International Business Review最新文献

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.

Beyond the knowledge acquisition facilitated by global value chain (GVC) participation for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), extant studies have largely overlooked its impact on the knowledge structure (knowledge depth vs. breadth) of SMEs, whose GVC linkages are normally trapped in captive relationships dedicated to customized and exclusive tasks. Introducing an interactive perspective of power-embeddedness logic, this study examines how GVC participation affects SMEs’ knowledge structure. Based on the large longitudinal data of China’s SMEs, estimations from the Panel Fixed effects model and Negative Binomial model indicate that while GVC participation has a positive effect on knowledge depth, it has an inverted U-shaped effect on knowledge breadth. Moreover, relationship history and indigenous R&D differently moderate the effects of GVC participation on knowledge depth and breadth by influencing either power or embeddedness logic. These findings provide new insights into the complex interaction between the two logics and SMEs’ constraint response in GVC linkages through deliberate knowledge management.

This article focuses on the role that MNEs play in the implementation of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using input collected from the corporate websites of selected MNEs, a review of the extant literature, and views by academics in the field, we provide a synthesis of knowledge referring to the past, present, and future role of MNEs in accomplishing these SDGs. The literature review revealed that ‘responsible consumption and production’, ‘no poverty’, ‘peace, justice and strong institutions’, and ‘climate action’ were among the most frequently examined SDGs. Also, the analysis of the content of corporate websites and the views of academics showed a similar pattern as to the emphasis put on the role of MNEs in achieving SDGs, with ‘responsible consumption and production’ and ‘climate action’ attracting the highest attention. Important theoretical and managerial implications are derived from the study findings, while directions for future research are also recommended.

The dynamic world we live in requires that traditional international business theories be revisited to obtain insights into the internationalization of emerging market ibusiness firms (EMIFs). Research states that an ibusiness firm’s internationalization process is distinct and faster because users co-create content through interactions among themselves to generate value for the firm. However, it is unclear how EMIFs become credible global players within a short period despite being late arrivals in the market and having fewer resources. Drawing on insights from the linkage, leverage, and learning (LLL) framework, this research aims to understand the internationalization process of EMIFs from India by adopting a multiple case study–based approach whereby we conducted multiple in-depth interviews with 14 Indian ibusiness firms. This study contributes to the extant literature on ibusiness internationalization by developing a framework to advance our understanding of the internationalization process for EMIFs. Further, the study contributes to the LLL framework by offering novel additions to the three aspects of linkage, leverage, and learning, thereby, extending LLL framework to the ibusiness firms.

In international business, firm-level language choices are important questions that require scarce organizational resources to deal with external stakeholders’ diverse preferences. While language choices have a major impact on the success and survival of SMEs, current knowledge of these choices is mainly based on data from MNEs, which constitutes a research gap. We help address this gap by exploring from a social exchange perspective why and how decision-makers in international small firms choose between “English-only” and “multilingual” approaches to language. We find that when evaluating the cost and benefits of these alternatives, decision-makers aim for high levels of both external and internal resource sharing. However, external language diversity and limited internal availability of relevant language competencies force them into difficult trade-offs.

Drawing primarily on institutional theory, this paper investigates the interplay between perceived institutional obstacles, networking, and the propensity to export by SMEs in three under-studied regions – South Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Using data from 2673 SMEs in the three regions, we test whether perceived institutional obstacles and knowledge obtained from formal networking are positively associated with the propensity to export nS argue that these relationships will be moderated by regional context. We find broad empirical support and discuss how our findings help reconcile previous theoretical approaches to SME exporting in the emerging economy context.

Destructive leadership and its effects on followers all over the world have been emphasized in cross-cultural research in recent years. Despite continued scholarly and practitioner interest in both destructive leadership and job performance due to its implications for cross-cultural research, we have an incomplete understanding of the impact of cultural context on the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ task performance. We advance international business research by building and testing implicit leadership theory predictions about the impact of country-level cultural values as moderators of the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ task performance. We test our hypotheses and research question with a meta-analytic dataset that includes respondents from 12 countries (k = 72, N = 20,878). Our results demonstrate that several of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) framework’s cultural value dimensions moderate the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ task performance across countries. The findings are driven by the strong predictive validity of the performance orientation, in-group collectivism, gender egalitarianism, and humane orientation cultural value dimensions. Our contributions are important because we generate nuanced knowledge about the independent, relative, and collective predictive validity of cultural values in explaining the strength of the relationship between destructive leadership and followers’ task performance across countries.