Journal of World Business最新文献

The purpose of this editorial, and the special issue, is to initiate a dialogue about the role of time in international business (IB) scholarship. While time is inherent in IB phenomena, it has, to date, received limited attention in IB research and theorizing. When IB scholars do account for time, they generally adhere to assumptions representing time as linear and objective. We discuss the importance of time in the philosophical, conceptual, and methodological domains of IB, defining each of these three interconnected domains, problematizing their dominant assumptions about time, and suggesting potential avenues for rethinking time in IB.

Existing empirical studies of cross-border acquisition completion by emerging market multinational enterprises remain highly contextual, yielding inconsistent evidence regarding the determinants of deal success or failure. We apply machine learning to expose underlying complexities. The learning results of LightGBM, from data on 24,693 cross-border acquisition deals involving 29 emerging countries, unveil a comprehensive picture of the relative importance and impact patterns of 59 predictors that were fragmentally, inconsistently, or not at all presented in the extant literature. Our findings offer fresh insights into the deal completion of cross-border acquisitions by emerging market multinational enterprises, suggesting novel future research priorities.

Firms from countries with weak corporate governance institutions tend to face liability of origin when they conduct cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We argue that they can overcome such challenges through hiring foreign independent directors (FIDs) as it can signal their commitments and efforts to align with international corporate governance standards. Based on a sample of Chinese listed firms between 2004 and 2017, we find that the FIDs have a positive impact on the likelihood of achieving cross-border M&As. Our mechanism tests show that FIDs could indeed facilitate firms' cross-border M&As through enhancing corporate governance practices as reflected by the adoption of Big 4 auditors and lower analyst forecasting errors. Moreover, the positive impact of FIDs is stronger for firms with higher state ownership, but weaker for firms with higher foreign ownership. Our findings are robust across a set of additional analyses.

Using socioemotional wealth, this study advances our understanding of the various internationalization strategies family businesses adopt by exploring the governance and resource configurations that exist when family firms pursue distinct internationalization strategies. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQCA) on a sample of 775 Colombian family firms, our findings reveal a distinct set of resource and governance configurations that are present when family firms engage in less risky internationalization strategies such as exports, or in more risky internationalization strategies such as foreign direct investments (FDIs). The paper concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.

Much research on family business internationalization centers on the firm but is inattentive to the family behind the firm. We examine how business families internationalize from unstable and fragile institutions. Based on a qualitative multi-case study, we theorize business families as institutional arbitrageurs who facilitate international transactions between incompatible institutional contexts to create and preserve value in international markets while adapting to the unstable and fragile home institutional environment. Our findings suggest a three-stage internationalization process representing a cumulative and varied pattern of arbitrage practices at the level of the enterprise, extended family, and individual family members. Thus, we theorize the unique aspects of the family as a hypermobile international structure with international interests, relationships, and presence. Our findings also highlight the role of individual family members during internationalization. Our study contributes to the literature on business family internationalization and institutional arbitrage.

In a fast-changing world, strategic decisions to exit a foreign market become more complex for family firms, owing to their vulnerability to uncertainty in internationalization. However, there is scant research on family firms’ foreign market exit with respect to their responses to contextual influences from home and host countries. This study reconciles the socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspective and the friction lens to address this gap. Using a sample of 1,455 subsidiaries established by 413 Chinese family firms in 2009-2018, we find that historical military friction increases family firms’ foreign market exit, while cultural friction leads to a lower exit propensity. We also find that family management reinforces the friction-exit relationships, and this effect is strengthened when the family firm is controlled by the first generation. Our theory and related findings deepen our understanding of the foreign market exit decision of family firms while offering important theoretical and managerial implications.

This study investigated how the liability of outsidership affects emerging-market multinationals. We argue that besides lack of access to local networks, lack of access to leadership positions in global value chain networks is another possible source of the liability of outsidership, and it affects emerging market firms more than multinationals from developed countries. Accordingly, multinationals from emerging markets are more likely than those from developed countries to exit from a foreign market in which they had invested. Allying with technology partners and developed-country non-technology partners could help EMNEs overcome the LOO. Those findings are based on a study of mobile money services provided by multinationals from both emerging markets and developed countries during the period 2001–2022.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are increasingly expected to make their global operations sustainable, while overcoming important obstacles in a rugged global landscape. In this perspective article, we argue that a focus on their corporate governance (CG) actors – i.e., owners, directors, and executives – is key for understanding the premises of MNEs’ sustainable value creation. We develop an actor-centered perspective on MNEs whereby factors inherent to and surrounding CG actors – e.g., their cognition, personality, and values, as well as their interactions and governance – will determine the pervasiveness of their bounded rationality and bounded reliability, thus influencing whether, how, and under what conditions these key actors will contribute through their decisions to sustainable value creation. Our perspective advances nascent actor-centered research on MNEs’ non-market strategies, including corporate social responsibility and sustainability. Exploring the underlying mechanisms at the source of individual-level variation (next to firm-, industry-, and country-level variation) related to sustainable value creation may support theory development that can ultimately break new ground in explaining the strategic behavior and sustainable performance of MNEs. We formulate future research suggestions toward that end.

In this paper, using institutional and organizational learning theories, we argue that institutional fragility within India impacts the internationalization of Indian firms such that firms from more fragile regions are likely to have lower internationalization levels. We also suggest that this effect is moderated by inward (industry-level) foreign direct investment (FDI) and inward (firm-level) linkages with foreign firms. We test our hypotheses based on the analysis of 707 Indian firms over the period 2008–2018. Our study contributes to the literature examining the complexity, and the speed and consistency of institutional progress in emerging economies, and its impact on firms’ internationalization.

To ‘escape the rut’ of narrowly focusing on expatriate adjustment as a psychological state, we look to the literature on the adjustment of organizational newcomers. From this perspective, we extend theoretical and empirical concepts regarding dynamic social and proactive development processes into the study of expatriate adjustment. Our integrative review of both literatures provides the basis for a new, dynamic research framework as well as promising avenues for future research on expatriate adjustment and insights for the organizational newcomer literature. We aim to enrich expatriate management research and to contribute to cross-fertilization between the two disciplines.