The Accor Multinational Hotel Chain in an Emerging Market: Through the Lens of the Core Competency Concept’

Service multinationals rely more on their abilities to leverage corporate resources than on their large resource positions to be successful in competition in today ‘s market. To understand this phenomenon, a fresh approach is needed in research on competition in service industries. The concept of core competency is applied in an analysis of case studies of the Accor multinational hotel chain (France) and its competitors in the Thai marketplace. The analysis focuses on core competencies embedded in the three main functions of service firms -human resources, operations, and marketing. It traces Accor's success to four core competencies - nurturing empowerment, data management, and new service development     

Capital Flows and Growth in Developing Countries: A Dynamic Panel Data Analysis

This paper unravels the capital flow–growth nexus by employing a model that incorporates contemporaneous influences and contemporaneous expectations. Using an unbalanced panel data set, the paper considers and highlights the role of indirect effects, through the spillover or interaction channel, in influencing economic development. Rigorous tests—incorporating tertiary education, alternative capital flow types and an interaction term—confirm the hypothesis that private capital flows are growth promoting in general, and upper middle-income countries appear to gain more from such flows than low-income countries.     

Understanding gay consumers’ clothing involvement and fashion consciousness

This study’s primary objective was to provide a better understanding of gay consumers’ clothing involvement and fashion consciousness. Personal in‐depth interviews were conducted with 13 gay professionals in Canada. One hundred and forty‐five usable survey questionnaires were also collected from gay consumers. The Fashion Involvement Index Scale (FII scale) was adapted for this study. Interview participants indicated that, in general, gay men tend to be more fashion conscious than heterosexual men. Survey results also indicated two dimensions, fashion interest and fashion awareness that were found to be stronger for this group of gay consumers than for heterosexual men. The FII value for the survey participants also resulted in a sum score mean value of 11.2, a medium level of fashion involvement that is a slightly higher level than has been found for heterosexual consumers. Interestingly, this study does not provide strong evidence of gay consumers’ involvement in cutting‐edge fashion trends.     

The Impact of Credit Policy on Rice Production in Myanmar

Rural finance has long been an important tool for poverty reduction and rural development by donors and governments, but the impacts have been controversial. Measuring impact is challenging due to identification problems caused by selection bias and governments’ targeted interventions, while randomised trial data are scarce and limited to contexts where little to no rural finance exists. Using an author‐collected dataset, we provide insights on a large‐scale long‐lasting subsidised rice credit programme in Myanmar, one of the poorest and, until recently, most economically isolated countries in Asia. Identification relies on a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, exploiting an arbitrary element to the credit provision rule which is based on rice landholding size. Although we find little evidence that rice yield or output is increased, we do see that the programme has some positive effects on total household income, suggesting a positive spillover effect on other farm income activities.     

Equity market integration in the NAFTA region: Evidence from unit root and cointegration tests

This study examines integration of the three participating equity markets before and after the 1993 passage of NAFTA based on daily, weekly, and monthly data. As expected, unit root tests for the overall period 1988-2001 and the two subperiods, 1988-1993 (pre-NAFTA) and 1994-2001 (post-NAFTA), indicate that stock prices are non-stationary but stock returns are generally stationary for all three markets for all three periods. However, daily, weekly, and monthly equity prices in the three NAFTA countries are cointegrated only for the post-NAFTA period. Similarly, US stock prices are more integrated with both Canadian and Mexican stock prices after the passage of NAFTA. This evidence of increased financial integration and co-movement in NAFTA equity markets after the passage of NAFTA has important implications for policymakers and managers.     

Liquidity commonality and the intervalling effect

Past studies of liquidity commonality have reported conflicting findings regarding the relationship between market liquidity and firm size. The present paper provides empirical evidence that underlying estimation problems might be responsible for these results. We develop a model of information and spreads that provides some insights into the firm size–liquidity relationship. Our empirical evidence confirms the main testable implications of the model and presents evidence that the presence and strength of common covariability in liquidity depends upon the interval over which liquidity movements are measured. These intervalling effects are caused by delays in information being incorporated into bid and ask spreads.     

International Variations in Transparency and Capital Structure: Evidence from European Firms

This paper documents the impact of national transparency regimes on corporate capital structure in 14 European countries. After controlling for relevant firm, industry, and national variables, we find that owner-manager agency cost-reducing transparency such as higher levels of analysts following is associated with lower corporate debt levels. In contrast, transparency that reduces owner-creditor agency costs that helps creditors control business risks (and creditors-to-owners wealth transfers), such as disclosure timeliness, institutional trading activities, and enforcement of anti-insider trading laws, are associated with higher corporate debt levels. Among other transparency measures, levels of financial and governance disclosures are negatively associated with debt ratios and higher levels of audit intensity and accounting disclosures are positively associated with debt ratios. Further, transparency factors are more important for large firms and for firms in services and high technology.     

Internal capital networks as a source of MNC competitive advantage: Evidence from foreign subsidiary capital structure decisions

This paper documents multinational company (MNC) strategic advantages arising from its internal financial network. Using data from US multinational company affiliates in 62 countries, we show that MNC affiliates in countries with low credit availability, poor creditor protections, high political risks, and high inflation are found to bear high interest costs and multinational affiliate debt ratios are high in high tax countries. In addition, affiliates in countries with high (low) credit availability, a high (low) corruption index, low (high) political risks and high (low) currency depreciation are found to carry high external (parent) debt ratios. We also find that currency depreciation, credit availability, and location in common law countries are negatively associated with the use of parent (relative to external) debt. Thus, our findings suggest that affiliates substitute external debt with parent debt using internal capital markets to overcome weak external financial markets and institutional environments. This is important evidence of the strategic competitive advantage based on financial networks enjoyed by MNCs.