Instead of the dire predictions of a post-pandemic world characterized by increased global risks, decoupling of economies, shake-up of global value chains, and the retreat of globalization, this ...article proposes that the changes induced by heightened nationalism and protectionism will be marginal rather than fundamental in nature. These marginally higher risks can easily be handled and ameliorated by multinational enterprises through alternate cross-border business strategies and emerging technologies. Moreover, the paper gives reasons why the future world economy will need even more globalization.
This paper investigates the role of individual firms in international business-cycle comovement using data covering the universe of French firm-level value added and international linkages over the ...period 1993–2007. At the micro level, trade and multinational linkages with a particular foreign country are associated with a significantly higher correlation between a firm and that foreign country. The impact of direct linkages on comovement at the micro level has significant macro implications. Without those linkages the correlation between France and foreign countries would fall by about 0.098, or one-third of the observed average correlation of 0.291 in our sample of partner countries.
This article examines the link between the condition of institutional voids in emerging markets and the use of the practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting by emerging market ...multinational enterprises (EM-MNEs). Based on neo-institutional theory and in light of the specificity of emerging markets, we propose a positive relationship between institutional voids and CSR reporting. Home-country institutional voids push companies to internationalize as a way to escape the institutional constraints and inefficiencies in their own markets, but at the same time create legitimacy challenges for these companies abroad. In particular, EM-MNEs from less institutionally developed countries are likely to face liabilities of origin - negative perceptions in host countries about these firms' willingness and ability to conduct legitimate business. CSR reporting is an effective strategy to overcome such liabilities and barriers to legitimation as it conveys to host countries and global stakeholders alignment with global meta-norms and expectations. Internationalization, listing on developed country stock exchanges, and time, further magnify EM-MNEs' legitimacy challenges and thus the use of CSR reporting to mitigate them. Our hypotheses are supported in a longitudinal study of 157 of the largest EM-MNEs ranked by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) between 2004 and 2011.
In "Probing Theoretically into Central and Eastern Europe: Transactions, Resources, and Institutions," we outlined the contributions of research in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to theoretical ...debates in business research. In this retrospective, we reflect upon the evolution of the field over the past decade. With the fading impact of CEE's distinct shared history, we suggest that CEE best be analyzed as emerging economies, rather than as a distinct geographic entity. Emerging economy business research is converging on common themes and shared theoretical ideas, while identifying critical variations that constrain generalizations among and beyond emerging economies. This research thus highlights the need to develop a better understanding of the boundary conditions of scholarly theories of business knowledge. Over the past decade, the institutionbased view has emerged from distinct intellectual traditions in institutional economics, organizational theory, and the analysis of business-government bargaining. Research in these converging lines of theorizing places contextual variations at the center of explanations of business phenomena around the world. We suggest that the institution-based view is evolving toward a paradigm, and offer suggestions on how to advance this research agenda further, in particular by exploring how firms engage with different sets of potentially conflicting institutions at multiple levels and locations.
This article argues that innovation in and from emerging economies is largely shaped by the challenges of sustained catching-up with the advanced economies. Just as firms and industries are ...constantly seeking to upgrade their technological and organizational capabilities, so too are their societies reconfiguring their institutions and networks to improve their knowledge resources. Such a co-evolutionary process requires IB scholars to draw on interdisciplinary work from the innovation and development literature in order to reconsider the key drivers of innovation at multiple levels within these economies. Innovation is not just limited to technological activities but includes organizational and transactional improvements, and is largely a process of recombination of local and imported knowledge, shared through multiple forms of collaboration. This can redefine the FSAs of local and foreign firms, often shaped by the strategies of domestic public and private actors. Simultaneously, policymakers need to develop the appropriate institutions needed to underpin R&D, training, standards, and knowledge coordination. MNEs play unique roles as instigators of innovation, as conduits for new knowledge, and as beneficiaries themselves, via their own recombination capabilities.
International corporate governance Aguilera, Ruth V.; Marano, Valentina; Haxhi, Ilir
Journal of international business studies,
06/2019, Volume:
50, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We review four decades of research about the corporate governance of multinational corporations (MNCs), which we label International Corporate Governance (ICG). We identify and discuss three main ...streams of research that draw on different conceptualizations and theoretical lenses of (corporate) governance. After synthesizing their respective findings, we propose several avenues for future research that integrate these three streams of research with the goal of developing a more nuanced understanding of ICG. We hope this review article will inspire international business scholars to continue examining how corporate governance can be an effective tool for MNC success.
•There are eight shared research synergies between Asia, US and UK/Europe regions.•Competitive advantage, firms and firm performance are the strongest themes.•IB studies are primarily about ...performance, emerging MNE and MNCs/MNEs more broadly.•IB policy studies center on foreign business attraction, transnational governance and IB promotion.•Sole authorships are largely replaced by co-authorships, often on national level.
This paper analyzes the core international business (IB) areas covered by ten IB-focused journals to date using 13,937 documents reflecting more than 300 years of combined publication history. Using bibliometric and citation analysis, it provides a systematic understanding of the current IB landscape, explicates the relevance of the future of IB research and depicts trends in this research field with emerging prevalent themes identified. The strongest themes across IB journals are performance, perspective and emerging economies/MNEs, shared strongly across UK/Europe, US and Asia-based journals. Our findings report on the prevalent research field, economy and geography, the latter analyzing the impact of author numbers and distribution, and thus, scale effects. Within this context, sole authorships are largely replaced by co-authorships, yet often on national level. We further limited the study to IB policy and found the focus centers on key themes of foreign business attraction, transnational governance and IB promotion.
Fifty years of methodological trends in JIBS Nielsen, Bo Bernhard; Welch, Catherine; Chidlow, Agnieszka ...
Journal of international business studies,
12/2020, Volume:
51, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We analyze methodological trends in empirical research in JIBS from 1970 to 2019. Our results point to the prevalence of the following patterns: there has been an increase in the use of (1) ...large-scale longitudinal, cross-national datasets, (2) complex analytical techniques, including the incorporation of multiple analytical techniques within the same study, but (3) a decline in the diversity of methods in use. We relate these trends to the underlying social, technical, and communicative conventions in the journal during the 50-year period. The observed patterns are consistent with theory that posits scientific fields entrench a dominant paradigm over time, resulting in a restricted set of methodological options being selected. Such restrictions jeopardize the quality of research because the study of any phenomenon requires the use of multiple methodological procedures to avoid the systematic biases, errors, omissions, and limitations introduced by any single option. Therefore, we propose the use of triangulation as a strategy for building methodological alternatives into research designs. Institutionalization of this principle in the field of international business has the potential to enhance both the rigor and scope of future inquiry.
Leveraging the recent research interest in emerging economies, this Perspective paper argues that an institution-based view of international business (IB) strategy has emerged. It is positioned as ...one leg that helps sustain the "strategy tripod" (the other two legs consisting of the industry- and resource-based views). We then review four diverse areas of substantive research: (1) antidumping as entry barriers; (2) competing in and out of India; (3) growing the firm in China; and (4) governing the corporation in emerging economies. Overall, we argue that an institution-based view of IB strategy, in combination with industry- and resource-based views, will not only help sustain a strategy tripod, but also shed significant light on the most fundamental questions confronting IB, such as "What drives firm strategy and performance in IB?"
Multinational subsidiaries do not merely seek legitimacy within their dual institutional contexts; they also strive to articulate an organizational identity by drawing on institutional resources ...embedded in these dual contexts. We draw attention to the subsidiary's identity duality and conceptualize it as a paradox, i.e., as the juxtaposition of the contradictory, interdependent, and persistent characteristics of the 'global' and the 'local' in the subsidiary's identity. Using 57 years of archival data from Hindustan Unilever, the Indian subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever, we observe changing patterns in the articulation of identity claims by subsidiary leaders and develop a process model of how subsidiaries navigate identity duality over time. We find that subsidiary leaders may use two modes of organizational identity work for this purpose - logic ordering (the articulation of identity claims that respond to contradictory institutional demands by privileging one and subordinating the other) and logic bridging (the articulation of identity claims that respond to contradictory institutional demands by effecting a Janusian integration of the said demands). Over time, and employing these modes of identity work, leaders at Hindustan Unilever sustained a dynamic balance between the dual cores of the subsidiary's espoused identity.
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