Financial Liberalisation in Emerging Markets: How Does Bank Lending Change?

Financial liberalisation has often failed in the past due to underestimated problems of structural change. We analyse such changes in lending behaviour of Thai commercial banks during a liberalisation phase by way of unique micro data. Liberalisation has expected positive effects, such as lowering the interest rate spread and collateral requirements. Liberalisation causes structural change, such as a decline in collateral‐based and relationship banking. However, the liberal‐isation evidence is consistent with more risk taking, such as lending to more risky projects and less protection against default. The Thai experience suggests obvious policy lessons.     

Shareholder Value: Principles, Declarations, and Actions

This paper is about shareholder value. We examine whether welfare considerations justify that target and whether competitive markets force firms to pursue it. We also argue that shareholder value is strictly an ill-defined goal. We report evidence from a large sample of listed firms across the world that many managers do not even mention shareholders in their mission statements. However, firms that do disclose a commitment to shareholders seem to perform better in terms of stock price and operating performance.     

Export planning orientation and its antecedents: Evidence from exporting IT products

There is strong support in the export literature for a positive relationship between export planning and export performance. However, little is known about the drivers of export planning. In addressing this knowledge gap, this article proposes that export planning is usefully analyzed in terms of a managerial orientation. Regarding the antecedents of export planning orientation, the focus here is on the role of factors internal to the firm, especially its exporting mindset (export necessity and export commitment). This article also examines to what extent export confidence (psychic distance and marketing advantage) moderates the relationship. The empirical results show that export commitment has a strong and positive effect on a firm's export planning orientation. This relationship is moderated by psychic distance and marketing advantage. Specifically, the results show that the greater the psychic distance and the weaker the marketing advantage, the stronger the relationship between export commitment and a firm's export planning orientation. The results also show that management's perceived export necessity has a negative effect on a firm's export planning orientation and that this relationship remains unaffected by psychic distance and marketing advantage.     

The fourth première of the Human Development Index

The United Nations Development Program has published its Human Development Index values for most countries of the world for the past five years. It claims the index provides information that goes beyond the widely-used GDP data and is relevant for policy-making. Critical examination shows that the index does not yet live up to this claim.     

The effect of market orientation on product innovation

Numerous scholars have debated whether marketing fosters or stifles innovation. The discussions, however, have been inconclusive due to limited empirical evidence. The authors investigate the relationship between two focal constructs in the debate: market orientation and product innovation. On the basis of a sample of U.S. manufacturing companies, the authors’ analysis shows that product innovation varies with market orientation. Specifically, (1) customer orientation increases the introduction of new-to-the-world products and reduces the launching of me-too products, (2) competitor orientation increases the introduction of me-too products and reduces the launching of line extensions and new-to-the-world products, and (3) interfunctional coordination increases the launching of line extensions and reduces the introduction of me-too products. Bryan A. Lukas is a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research interests are in the areas of strategic marketing and strategic innovation. His publications have appeared in theJournal of Business Research and other journals. Two conference papers have received recognition from the American Marketing Association. O. C. Ferrell is a professor of marketing at Colorado State University. He has served as president of the Academic Council of the American Marketing Association and is a fellow of the Society for Marketing Advances and Southwest Marketing Association. His publications have appeared in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Public Policy & Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, as well as others. He has co-authored 17 books and more than 100 articles and proceedings’ publications. He has worked as a consultant with organizations such as General Motors, Emerson Electric, and the Water Quality Association.     

When do Heuristics Matter in Global Capital Markets? The Case of the BRIC Acronym

ABSTRACT

Several recent publications have argued that the use of heuristics by financial investors can distort global capital flows, but scholars have paid little attention to the scope conditions that determine when heuristics become influential (and when they don’t). Building on work in economic sociology and behavioural finance we suggest that the degree to which investment heuristics can bias aggregate capital flows depends on the levels of uncertainty and self-referentiality that structure the environments under which investment decisions are being made. Applying these insights to the two principal global markets for corporate investment, we argue that the institutional structure of markets for short-term portfolio equity investments (PEI) is far more conducive to trigger the mimetic adoption of a specific heuristic than in markets for long-term foreign direct investments (FDI). To test this hypothesis, we leverage the high level of arbitrariness of the selection of Brazil, Russia, India and China into the BRIC acronym and empirically examine the impact of its remarkable rise to prominence among communities of financial investors in the mid-2000s on global capital flows to emerging economies. In line with the theoretical argument, we find robust evidence of a strong BRIC-bias in markets for PEI but not FDI.