Alliance or Acquisition? A Mechanisms‐Based,Policy‐Capturing Analysis

Research summary : While alliance researchers view prior partner‐specific alliance experience as influencing firms' subsequent alliance or acquisition decisions, empirical evidence on the alliance versus acquisition decision is surprisingly mixed. We offer a reconciliation by proposing and testing an analytical framework that recognizes prior partner‐specific experiences as heterogeneous along three fundamental dimensions: partner‐specific trust, routines, and value certainty. This allows us to use a policy‐capturing methodology to rigorously operationalize and test our mechanism‐level predictions. We find that all three mechanisms can increase the likelihood of a subsequent alliance or acquisition, and in terms of the comparative choice between alliances versus acquisitions, partner‐specific trust pulls towards alliances, and value certainty pulls towards acquisitions. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and empirical implications of our approach and method . Managerial summary : This study focuses on an important corporate decision: When a firm has had an alliance with another firm, how would that experience affect the likelihood of a future alliance or acquisition with that same firm? We first suggest that it will depend on three factors: the level of trust that existed in that prior alliance, the extent to which specific work routines were developed, and the degree to which the firm was able to confidently assess the value of the partner firm's resources. We then find that trust is a particularly strong predictor of future alliances, while confidence regarding value more strongly predicts future acquisitions. In this way, we demonstrate more precisely how past corporate choices can affect (consciously or unconsciously) future ones . © 2017 The Authors. Strategic Management Journal Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Cross-Industrial User Channel Preferences on the Path to Online Purchase: Homogeneous,Heterogeneous, or Mixed?

Though research literature addresses a broad range of advertising impact models, studies on the channel preferences of online purchasers have received little attention, regarding both multichannel settings and channel interplay in click sequences. To provide advertisers a method for better evaluating customer channel preference, this study investigates the path to purchase by building on four multichannel clickstream data sets from three industries, recorded with cookie-tracking technologies. Applying a Cox model and clustering techniques supports delineation of empirical generalizations and industry-specific findings on channel exposure, including their antecedents and distinct channel click sequences. Across data sets, online users show idiosyncratic channel preferences for a limited set of one or two channels rather than multiple online vehicles. Both channel homogeneous click sequences and combinations of two channels (including branded contacts) are effective as purchase predictors. Our study also presents industry-specific results regarding the influence of click sequences on purchase intent, thereby providing insights for advertising research, particularly as are suited to optimization of online advertising activities.     

Emiratisation: determining the factors that influence the recruitment decisions of employers in the UAE

The Arab Gulf's labour market is being overhauled. The private sector is increasingly being ‘obliged’ to more actively support nationalisation programmes. This study seeks to quantitatively determine the recruitment decisions of the employers. We collated the views of just under 250 UAE-based HRM personnel, in order to identify which factors (social, cultural, economic, regulatory, educational and motivational) are most significant as cited in the relevant literature. Not having the necessary educational qualifications and high reservation wage demands were found to have less of a bearing than does the perceived lack of vocationally orientated motivation and the ambiguities over the differing rights afforded to employees.     

The Organisational Evolution of the Childcare Regime in Germany: Issues and Dynamics of a Public‐private Partnership

In many European countries, institutional childcare has developed as a field shaped by both statutory and associative agency, the German system being emblematic for this. In Germany, a considerable proportion of childcare services are provided by nonprofit organizations under public regulation. Departing from a historical overview, the article elaborates on the mixed economy of welfare in that system and sheds light on recent transformations of the existing public‐private partnership. It is argued that with a range of cultural and civil‐society‐related evolutions, the system is going to adopt elements of a market regulation that are prone to change the rules of games within the partnership as such.     

Landing on all fours? Communist elites in post-Soviet Russia

This paper analyzes the economic situation of former Communist party members in post-Soviet Russia. On the basis of the Russian Socio-Economic Transition Panel, we are able to identify members of the Communist party prior to transition so that we can assess their relative economic performance between 1993 and 1999. We find a significant wage premium associated with former membership in the Soviet Communist party during the period from 1993 to 1999. After addressing non-random selection into the Communist party using an instrumental variables approach, we demonstrate that the overall Communist wage premium can be attributed to positive unobservable characteristics of former party members. Journal of Comparative Economics 32 (4) (2004) 700–719.     

Country risk,portfolio decisions and regulation in international bank lending

This paper examines the concept of ‘country risk’ and relates it to the construction of efficient loan portfolios in international banking. Applicability of conventional portfolio-theoretic concepts to the management of country lending exposure is examined, as are the requisites of country review systems for national exposure management. The issue of international banking regulation is assessed in this context, focusing on the dangers inherent in national and international regulatory initiatives for optimum global capital allocation.     

Pollution and protection: U. S. environmental controls as competitive distortions

Zusammenfassung Umweltverschmutzung und Protektion: Umweltschutzauflagen in den Vereinigten Staaten als Wettbewerbsverzerrungen. — In Anbetracht der ?leads? und ?lags?, die zwangsl?ufig entstehen, wenn unabh?ngige Nationen mit verschiedenen Umweltbedingungen in unterschiedlichem Tempo Umweltschutzma\nahmen ergreifen, die sich zudem in Sch?rfe und Methoden unterscheiden, hat sich in den betroffenen Industrien die Frage nach der Richtung und dem relativen Gewicht derartiger Ver?nderungen der Wettbewerbssituation erhoben. Zweck dieser Arbeit ist es, die Netto-Belastungen abzusch?tzen, die sich für die Importwettbewerbsf?higkeit amerikanischer Industrien durch die (gesch?tzten) Kosten der Erfüllung der Umweltschutzauflage ergeben, und zwar sowohl über die Kostenbeeinflussung bei den Inputs als auch bei den Endprodukten. Ferner wird in diesem Aufsatz versucht, die Bedeutung zu ermitteln, die diese Kosten im Verh?ltnis zur effektiven Protektion haben, die den unter Importkonkurrenz stehenden amerikanischen Industrien gew?hrt wird.

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Résumé Pollution et protection: Les contr?les de l’environnement aux Etats-Unis comme des distorsions de la compétition. — En vue des avances et des retards qui surgissent inévitablement si les nations souveraines introduisent des contr?les de l’environnement avec une vitesse et une vigueur différentes et si elles utilisent des techniques qui se diffèrent selon des situations écologiques, quelques branches potentiellement affectées s’inquiètent de plus en plus en ce qui concerne la direction et la portée relative des effets sur leur position compétitive. Le but de cet article est d’évaluer l’effet net des co?ts en conséquence d’une telle politique sur la situation compétitive internationale des branches américaines; l’évaluation comprend les effets sur les co?ts des inputs et des produits finis. En outre, l’auteur apprécie l’importance de ces co?ts relatifs à la protection effective donnée aux branches américaines qui font concurrence aux importations.

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Resumen Polución y protección: el control del medio ambiente en los E.E.U.U. como distorsion competitiva. — En vista de los adelantos y rezagos que surgirán inevitablemente en cuanto los diversos países se dediquen a controlar el medio ambiente con diferente intensidad, rigor y técnicas, y bajo diferentes condiciones ecológicas, existe un creciente interés por el impacto que todo ésto tendrá sobre la posición competitiva de las diversas industrias. El propósito de este trabajo es el de evaluar la repercusión neta en la competitividad de las industrias norteamericanas competidoras con importaciones, del cumplimiento de estándards cualitativos del medio ambiente, evaluatión que se efectúa a base de los efectos sobre los costos de los inputs y su peso en el precio del producto final. Se basa también en una comparación de la importancia de estos costos con la protección efectiva otorgada a las industrias competidoras con importaciones.

     

III. Weltwirtschaft und wirtschaft einzlner länderund und gebiete

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

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