Corporate governance and MNE strategies in emerging economies

We explore factors of convergence and divergence in corporate governance of emerging and developed market economies, focussing on the role of firm internationalisation. In particular, foreign investments by emerging economy firms led to upgrade of their governance capabilities. These firms also became advocates for home-country policy reforms that mandated the development of similar capabilities for local firms. We present a broad overview of the literature and propose an approach that considers the evolution of corporate governance, both at the national level and the firm level, with MNEs from both emerging market economies and developed economies as active actors in this process.     

External and internal influences on R&D alliance formation: Evidence from German SMEs

Relying on relational capital theory and transaction cost economics (TCE), this study identifies factors that impede or promote alliance formation in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Environmental uncertainty and knowledge intensity impede firms' R&D alliance formation; the focal firm's overall trust in partners enhances alliance formation. Trust interacts positively with environmental uncertainty and knowledge intensity to affect alliance formation in SMEs. The findings reflect data from a longitudinal sample of 854 German SMEs, captured over eight years from 1999 to 2007.     

Group Affiliation and Entry Barriers: The Dark Side Of Business Groups In Emerging Markets

Business groups dominate the economic landscape in many economies around the world. While business groups overcome the institutional voids arising due to inefficiencies of external markets, they also possess market power, which could be economically and socially counterproductive, especially for unaffiliated firms. Drawing on the transaction cost and industrial organization economics, we examine whether the presence of business group affiliated firms in industries restricts the entry of unaffiliated firms or firms affiliated with small- and medium-size business groups. Findings based on Indian firms suggest that investments by business group affiliated firms in an industry have an inverted U-shaped relationship with the investment by unaffiliated firms. However, investments by firms affiliated with large-sized business groups have a U-shaped relationship with the investment by affiliates of small and medium business groups. These findings suggest that the market power of business groups and entry barrier relationship is contingent on the size of the business groups.     

Managing multi-business firms: A comparison between Korean chaebols and diversified U.S. firms

We identify and examine the efficacy of organizational mechanisms through which diversified firms are effectively managed without loss of control. Building on the resource based view of business groups, we argue that business groups in emerging markets use these mechanisms more often and derive more benefits from the use of these mechanisms than the diversified U.S. firms. Empirical results based on samples from Korea and the U.S. show that structural mechanisms such as strategic control and contingency arrangements, do not affect divisional performance, whereas socio-cultural mechanisms, such as shared values and corporate-level training, have significant effect on divisional performance. We also find that Korean chaebols have leveraged socio-cultural mechanisms better than large U.S. firms, and thus, have an advantage in continuing to diversify.     

Acquisition announcements and stock market valuations of acquiring firms' rivals: A test of the growth probability hypothesis in China

To examine the impact of acquisition announcements on the stock market returns of rivals of the acquiring firms, we propose a growth probability hypothesis: when an acquisition is announced, it signals the potential for future growth in the acquirer's industry to the market, resulting in positive stock market reactions to rivals of the acquiring firms. We test the growth probability hypothesis with a longitudinal sample of Chinese domestic and cross‐border acquisitions during 1993–2008. The results provide robust support for this hypothesis as a means to explain market reactions to rivals of acquiring firms. We also empirically test and negate alternative theoretical explanations advanced in prior literature to explain positive market reactions to rivals of the target firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unraveling a puzzle: the case of value line timeliness rank upgrades

We examine a sample of Value Line’s timeliness rank upgrades that occur immediately following earnings announcements and find that pre-event price momentum has significant incremental explanatory power for post-event drift, after controlling for the level of earnings surprise. Therefore, the stock price drift following Value Line’s timeliness upgrades cannot be viewed as driven only by the post-earnings announcement drift phenomenon. Instead, these findings indicate that, among other factors, Value Line has been exploiting the price momentum effect for decades. Black (Financ. Anal. J. 29:10–14, 1973) clearly stated that it does indeed do this, but his assertion has not yet been verified as an explanation of the puzzling drift that follows Value Line rank upgrades.     

Basic Needs, Property Rights and Degradation Of Commons

A major problem in many developing countries is the degradation of commons. This degradation has occurred on account of the lack of fulfilment of the basic needs of the poor, free riding and ill–defined property rights. As these goods are essential for the survival of these people, they have to access these items from commons. This results in regular raids to common land for resources and also to private houses (for example, in New Delhi) which are not guarded for water. A variant of the agricultural household model is used to analyse the above problem. Several propositions are established and it is demonstrated that degradation can occur at both a low and high price of basic needs. This result has important policy implications as it demonstrates that land or common degradation cannot be solved by just using the price system. Properly defined property rights and provision of basic goods in kind may resolve the problem of degradation of commons.     

The Timing of International Expansion: Information, Rivalry and Imitation Among Japanese Firms, 1980–2002

abstract    Sociological-based information theory and economics-based competitive rivalry theory operate as the dominant theories of interorganizational mimetic behaviour. Recent work has sought to integrate the ideas in these theories, or determine which has greater explanatory power. In this study, we juxtapose the concepts in these two theories, to illustrate the complementary nature of information-based and rivalry-based theories of mimetic behaviour. Specifically, we consider how the predictions of information-based theories are moderated by the home competitive context of the industry of a firm making an international expansion. Using a 1980 to 2002 sample of 4949 manufacturing plant entries made into 71 foreign countries by 783 publicly-listed Japanese manufacturing firms, we find that the competitive context in the home industry influences the propensity of a focal firm to imitate the actions of rival firms. Our results support our contention that the two theoretical approaches are complementary, with the complementarities extending from the limitations of each approach.     

Information Content of Offer Date Revelations: A Fresh Look at Seasoned Equity Offerings

Besides the offer price discount, investment bankers use revisions in offer size from the amount originally filed to signal the issuer's quality to their buy‐side clients. Unlike the offer price discount, offer size revision not only relates to the offer date price reaction, it also predicts post‐SEO (seasoned equity offering) performance. Improved SEOs, whose offer size exceeds the amount originally registered, experience significantly positive returns during the registration period and on the offer date. More importantly, they do not underperform post‐issuance. Their complement, regular SEOs, exhibit significantly negative returns during the registration period, on the offer date, and underperform their benchmark following issuance.