Journal of International Management最新文献

Advancing our understanding of political risks is crucial for international management (IM) research and practice. This study addresses how multiple institutional logics that govern multinational enterprises (MNEs), as latent tensions of political risks, may work together for superior or inferior performance. Methodologically, we adopt a configurational approach to predict how varying state logic and market logic combinations affect performance in the context of internationalization among Chinese financial services firms. Employing fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), we identify a specific taxonomy of four political risk prototypes that lead to different performance outcomes. Overall, this study provides novel insights into political risk variations of internationalizing firms and links different institutional logic configurations with performance outcomes.

In this paper, we advance recent calls to deliver a novel lobbying data source through which researchers can analyze national and international sociopolitical environments and their impact on foreign firms. Our focus is mainly on lobbying activities by foreign firms in the US. The lobbying activities by foreign firms in the US have increased tremendously in the last two decades. However, due to data challenges, empirical examinations by researchers have been limited on this topic. Limited studies that have examined lobbying activities by foreign firms in the US have studied it at an aggregate level. In this paper, we provide lobbying information for all foreign firms in the US since 1998; empirically validate the data by conducting theory-driven hypotheses testing; and suggest future research ideas.

This study aims to identify the causal relationship between innovation ambidexterity and multinational enterprises' (MNEs) sustainable performance. It emphasizes how innovation ambidexterity driven by dynamic capabilities can allow MNE subsidiaries to achieve social and environmental performances. Additionally, we asserted the moderating impacts of host governments' pressures on the association between dynamic capability and innovation ambidexterity. We evaluated our hypotheses using a dataset consisting of 228 MNE manufacturing subsidiaries in China using partial least square-structural equation modeling. Utilizing dynamic capability and ambidexterity theories, our research contributes to the ongoing sustainable performance literature by addressing a growing call to understand how MNE subsidiaries may achieve long-term sustainability when conducting business abroad.

The composition-based view explains how emerging market firms creatively adopt compositional investment, compositional offerings, and compositional capabilities to gain a competitive advantage in the global marketplace. How the composition-based international strategy contributes to organizational resilience under the de-globalization world remains unclear. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we explore how emerging market firms reconfigure compositional elements and the crucial role of firm heterogeneity in determining organizational resilience. Our analysis of 250 Chinese manufacturing firms revealed five distinct international compositional strategies and asymmetric outcomes. Multiple configurations of composition-based international strategies and firm heterogeneity were found to be related to high and low organizational resilience. Our findings confirm that emerging market firms must reconfigure their compositional elements to achieve sustained and resilient performance throughout the pandemic. Our findings extend the composition-based view by elucidating the multiple pathways and boundary conditions of compositional strategies leading to organizational resilience.

While nationalistic political rhetoric has become a critical concern for international business, the research in this area has lagged because of the unavailability of a representative measure. In this study, I introduce a largely unexplored source of data for international business research: Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT), and explain how GDELT can be used to operationalize politicians' use of nationalistic rhetoric across the world. After discussing the data and the operationalization of the measure, I offer some preliminary insights. They reveal that the rise of nationalistic political rhetoric is not a recent phenomenon but a consistent theme over the last three decades. Contrary to suggestions in the literature, it is not low-income or less developed environments but countries with higher income and well-developed institutions where nationalistic rhetoric is more visible and where it strongly deters FDI. The measure advanced in this study offers a renewed understanding of global sociopolitical risks. It also contributes to institutional theory by explicating how politicians use non-bureaucratic influence to affect informal institutions.

Socio-political risks (SPRs) are important drivers of firm-level risk. Beyond unexpected variation in socio-political environments over time, the difference between home and host country socio-political contexts induces risk as it increases the difficulty to understand a foreign environment. This risk is specifically important for internationally active firms, as they need to gather and interpret information stemming from different socio-political environments to manage their international operations. However, existing literature lacks both concept and measure to capture such information asymmetry. In this paper, we explain how cross-national distance is related to SPRs through information asymmetry, and develop a reflective measure of cross-national distance based on information theory, signal analysis, and financial market information. Conceptual and empirical evaluations and applications of the concept and measure proposed provide support for our approach.

Our qualitative case study explores how Kirin Beer Zhuhai (KBZ), a China based subsidiary of a Japanese multinational corporation, under a mandate from the HQ, changed from embracing corporate social responsibility (CSR) to adopting creating shared value (CSV). This entailed some movement away from projects that were deemed to be about CSR, where there had been an exclusive focus on social rather than economic goals. There were corresponding attempts to adopt projects about CSV, addressing both social and economic goals. Faced with trade-offs between economic and social goals, managers at KBZ appeared to be adopting a temporal form of policy-practice decoupling. Under this, some CSV projects were targeting temporally proximal economic goals along with temporally distal social goals, while other CSV projects were targeting temporally proximal social goals along with temporally distal economic goals. Our main contribution is developing the concept of temporal decoupling as a tool for analyzing dilemmas (e.g., local versus global demands) and resolving trade-offs (e.g., social versus economic goals). Temporal decoupling enabled KBZ to progress toward CSV without resource transfers from the headquarters, with yin-yang balancing as the mechanism, under which competing goals were temporarily traded-off through partial separation, while achieving some synergy through partial integration.

As social and political contexts have become major sources of uncertainty for international business, we have witnessed renewed efforts to study the impact of socio-political risks on multinational enterprises. However, predominant methods in the field of international business are, for the most part, limited in their capacity to directly address the complexity intrinsic to socio-political risks. We propose overcoming this limitation by adopting a configurational approach that enables researchers to embrace the complexity of socio-political risks in international business. We explain the fundamental principles of a configurational approach and the typical stages for using its methodological tool, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). We then outline how scholars can use QCA to pursue future research avenues that identify the configurations of conditions that constitute socio-political risks or the effects of socio-political risks on diverse outcomes of interest. We also clarify how the international business field can benefit from the use of QCA in the study of socio-political risks by advancing knowledge of international business in emerging and informal markets, where data access is limited. These efforts aim to motivate international business and management scholars to broaden their empirical toolbox for the study of socio-political risks by engaging in configurational thinking and theorizing.

This study explores the evolution of post-acquisition integration drawing on an eight-year longitudinal multi-case study of eight strategic-asset-seeking acquisitions of Western firms by globalizing Chinese private owned enterprises and taking a dual view from both the acquiring and the acquired companies. In contrast to the extant literature, it reveals significant heterogeneity by identifying three differing post-acquisition integration evolution paths. All three start with a form of light-touch integration as proposed by existing research but transition to different target models, either another form of light touch or absorption. A driving system has been developed to explain these differing evolution paths which are largely determined by the catch-up strategy (strategy to catch up with Western incumbents) whilst resource dependency and cultural difference working as the steering drivers for transition. Overall, seven distinct forms of integration (six distinguished forms of light-touch integration plus absorption) and three types of catch-up strategy are identified and explained in this study.

Utilizing microfoundations theory of internationalization, we explore how micro-multinationals' CEOs tertius iungens orientation, i.e., ability to enhance co-ordination among different parties, influence mMNEs performance during disruptive forces set by the COVID-19 pandemic. We assert that CEOs' tertius iungens orientation leads to better organizational resiliency, i.e., swiftly responding to disruptive changes, and resiliency enhances the mMNEs performance. We thus explore the mediating effect of organizational resiliency in the CEO tertius iungens orientation and mMNE performance relationship. We further assert that the global mindset of the CEO moderates this mediated relationship between the CEO tertius iungens orientation and mMNE performance. We test our hypotheses based on mMNEs in the UK and thus extend mMNE literature, where the role of the upper echelon and their influence on organizational resiliency remains scantly explored, which becomes critical when global forces such as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupt the ordinary course of business.