance in terms of exit success, and obtain supportive evidence while controlling for geographic distance. We further analyze how VCs can use their international experience to mitigate the negative consequences of national distances. We find that while broad international experience in diverse countries attenuates the deleterious effects of institutional distance in a significant way, it does not have a similar impact in attenuating the negative effects of cultural distance.     

Droughts and farms’ financial performance: a farm‐level study in New Zealand

We quantify the impacts of droughts in New Zealand on the profitability of dairy, sheep and beef farms using a comprehensive administrative database of all farms in New Zealand. For dairy farms, we found that drought events have positive impacts on dairy farms’ revenue and profit in the year of the drought. This effect is most likely attributable to drought‐induced increases in the export price of milk solids, as New Zealand is the market maker in this global market and almost all domestic dairy production is exported. All of these quantified impacts, however, are not very large, suggesting that, at this point in time, droughts have a fairly moderate impact on New Zealand dairy and sheep–beef businesses.     

Foreign direct investment and the correlation between cost and revenue

This paper studies irreversible investment in the presence of uncertain revenue and uncertain cost of production. Using methodology of real options, we find the threshold markup of price over cost that triggers investment. When the processes for revenue and cost are negatively correlated, the standard result that uncertainty delays investment always holds. However, when these two processes are positively correlated, greater uncertainty of revenue or cost might accelerate investment. As less correlated cost and revenue, vertical FDI is less desirable than producing at home, but horizontal FDI that brings production to the output market is an advantage.     

Innovation leadership: Best-practice recommendations for promoting employee creativity,voice, and knowledge sharing

Innovation—the implementation of creative ideas—is one of the most important factors of competitive advantage in 21^st century organizations. Yet, leaders do not always encourage employee behaviors that are critical for innovation. We integrate existing literature on the critical factors that serve as antecedents of innovation, including employee voice and knowledge sharing, which in turn lead to creativity and innovation. Based on existing empirical research, we offer evidence-based recommendations for managers to become innovation leaders by: (1) developing the right group norms, (2) designing teams strategically, (3) managing interactions with those outside the team, (4) showing support as a leader, (5) displaying organizational support, and (6) using performance management effectively.     

Declining prices and optimality when costs follow an experience curve

There is a widely held notion that as production costs decline with experience, prices should follow more or less in parallel. Although this notion has been an important factor in estimating experience curves and in formulating corporate strategies, we show that it is generally inconsistent with published multiperiod optimal pricing models. The paper then goes on to demonstrate that this apparent conflict can be reconciled by allowing the demand process to exhibit increasing price elasticity over time. Since this demand characteristic is very plausible for innovative products, we suggest it be incorporated into optimal pricing models.