Bank regulation and the process of internationalisation: A study of Japanese bank entry into London

The paper provides a theoretical insight into bank regulation and the process of internationalisation by examining the concepts of regulatory push and market pull within the context of Japanese bank entry into London during the 1980s. Rugman and Verbeke's [(1998). Corporate strategy and international environmental policy. Journal of International Business Studies, 29(4), 819–833] Consistency of Home and Host Government Goals model is utilised to structure the discussion, which centres on a situation where there is a conflict of goals between multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the home government but goal alignment between MNEs and the host government. As such the paper examines a relatively under-researched aspect of internationalisation and concludes that in certain circumstances internationalisation can occur despite great ‘psychic distance’. The paper also argues that although bank regulation can lead to a conflict situation it can also be conducive to the development of a strong home base and the development of firm specific advantages.     

An examination of cross-border strategies in banking

The paper examines the process of bank internationalisation and explores how banks become international organisations and what this involves. It also makes an assessment of the significance of their international operations and determines whether banks are truly global organisations. The empirical data are based on the 60 largest banks in the world and content analysis is used to categorise the information into the eight international strategies of Atamer, Calori, Gustavsson, and Menguzzato-Boulard [Internationalisation strategies. In R. Calori, T. Atamer, & P. Nunes (Eds.), The dynamics of international competition – from practice to theory, strategy series (pp. 162–206). London: Sage (2000)] and Bryan, Fraser, Oppenheim, and Rall [Race for the World strategies to build a great global firm. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press (1999)]. The findings suggest that the majority of banks focus on countries or geographic regions in which they have some sort of cultural or economic affinity. Moreover, apart from a relatively small number of very large banks, they are international rather than truly global organisations.