International Business Review最新文献

This study investigates how the intraregional geographic expansion of a multinational enterprise (MNE) affects the performance of foreign subsidiaries in the region. While previous studies have primarily focused on the impact of intraregional expansion at the overall MNE level, this study explores its subsidiary-level effect. The non-linear relationship between intraregional geographic expansion and the performance of foreign subsidiaries in the region is examined by adopting a two-stage least squares model for a panel dataset of Japanese MNEs’ investments in three geographic regions. The findings demonstrate a curvilinear relationship between intraregional geographic expansion and the performance of foreign subsidiaries. Furthermore, the effect of intraregional geographic expansion on subsidiary performance depends on the attributes of foreign subsidiaries in the regional network of sister subsidiaries. Specifically, this study demonstrates that geographically isolated and small subsidiaries and those co-owned by local partner firms gain large benefits from intraregional expansion.

Family firms tend to have ownership concentrated in the hands of family members, which influences their internationalization decisions. We draw on the mixed gamble perspective and theorize that family firms trade off socioemotional wealth (SEW) losses in favor of potential gains while seeking equity in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs). We hypothesize that the degree of family ownership is positively related to the level of equity sought in CBAs. Furthermore, family management reinforces the preference of family owners toward SEW gains, thereby strengthening the relationship between the degree of family ownership and equity sought in CBAs. However, institutional distance increases the risk of CBA failure and negatively moderates the relationship. Our findings, based on a sample of 433 CBAs conducted by Indian family firms, contribute to the mixed gamble perspective.

Although there have been decades of research on the effect of cultural values on team effectiveness outcomes, knowledge of the interdependencies of team cultural values for explaining team performance remains nascent. Using a configurational qualitative approach, this study explores how cultural values combine and collectively contribute to the effectiveness of Global Virtual Teams (GVTs). We perform a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis on a data set of 1847 individuals nested within 396 GVTs who participated in an international business consulting project. The results demonstrate that cultural values work together to achieve high levels of team performance rather than function independently. The results also show that different cultural value configurations could be equally effective at producing the same outcome, and that the presence of gender egalitarianism and the absence of power distance are the most important for producing the outcome. We discuss implications for practice and future research.

This paper analyses how the challenging of regulation by multinational enterprises through the investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) process impacts the social licence to operate (SLO) of international business (IB). Drawing on the analyses of controversial ISDS cases, it makes four key contributions. First, it proposes a framework for better understanding SLO and presents strong evidence that the use of ISDS has undermined SLO, not only of the involved companies, but also of IB more widely. Second, it extends the literature on corporate political activity (CPA) by drawing attention to the importance of litigation strategies, largely ignored in prior research. Third, it contributes to the literature on the externalities of CPA by exploring how certain tactics can undermine public trust and SLO. Last, it expands our understanding of the ‘dark side’ of CPA beyond illegal activities and government capture, to ethically questionable strategies.

Deep learning is used to analyze temporal trade flow data from 62 countries from 2017 to 2021. The model incorporates 63 explanatory country fixed effects and country-pair psychic distance stimuli. This advanced computer-age statistical approach goes beyond the limitations of traditional OLS regression. The model demonstrates that country fixed effects contribute at least as much to the variations in trade flows as do the distance-related factors. The study also shows that distance stimuli related to democracy, education, and religion do not negatively influence trade flows. Remarkably, the deep learning model can effectively train itself solely on country fixed effects. This prompts a reevaluation of the classic trade flow gravity model, which typically places heavy reliance on distance-related variables.

International business research often links the cultural and institutional characteristics of countries to the features of the individuals inhabiting these countries. A distinct approach to analyzing such multilevel problems with deep learning and explainable artificial intelligence methods is presented, using country characteristics as explicit spatial coordinates. Deep learning is tolerant of noise and faults and can approximate arbitrarily complex mathematical structures by developing multiple abstractions. An applied example demonstrates the applicability of this approach by exploring the effect of personal-care advertising spending in 27 countries on the subjective happiness of 376,442 individuals, indicating a statistically significant positive effect, albeit with a trivial effect size.

This review problematizes literature on export assistance, one of the oldest and most significant topics in export research. Problematization embraces selective but broad literature, reflexivity, hermeneutical reading of text, and inclusion of the author’s voice. The sample comprises 95 studies published between 1968 and 2022. The review makes two critical contributions. First, it offers a synopsis of extant knowledge through an organizing framework which highlights the roles of governments, export promotion agencies, foreign trade offices and trade support institutions, in the design and deployment of onshore and offshore export assistance. In so doing, the review demonstrates that scholarship on export assistance can be summarized in four I’s – impetus, interventions, initiatives, and impact. Second, it uses two-sided non-refutational arguments to elaborate that while export assistance is possibly the most mature construct in export research, there are numerous unresolved questions. The areas of debate offer a platform for guiding practice and for setting an agenda for future studies.

International business studies show that multinational enterprises generally invest in locations with fewer political risks, but that this may not always apply to emerging-market multinational enterprises, due to the specific characteristics of their home countries. In this paper, we examine the impact of political risk on the location decisions of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and explore the legitimacy of firms from China in different host countries as a moderator of the relationship between political risk and location choice. Our empirical investigation is based on an original database of 617 foreign direct investment (FDI) location-choice decisions made by 240 Chinese SMEs between 2006 and 2017. The results show that political risk deters Chinese SMEs from choosing certain locations, but political and economic legitimacy positively mitigate this relationship. Combining the political institutions approach and legitimacy-based view of political risk, we contribute novel insights into the role of legitimacy of firms from the same country of origin in emerging market SMEs’ strategic choices of FDI location.

For a sample of 25,749 international firm-year observations, we evaluate the relationship between shareholders’ time orientation, firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR), and the cost of equity capital. We find evidence that patient institutional investors monitor the CSR strategy of the firms in which they invest to the extent that the CSR practices of these firms lower their cost of equity capital. Further analysis indicates that this effect is less pronounced when strong national institutions are in place, making monitoring by patient institutional investors unnecessary. Our results reinforce the idea that CSR can be beneficial by lowering the cost of capital as long as adequate control mechanisms are in place.

In this paper, we provide a better understanding of what drives sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) to improve their governance. Using the most recent SWF governance scoreboard from Maire et al. (2021), we estimate a fractional response model to determine whether SWF governance disclosure norms are driven by the search for internal or external legitimacy. Overall, we find that SWFs have better governance when they originate from democratic countries with high-quality, national governance. Our results also show that SWFs tend to have better governance quality when they need to acquire external legitimacy vis-à-vis the target company and its government. In particular, we find that SWFs have an incentive to improve their governance when they are sufficiently internationalized, when the amount of foreign assets invested abroad is sufficiently large or when the amount of shares acquired in developed countries is significant. These findings demonstrate how SWFs may proactively build legitimacy in host countries when they need to adapt their foreign entry strategies. Our results have important implications for understanding the determinants of SWF governance in general.