Response rates in international mail surveys: Results of a 22-country study

Researchers embarking on their first international mail survey find very little guidance in the present academic literature. In 1988, two articles were published in the fall issue of the Journal of International Business Studies that claimed that: “at the moment the crossnational researcher has very little evidence upon which to base his judgments about [mail] survey design” [Jobber and Saunders (1988) An experimental investigation into cross-national mail survey response rates, Journal of International Business Studies19, 488] and “Literature concerned with response rates from industrial samples drawn from multiple countries is nearly absent” [Dawson and Dickinson (1988) Conducting international mail surveys: the effect of incentives on response rates within an industrial population, Journal of International Business Studies19, 492]. Unfortunately, not much has changed since. Still, very little is known about how respondents from different countries react to mail surveys. This article intends to fill part of this gap by describing the results of a large scale international mail survey in 22 countries. Response rates are shown to vary considerably across countries in a way that contradicts much of the earlier (American) research on this subject. Several explanations for these differences in response rates are put forward.     

我国对外贸易就业效应的实证研究——以外资企业为例

对外贸易就业效应的实证分析表明,对外贸易对我国就业增长产生了积极影响,分阶段回归分析结果显示,全国对外贸易的就业效应趋于下降,而外资企业的就业效应趋于上升,其中外资企业的加工贸易出口发挥了主要作用。文章最后就进一步扩大对外贸易促进就业提出了几点政策建议。     

Solvency runs, sunspot runs, and international bailouts

This paper introduces a model of intervention by an international financial institution (IFI) under asymmetric information. The IFI is unable to distinguish between runs due to fundamentals and those which are the result of pure sunspots. However, it maximizes global welfare by offering a relending package consistent with generating a separating equilibrium, where voluntary creditor participation implies that underlying fundamentals are good. The need for direct IFI lending in the package is shown to depend on the commitment capacity of creditors. This adverse selection problem provides an alternative rationale for Bagehot's Principle of last-resort lending at high rates of interest to the moral hazard motivation commonly found in the literature.     

Born-global: The case of four Vietnamese SMEs

Despite the fact that many firms in a wide range of industries in various countries internationalize at or near inception, research on factors leading to the formation of born-globals has been limited to firms from advanced, open economies. In order to give a voice to the phenomenon of Vietnamese founding born-globals, we conducted an exploratory, multiple-case study. Three findings of this study are: (1) the major driver to the formation of Vietnamese born-globals is the entrepreneurs’ leadership desire together with the need for short-term profits; (2) their choice of internationalization mode is influenced by market conditions as well as the internationalization degree of the industries in which they find their business opportunities; and (3) the reason why other motivators found in earlier studies do not apply lies in the peculiarity of the Vietnam context.

Convergence and divergence in consumer behavior: implications for international retailing

Converging technology and disappearing income differences across countries will not lead to homogenization of consumer behavior. Rather, consumer behavior will become more heterogeneous because of cultural differences. As consumer incomes converge across countries, the manifestation of value differences will become stronger. This phenomenon makes it increasingly important to understand values of national cultures and their impact on consumer behavior. Retailing strategies for one country cannot be extended to other countries without adaptation. Hofstede’s model of national culture is applied to understand differences in consumer behavior across countries. Examples are provided of consumption differences, their relationships with culture discussed, and selected implications for international retailing management detailed.     

Firm size, business experience and export intensity in SMEs: A longitudinal approach to complex relationships

The objective of the paper is to test the effect of firm size and business experience on export performance. In fact, despite a growing number of empirical studies, the question of the relationship between these variables is not clearly established. This research aims at contributing to a better understanding of these complex relationships with a special focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors develop a general model and test it using a sample of Italian manufacturing firms that spans the 1997–2001 period. Combining a time-series with a cross-sectional analysis, they use an econometric model in order to test the relationships. Their findings provide a strong support for both relationships. The results show that it is not business experience per se which is important but that it is the relative change in experience that truly impacts upon export performance. The model also reveals that industry effects are relevant.     

An entrepreneurial cognition perspective on the internationalization of SMEs

Drawing from entrepreneurship, cognition, and international business theory, this paper develops a model integrating individual-level and firm-level characteristics to provide an entrepreneurial cognition perspective on the internationalization of small and medium size ventures. The model is tested on a sample of Spanish ventures using structural equation modeling techniques (partial least squares). Support is found for the central role of cognition and risk perception of CEOs in explaining the implementation of international expansion strategies for their firms.     

全球服务贸易10强的服务贸易国际竞争力定量分析

本文运用比较优势指标,对全球10大服务贸易强国或地区1995年至2004年的服务贸易国际竞争力进行了定量分析。通过2004年国际竞争力系数的比较可以得出,在服务贸易国际竞争力方面存在比较优势的国家或地区依次是中国香港、西班牙、美国、英国和法国等发达国家或地区,而日本和德国却是劣势最为明显的国家。本文系统地阐述了其存在的原因及发展趋势。     

International Entrepreneurship Research: What Scope for International Business Theories?

International entrepreneurship (IE) research has commonly neglected significant perspectives applied by international business scholars. Explanations for the emergence and growth of international entrepreneurial firms largely focus on the resource-based view and the network perspective. While these approaches are useful, we suggest that IE would benefit significantly from a greater emphasis on its international nature. Therefore, theories of international business should be employed in conjunction with other approaches in order to appropriately emphasize the international character, holistically study the IE notion, and considerably broaden the scope of IE examination. Suggestions for relevant research directions are discussed.