Competition‐driven repositioning

We study competition as an impetus for firms to reposition—to abandon their current positioning strategy and adopt a new one. We predict that as a strong firm moves closer, competition erodes the profitability of situated firms and prompts them to reposition. We expect this effect is pronounced the greater difference in competitive strength. However, we expect that countervailing forces exist such that the viability of alternative positions and the opportunity cost of abandoning a current position mitigate this effect. Evidence from a natural experiment in China's satellite television industry supports our hypotheses. This research adds to the existing literature on repositioning, which emphasizes the phenomenon as opportunity‐driven, and to the competitive interaction literature, which typically does not distinguish between noncounterattack strategies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The benefits of geographic sales diversification: How exporting facilitates capital investment

Many strategic investments require firms to make upfront outlays to generate profits at a later date. When firms have limited access to external capital, they have to rely on internally generated funds for these investments. In this case, their strategic investments are constrained by cash flow. I predict that by geographically diversifying sales (i.e., exporting), firms can relax this constraint because exporting signals more stable expected cash flows and firm quality, which can increase external capital providers' willingness to fund investments. Examining a representative sample of Spanish manufacturers from 1990 to 1998, I find support that exporting mitigates investment liquidity constraints allowing firms to make strategic investments they would not otherwise be able to make. This highlights how diversification can be a strategy to create and maintain competitive advantage. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toward an Analytical Structure for Evaluating the Ethical Content of Decisions by Advertising Professionals

This article proposes a model for conceptualizing advertising ethics theory based on a distinction between philosophical and occupational ethical systems and the assumption that the fundamental goal of occupational ethics is to address the imbalance of power between the practitioner group and the community or communities they serve through practices that cultivate a relationship of trust. An analytical model is proposed as the basis for future empirical research to test and clarify the suggested relationships. It is suggested that a more refined theoretical meta-model could provide a common framework within which research in specific advertising ethics issues might be revisited.     

What Role Do Acquisitions Play in Asian Firms' Global Strategies? Evidence from the Medical Sector, 1978–1995

This study compares the use of acquisitions by Asian, European, and North American firms operating in the U.S. medical sector between 1978 and 1995. We examine the incidence of acquisitions, the relative emphasis that acquirers place on resource deepening and resource extension, and the post-acquisition retention of acquired resources. We find substantial similarity in the asset-seeking role of acquisitions for medical sector firms from different continents, coupled with intriguing differences concerning what we refer to as asset keeping. The results suggest that there are many common causal factors that underlie the strategies of firms from different regions, but that some regional differences remain.     

The effect of own-firm and other-firm experience on foreign direct investment survival in the United States, 1987–92

We argue that foreign firms operating in a host country generate information spillovers that have potential value for later foreign direct investment. We test two predictions. First, we expect foreign direct investments by firms with experience in a host country to be more likely to survive than investments made by first-time entrants. Second, foreign direct investments will be more likely to survive the greater the foreign presence in the target industry at the time of investment, subject to two contingencies. The first contingency is that the relationship will be weak or nonexistent among firms with no experience in the host country, because these firms have difficulty evaluating and taking advantage of the information spillovers. The second contingency is that the presence of other foreign firms will not affect investment survival among firms that already have a presence in the target industry and undertake expansion. These firms already possess general information about the target industries and are unlikely to gain additional benefit from information spillovers. We find supportive evidence based on the survival to 1992 among 354 U.S. investments undertaken by foreign firms in manufacturing industries during 1987. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Export and domestic sales: their interrelationship and determinants

We examine the interrelationship between export and domestic sales. Our expectation is that they are simultaneously determined, and as such should not be examined in isolation. We also investigate how firm factors—such as R & D and advertising investments—and external factors—such as market growth and exchange rate changes—impact export and domestic sales. Using a non‐recursive system of equations, we test our arguments on a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms between 1990 and 1997. We find significant interrelationships between export and domestic sales with striking differences between Spanish‐owned firms and foreign‐owned firms operating in Spain. For Spanish‐owned firms, domestic and export sales are complements. These firms appear to focus on the domestic market and strength in the domestic market drives their export sales. In contrast, domestic and export sales are substitutes for foreign‐owned firms. These firms' export strategies appear subsumed under strategies of managing a multinational network in which the focus is sales outside of Spain. We discuss the importance of these findings for understanding and managing export strategies. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are aliens green? Assessing foreign establishments' environmental conduct in the United states

Previous research has found that foreign‐owned establishments often lack specific capabilities needed to respond to local business conditions and are held to a higher standard by local stakeholders. These establishments compensate, however, by possessing offsetting capabilities such as technological excellence. In this article, we investigate how these conflicting forces shape the environmental conduct of foreign‐owned facilities. Using data from the Environmental Protection Agency, we find that foreign‐owned establishments generate more waste yet manage more waste than U.S.‐owned establishments. We also find evidence that both domestic and foreign‐owned firms generate more waste if they operate multiple facilities across multiple jurisdictions in the United States. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Foreign entrant survival and foreign market share: Canadian companies' experience in united states medical sector markets

We show that successful foreign market entry is related to the extent of foreign presence in an industry at the time of entry. Survival of 31 Canadian-based businesses that entered 24 U.S. medical sector markets between 1968 and 1989 tended to be somewhat longer in product markets in which foreign-based businesses held a moderate market share when the Canadian businesses entered than in low and high foreign share product markets. The result controls several other industry and business-level factors, including industry concentration, entry year, corporate size, related diversification, entry mode, and service sector status.     

Agglomeration economies,firm heterogeneity,and foreign direct investment in the United States

An overlooked aspect of agglomeration economies, which are positive externalities that stem from the geographic clustering of industry, is that firms contribute to the externality in addition to benefiting from the externality. This insight suggests that if firms are heterogeneous they will differ in the net benefits they receive from agglomerating. We argue that firms with the best technologies, human capital, training programs, suppliers, or distributors will gain little, yet competitively suffer when their technologies, employees, and access to supporting industries spill over to competitors. Therefore, these firms have little motivation to geographically cluster despite the existence of agglomeration economies. Conversely, firms with the weakest technologies, human capital, training programs, suppliers, or distributors have little to lose and a lot to gain; therefore, these firms are motivated to geographically cluster. As a result, when firms are heterogeneous we expect agglomeration to be characterized by adverse selection. We find supportive evidence of these arguments by examining the location choice and survival of foreign greenfield investments in U.S. manufacturing industries. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Constraints and incentives for making long horizon corporate investments

This paper examines the conditions under which firms make long horizon investments (i.e., investments that take a long period of time to pay off). We predict firms are constrained from making long horizon investments when short‐term performance is poor—and this effect is especially pronounced for young firms. Moreover, we argue that when managers hold high levels of exercisable stock options, their firms are less likely to make long‐term investments. However, firms are more likely to pursue long horizon investments when managerial stock options are not yet exercisable. Based on analysis of investments made by cable television operators from 1972–1996, we find support for these predictions. In addition to enhancing our understanding of investment choices, these results—derived from the temporally focused analysis of an investment's payoff horizon—suggest that payoff horizon is an important investment attribute in its own right and should be analyzed distinctly from and in addition to other aspects of investments, such as expected return and risk. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.