Overcoming the Liability of Foreignness in Internationalization in Emerging Economies: Lessons from Acquiring a Chinese Firm

How foreign investors overcome the liability of foreignness has long been a topic for discussion in the study of inter nationalization. Whether MNCs rely on exploration or exploitation, especially in emerging economies, has not been adequately understood. Drawing on the theory of ownership advantage and local responsiveness, this study addresses the controversy in the literature by investigating the approaches to, and processes of, overcoming the liability of foreignness from a processual analysis. It reports on a case study of an American company's acquisition of a private Chinese firm. It concludes that exploration and exploitation are not merely simultaneous. Rather, these strategies are able to assimilate and deploy different categories of resources in order to build the basis for the exploitation of localization‐based resources in the later stage of integration. The findings of this study are not limited to emerging context but can be extended to any circumstance in which information deprivation exists. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

‘The Ethics of Managerial Subjectivity’

This paper examines ethics in organizations in relation to the subjectivity of managers. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault we seek to theorize ethics in terms of the meaning of being a manager who is an active ethical subject. Such a manager is so in relation to the organizational structures and norms that govern the conduct of ethics. Our approach locates ethics in the relation between individual morality and organizationally prescribed principles assumed to guide personal action. In this way we see ethics as a practice that is powerfully intertwined in an individual’s freedom to make choices about what to do and who to be, and the organizational context in which those choices are situated, framed and governed.     

Strategic resources: a missing role in understanding integration speed in international acquisition

It has long been debated whether integration speed positively or negatively contributes to acquisition performance. Drawing on the resource‐based view, this study addresses this controversy in the literature by investigating how integration speed for specific categories of strategic resources affects the integration process by capturing the expected value of an acquisition. With six in‐depth case studies, it concludes that the relationship between integration speed and acquisition performance cannot be understood quantitatively; instead, the focus should be on the interaction between integration speed and three broad groups of strategic resources (managerial, customer‐oriented, and supplier‐oriented) post acquisition. The study further finds that the understanding of integration speed should not be from a stand‐alone viewpoint but rather from a dynamic perspective—a viewpoint combined with time of integration. The findings of this study also complement the existing understanding of integration by extending the knowledge of task integration and its interaction with human integration. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Economic openness and technical efficiency: A case study of Chinese manufacturing industries

This paper presents a study of the technical efficiency of industries in a transitional economy: China. Using data for 28 manufacturing industries across 29 provinces and the Data Envelopment Analysis approach, the technical efficiency of each industry is measured and compared across regions and provinces. The determinants of differential technical efficiency performance are analysed, with a particular focus on the impact of trade orientation and foreign investment. Trade openness is found generally to have a positive effect on technical efficiency.     

Underwriting Relationships and Analyst Independence in Europe

This paper examines the accuracy of security analysts’ earnings forecasts and stock recommendations for firms in 13 European countries. We document at least three key findings. First, we find strong evidence that lead and co‐lead underwriter analysts’ earnings estimates and stock recommendations are significantly more optimistic than those provided by unaffiliated analysts. Second, we find that lead and co‐lead underwriter analysts’ earnings forecast and stock recommendations are significantly more optimistic for underwriter stocks than for those they provide for other stocks. Third, we also find evidence that these biases found within earnings forecasts and stock recommendations are not driven by one particular country. In short, these findings suggest that affiliated analysts are more optimistic perhaps to maintain investment banking relations.     

Food demand elasticities for Australia

There is renewed interest in robust estimates of food demand elasticities at a disaggregated level not only to analyse the impact of changing food preferences on the agricultural sector, but also to establish the likely impact of pricing incentives on households. Using data drawn from two national Household Expenditure Surveys covering the periods 1998/1999 and 2003/2004, and adopting an Almost Ideal Demand System approach that addresses the zero observations problem, this paper estimates a food demand system for 15 food categories for Australia. The categories cover the standard food items that Australian households demand routinely. Own‐price, cross‐price and expenditure elasticity estimates of the Marshallian and Hicksian types have been derived for all categories. The parameter estimates obtained in this study represent the first integrated set of food demand elasticities based on a highly disaggregated food demand system for Australia, and all accord with economic intuition.     

In search of heterotopia? Motivations of visitors to an English cathedral

This paper explores visitor motivations at an English cathedral, and the role that heterotopia plays in their motives. More than a third of visitors to Chichester Cathedral appear to be motivated by a subconscious search for a spiritual experience, hidden by rational motives such as interest in history. It concludes by examining the management implications that arise from a potential lack of understanding about visitors' motivations. Cathedral managers should acknowledge their visitors' intrinsic sense of spirituality and recognise their spiritual motivations through interpretation, which should encourage them to explore their personal narratives around the emotional dimension of visiting a cathedral. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sub-Saharan Africa's rising public debt stock: Is there a cause for concern?

The study investigated public debt sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by testing the reaction of the primary balance to positive and negative shocks in public debts in a panel of 45 SSA countries. The study adopts the innovative nonlinear fiscal reaction function and the dynamic panel threshold model to account for the potential asymmetric phenomenon in the public debt series. In line with extant studies, the study found that public debts in SSA are weakly sustainable and there is a highly procyclical fiscal policy bias in SSA countries, particularly in resource-rich countries, indicating that governments' fiscal policy responses are expansionary during economic upturns and contractionary during recessions, which may aggravate recessions and worsen debt situations across SSA. For robustness, the study compares the results with emerging and developed economies. The results indicate that in advanced economies, public debt is sustainable and that fiscal policy response is countercyclical. The research and policy implications are discussed.     

Dynamic mean–variance problem with frictions

Finance and Stochastics - We study a dynamic mean–variance portfolio selection problem with return predictability and trading frictions from price impact. Applying mean-field type control...