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.
For a long time most international business researchers assumed homogeneity within national borders. More and more, international strategy is being considered at the subnational level. We review the ...current state of the literature that adopts this more fine-grained, subnational geographic level of analysis as well as studies combining multiple levels of geographic analysis. We consider the notion of the subnational region and provide an overview of regional grouping schemes applied in research. Our integrative framework shows how in the subnational context (1) firm, industry and environmental characteristics, (2) influence strategy, location choice and entry mode, and (3) the eventual consequences of firm decision-making. We synthesize prior work, address unresolved issues, and provide recommendations for future research advancing research on different geographic levels of analysis.
This study advances our understanding of the contextualization of the effects of cultural intelligence (CQ). Drawing from trait activation theory and institutional theory, we develop a multi-level ...model showing how host countries’ informal and formal openness towards foreigners facilitate or constrain the importance of expatriates’ CQ in becoming embedded in the host organization. Furthermore, this study positions organizational embeddedness as a mediator in the association between expatriates’ CQ and a central element of expatriates’ jobs – knowledge sharing in the foreign workplace. Results from a cross-lagged survey of 1327 expatriates from 100 different nations residing in 30 host countries combined with secondary data indicate expatriate CQ relates positively to organizational embeddedness. Cross-level interaction analyses further suggest that in-group collectivism, the proxy for host countries’ informal openness towards foreigners, facilitates the importance of CQ as a predictor of expatriates’ organizational embeddedness. In contrast, CQ was not found to interact with the proxy for host countries’ formal openness towards foreigners, i.e. national immigration policies. Consistent with predictions, we identified that CQ relates positively to knowledge sharing and that organizational embeddedness carries an indirect effect. We discuss the implications for theory and practice.
This paper incorporates sloping marginal cost curves and their variations across industries into an open macro model, motivated by the fact that industries’ output, imports, and exports are more ...procyclical when their economies of scale arise from sloping marginal cost curves rather than fixed costs. The model, consistent with the data, delivers endogenous within-firm interdependence across markets and export gains/losses, which reproduce observed industrial business cycle patterns as well as more correlated aggregate business cycles across countries. The findings highlight the importance of marginal cost structures in international business cycle research.
•In US manufacturing industries, heterogeneous economies of scale mainly arise from non-constant marginal costs rather than fixed costs.•Output, exports, and imports are more procyclical in industries with decreasing marginal costs.•An open macro model with different slopes of the marginal cost curves well reproduces the industrial and aggregate international business cycle patterns.
We review the classic theory of the MNE and past attempts to use it to understand the internationalization of firms from emerging markets. We offer two criteria to determine whether EMNEs modify ...classic theory or not: (1) establishing appropriate theoretical reference points, and (2) distinguishing between theoretical constructs and empirical variables. We suggest that the literature can benefit from moving beyond comparing EMNEs to DMNEs and focusing instead on more fruitful issues. Specifically, emerging markets offer the opportunity to observe the origin of the capabilities of MNEs in general and the development of the institutional ecosystem that supports internationalization.
Our 2006 Journal of International Business Studies article, "A Quarter Century of Culture's Consequences: A Review of the Empirical Research Incorporating Hofstede's Cultural Values Framework," ...provided a comprehensive review of 180 empirical journal articles and edited volume chapters published between 1980 and June 2002 that incorporated Hofstede's cross-cultural values framework. We examined empirical research that positioned culture as either a main or moderating effect. The review attempted to make sense of the almost quarter century of research examining the impact of culture at the individual, group/organization, and country levels. In the present commentary, we provide: (a) a summary of the progress that has been made in the intervening decade, and most importantly, (b) a new set of recommendations for the next decade to guide those wishing to study the role of national culture in organizations.
This paper reviews the content of the International Business Review (IBR) since its foundation thirty years ago. It analyses statistically the topics addressed by the journal’s contributors. It ...relates the content of the journal to changing research themes in the discipline. It considers the underlying forces – political, social and economic - that have led to the emergence of new themes, It concludes with some speculations about new themes that may be addressed by future contributors to the journal.
This article reviews how context has been considered in studies on SME internationalization. It examines 333 articles published during the period 2010–2020 in leading international business, ...entrepreneurship, strategy and international marketing journals. It identifies their key findings, discusses the theoretical perspectives informing this literature, analyzes conceptual and methodological challenges, and suggests paths for theory development and future research. The review also provides a platform from which to address some of the limitations in international business IB theories when applied to SMEs, including organizational size as a boundary condition.
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