Journal of International Management最新文献

Digital globalization enabled by disruptive technologies has opened a myriad of ways to create value, warranting a cross-disciplinary research agenda on digital connectivity in international business (IB). Given the scarcity of understanding about the role of specific technologies enabling value creation through digital connectivity, we investigate how blockchain-based digital connectivity shapes value creation in international digital platforms and ecosystems (DPEs). Building on a comparative empirical analysis of international DPEs enabled by different types of blockchain technology, we develop a typology of blockchain-based connectivity in IB. The typology demonstrates how different blockchain technology types enable different kinds of connectivity, resulting in diverse approaches to value creation within newly emerging forms of DPEs. These findings contextualize the concept of digital connectivity, enabling more precise explanations of blockchain's adoption in DPEs, and expand the conceptualization of DPEs, with three new types emerging from the utilization of blockchain-based connectivity. Moreover, this interdisciplinary explanation reveals why certain features theoretically attributed to blockchain (e.g., decentralization, trust) do not always realize or support value creation in practice in IB based on the DPE business model.

Why do some MNEs manage to thrive amidst global disasters? Amidst the most tumultuous of unprecedented global disasters, some MNEs still seem to thrive. While the MNE-disaster response literature often considers responses as deliberately planned actions, some organizations can simply find themselves at the ‘right place at the right time’ during disasters. Yet not all that MNEs seem able to leverage favorable chance events hidden within a disaster context. Accordingly, in this study, we apply the emerging theoretical lens of serendipity to theorize MNE disaster response, illustrated by Chinese MNE's responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. While disasters are expected to be detrimental to MNEs, this unprecedented crisis has shown mixed effects. We collect 89 articles from Caijing—an authoritative business magazine in China and conducted a qualitative analysis of manager-oriented discourse to investigate how the MNE managers made sense of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. We use the emerging serendipity perspective to recast and interpret reasons behind these mixed outcomes, drawing attention to why some MNE managers were able to ‘connect the dots’ and perceive value in the unexpected. Overall, we advance a timely introduction of serendipity to the MNE disaster response literature and build a preliminary bridge between theory, practice, and chance.

Subsidiaries draw on different networks to undertake entrepreneurial initiatives. While previous literature has emphasized the subsidiary's relational embeddedness as a key factor enabling initiatives, we know much less about the selective network mobilizations of different groups of actors. Our research takes a network mobilization view and uncovers the practices of network mobilization and avoidance across initiative phases. Ten in-depth case studies of realized initiatives reveal how subsidiaries activate multiple networks for different purposes, that networks are ‘fluid’ across different phases, and that initiatives follow different pathways for local and global impact. These insights extend the literature on subsidiary initiatives and shed light on subsidiary initiative processes.

Innovation is the key to survive, adapt, and succeed in modern markets, which are increasingly exposed to and impacted by the transformation in progress, especially from a technological point of view, and even more so as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the propensity to innovate is not only a desirable orientation of enterprises, but also a business process that absorbs relevant resources. In this vein, this study aims to understand if there is a connection, in the form of a direct and positive effect, between corporate performance and innovation, measured in terms of both expenses and intensity, with a specific focus on the Asian region (China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand). While a direct relationship seems to exist when assessed by financial indicators (Tobin's Q), the same cannot be completely proved in relation to accounting ones (return on equity). Related implications, at the theoretical and practical level, are then provided, especially in regard to the potential contribution (and consequent appreciation) of intellectual capital.

We propose an integrated framework establishing the environmental and organizational contingencies under which the international dispersion of R&D activities benefits innovation performance in multinational firms. We suggest that R&D dispersion is more likely to enhance innovation performance – the smaller economies of scale and scope in R&D, the greater the technological strength of R&D locations and the stronger intra-firm knowledge integration. Employing a panel dataset of 175 R&D intensive US, EU, and Japanese firms, our findings provide support for this framework and suggest that these contingencies need to be taken into account simultaneously. Technology diversification strengthens rather than weakens the relationship between international R&D and performance, which we attribute to the positive influence of recombining knowledge sourced across diverse locations.

Subsidiaries adopt nonmarket strategies in host countries to merit legitimacy. This conceptual paper theorizes paradoxes and nonmarket strategies for Chinese SOMNEs' subsidiaries in selective de-globalization targeting China. We enrich the well-received co-evolutionary framework in the IB literature by incorporating the Yin-Yang frame into the analysis and broadening the scope of thinking beyond the economic analysis of risks and costs in political disruptions on MNE subsidiaries. Our integrated theoretical framework highlights two dynamic environments (social and geopolitical) that subsidiaries simultaneously confront and the multi-level institutional pressures within these environments. We propose three Yin-Yang framed nonmarket strategies — zao-shi (造势) (creating favorable momentum), ying-shi (应势) (Not resisting unfavorable momentum) and wu-wei (无为) (inactive action) to address the paradoxes in a de-globalized business environment.

To tackle the grand challenge of poverty alleviation, we investigate the role of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in fostering inclusive markets amid the influence of corruption. Corruption hampers MFI's efforts to reach out to women and the poor, leading to increased costs and resource wastage. Specifically, corruption negatively impacts financial inclusivity by affecting service costs, female borrower inclusion, and loan officer effectiveness. By adopting an institution-based view, we propose that corruption control can counteract this negative effect by enhancing information transmission and stakeholder cooperation within microfinance, thereby promoting inclusivity. Corruption control also moderates the effects of three firm-level factors, namely service cost, female borrowers, and loan officers on expanding inclusive markets. Leveraging a panel data set of 618 MFIs across 30 developing countries from 2005 to 2011, we employ multilevel modeling and find a positive association between corruption control and the breadth of MFIs' outreach.

This study examines the ways in which perceptions of equity are socially constructed among contractors involved in global offshoring arrangements. A comparative case study of two global software organizations involved in offshore outsourcing reveals that global contractors across sites constructed different equity perceptions of similar foreign assignments due to a number of contextual factors. These contextual differences combined to produce social comparison processes that led to the construction of different equity perceptions. Drawing on a perceptual model of equity theory, we find that global contractors from one case felt stigmatized and treated inequitably as “second-class citizens”, while those from the other case felt empowered as “free agents.” Our findings contribute a context-sensitive explanation for the construction of different equity perceptions in global offshoring arrangements, with implications for global work design more broadly.

Although subunit integration matters to performance outcomes in the multinational firm, the determinants of integration remain unclear. We distinguish between formal integration—the centralization of strategic decision-making and the formalization of policies and procedures and informal integration through socialization toward shared goals and a cohesive identity. We argue that corporate parents' implementation of these integration mechanisms is informed by conditions internal and external to the multinational firm. Drawing on 154 empirical studies encompassing 35,752 foreign subunits over 34 years, we find that a locally oriented subunit strategy negatively affects centralization and socialization. Host country constraints positively affect formalization and socialization. These findings are consistent with some theoretical expectations but contradictory to others. We enrich the nomological network of subunit integration, offering novel insights regarding the internal and external drivers of structural heterogeneity within and between multinational firms. Our findings thus inform theory of the complex nature of managerial decisions in multinational firms.

Foreign diversification is crucial for risk management, but its role in building resilient international firms is underexplored. This research combines the organizational information processing theory with international business literature to examine how and when foreign diversification relates to firm resilience in the context of SME exporters. The study suggests that while foreign diversification may contribute to firm resilience, foreign market scanning mediates this effect under varying supply chain disruption conditions. An analysis of primary data from 272 SME exporters in Ghana reveals that foreign diversification alone does not explain firm resilience. Instead, the results support the arguments that foreign market scanning positively mediates the foreign diversification – firm resilience relationship, and that this indirect relationship is stronger in highly disruptive supply chain environments. Implications of these findings for international business research and practice are discussed.