International Business Review最新文献

Firms’ internationalization, the most essential topic in the international business discipline, have in recent years become highly entangled with political processes at multiple levels. Neither firm strategies and processes, nor IB theories and models have yet caught up with increasing politicization. In this paper, we pose three questions: why are firms increasingly affected by politics in their internationalization? How do firms respond to the increasing role of politics? And finally, how do theories considered foundational across IB research incorporate politics? We discuss how the resource-based view, transaction cost economics, institutional theory and agency theory relate to politics. Further, we identify eight predominant dimensions where firms are affected by politics. Finally, we suggest that the increasing role of politics can be ascribed not only to specific macro-level historical events but also to more fundamental micro-level transformations in prevalent institutional configurations of firms’ value adding activities.

Amid growing environmental concerns and increasing customer demand for environmental sustainability practices (ESP), international firms strive to develop ESP and leverage resources across their global networks as key players in global innovation systems. In this context, we investigate whether adopting an open innovation (OI) strategy is a viable solution to meet the demand for ESP and foster internationalization. Specifically, this study examines the potential moderating effect of OI on ESP because both entail the ability to coordinate, orchestrate, and synchronize networks to enhance international sales. Our study encompasses a multicountry sample of 514 internationally operating manufacturers. The findings reveal that simultaneous efforts to adopt OI with suppliers and ESP constrain the positive association between ESP and international sales intensity. We provide theoretical arguments to elucidate this counterintuitive finding, thereby revitalizing the discussion on the role of international firms’ adoption of ESP and sustainable innovation.

Using the exploitation-exploration framework to conceptualize international joint ventures (IJVs)’ innovation strategy, this study develops a contingent governance view to posit that the effectiveness of exploitative and explorative innovation strategies depends critically on the governance mechanisms between IJV partners. Based on empirical analyses of 187 IJVs in China, our results reveal that explorative innovation strategy generates a greater positive effect on IJV new product performance than exploitative innovation strategy. Furthermore, exploitative innovation strategy has a positive impact on IJV new product performance at high levels of contractual governance but has a negative effect at high levels of relational governance. In contrast, explorative innovation strategy contributes more to IJV new product performance at high levels of relational governance but shows a negative effect at high levels of contractual governance. This study offers important implications for IJVs to better design and manage their innovation strategies.

Although internationalizing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are heterogenous as a population, they face similar resource constraints, such that resource management is central to their internationalization efforts. However, the management of diversity, as a specific resource, remains insufficiently studied. Building on resource-based theory, this article explores how SME managers assign value to diversity and implement diversity management across various types of internationalizing SMEs. The multiple-case qualitative study, involving 14 SMEs that represent traditional internationalizers, early internationalizing firms, and born-again globals, reveals that diversity is valued and managed differently by different categories of internationalizing SMEs. For early internationalizing firms, within-type heterogeneity is stronger than between-type heterogeneity. Furthermore, SMEs may value resource diversity as instrumental, terminal, or even destructive, which influences how they manage it. In presenting ideas for the effective strategic management of diversity, as displayed by some SMEs, this article contributes to research on SMEs’ internationalization and diversity management.

While studies show that different internationalization rhythms may result in differing financial performances or cost efficiencies, the relationship between internationalization rhythms and innovation performance remains underexplored. More importantly, the moderating role of speed on this relationship has not been examined, given the limits to how much expansion firms can absorb within a given period without jeopardizing operations and as time compression diseconomies may emerge with high-speed expansion. Here, we apply an absorptive capacity perspective to examine the moderating role of internationalization speed. Unbalanced panel data from Chinese multinational enterprises between 2008 and 2014 reveal a negative relationship between parent companies’ internationalization rhythm and innovation performance, with stronger effects under high internationalization speed. Meanwhile, this relationship weakens (strengthens) with increasing internal organizational slack (external competitive intensity).

International Business (IB) has increasingly focused on born-digital multinationals, but less attention is being directed to traditional multinationals aiming to remain competitive by digitally transforming themselves (that is, achieving greater digital maturity). This phenomenon cannot be extrapolated from born digitals. This gap is deeper with emerging market multinationals (EMNEs), which find major challenges to joining the digital age. Recalling that strategically located subsidiaries are critical for EMNEs’ success, we ask: How do EMNEs pursue digital maturity and how do their subsidiaries contribute to this process? A capability-based view of multinational enterprises and relevant EMNE literature help us to conceptualize Digital Maturity Capability as a complex capability paramount to developing competitiveness in the digital age. Using survey data from 91 Brazilian multinationals, we found that EMNEs build elements of competitive advantage in modern markets through enhanced digital maturity while leveraging foreign subsidiaries for increasing value chain and ecosystem integration.We contribute to making the capabilities framework more relevant within IB and advance the analysis of going digital multinationals with the experience of EMNEs. Such results have practical implications for managers navigating the digital era's choppy waters.

Although multinational enterprises (MNEs) can exacerbate inequality within and across nations, they can also engage in social innovation to contribute positively to SDGs. Their social initiatives addressing societal challenges, i.e., Corporate Social Innovations (CSIs), can benefit both the firm and the society. However, with increasing pressures on MNEs to demonstrate how they meet grand societal challenges, we need to know more about how MNEs pursue their CSIs. By reviewing 34 articles in 18 journals over a 22-year period, we establish what shapes CSI by social change agents, and the conditions for, and consequences of such innovations in MNEs. The review demonstrates that CSI by MNEs is triggered by institutional contradictions or a market opportunity, shaped by (in)formal resources and skills deployed to generate ideas, piloted through multistakeholder engagement, and legitimated through showcasing and framing to generate impact that contributes to SDGs. Our findings set an agenda for future research on the links between CSI activities and different CSI stages and the complex dynamics arising in MNE strategies aimed at reconciling opposing institutional logics and the impact of MNE home institutional contexts.

In this work we review and analyze recent research in the international business field, with the purpose of clarifying, consolidating, and extending the constructs related to dynamic capabilities. We begin with an overview of dynamic capabilities research in the international context, noting unclear terminology, and unanswered questions concerning the international dimensions and the dynamism of capabilities. A systematic review follows, including 98 articles from 16 leading journals. Our analysis of these articles, produced a classification of 12 dynamic capabilities in international contexts—among which, we identify six “meta dynamic capabilities” and six “strategic dynamic capabilities.” To analyze and explain these constructs, we extract important conclusions from the relevant research about each dynamic capability, including examples from leading international firms. The integration and extension discussions further explore the meta and strategic dynamic capabilities along with implications for practice and policy. This work concludes with suggestions for future research, including foci on important methodological issues, from which a set of research questions are derived that link relevant contextual measures to the various dynamic capabilities.

The extant literature suggests that it is sensible to deploy a host-country national (HCN) general manager (GM) successor in the local-market-seeking subsidiaries of multinational enterprises. However, limited attention has been paid to whether subsidiary GMs come from outside or inside an organization. By simultaneously considering the nationality and origin of subsidiary GM successors, our case-based study provides a sharper theory of succession decision-making in the context of local-market-seeking subsidiaries. We demonstrated that the use of HCN GMs is not always the best strategy, and can even be the worst option because ex post opportunism may arise for HCN GM successors promoted from within the subsidiary. Using HCNs from outside the subsidiary can limit ex post opportunism but may entail a new bounded reliability issue resulting from identity-based discordance. Our interview data revealed a managerial safeguard, which we term ex ante socialization, to address this issue.