Management International Review最新文献

International business scholars have long recognized the potential influence of cultural differences on foreign divestment; however, the empirical results are mixed. Our study helps resolve this contradiction and contribute to the existing literature in three ways. First, we advocate the use of cultural friction metric, instead of the more traditional cultural distance approach. This overcomes a key limitation in the modelling the impact of cultural differences. The friction construct metric includes an index of firm-specific factors, referred to as the degree of ‘cultural interaction’. This index moderates the impact of cultural distance, reflecting firm—level differences. We also build on calls for more Positive Organizational Scholarship by challenging the negative bias in the international business literature and propose a curvilinear effect of cultural differences on divestment probability. Lastly, we investigate a potential boundary condition—the moderating effect of entry mode on the main hypothesis. Our empirical sample include 2120 Finnish foreign subsidiaries operating in 40 countries during 1970–2010. Our analyses confirm that the cultural differences, when measured by the friction metric, appear to be a significant and superior predictor of subsidiary divestment probability, and that the relationship appears to be U-shaped. Our robustness analyses also highlight the importance of which cultural framework is applied and controlling for selection bias.

Abstract

This paper analyzes how MNCs’ intermediate units—those that exercise authority over other subsidiaries—apply specific control mechanisms: centralization, formalization, outcome control, and socialization. We combine agency and network theory to explain how intermediate units’ dual agency role—as both principal and agent— and their network embeddedness form the choice of control mechanisms. More specifically, we propose hypotheses on how the intermediate units’ internal and external relationships determine their choice of control mechanism. We study this issue in the context of Spanish intermediate units —owned by European MNCs— that exercise authority over subsidiaries in Latin America.

Over more than 30 years, research on the interactions between multinational corporations (MNCs) and their institutional host environments has produced rich but scattered insights, which this review organises and integrates. We map the current state of knowledge and build an integrative model involving motivation and host context as antecedents; interaction strategy and actors as the phenomenon; and consequences, especially at the organisational level, as outcomes. By reviewing 176 articles published in leading journals, we reveal previously hidden relationships between host-country institutional context, proactive and reactive strategies, and positive and negative outcomes for the focal organisation. We also identify three future research frontiers focused on understudied aspects of interactions between MNCs and institutions: dynamics of strategies, dynamics of impact, and microfoundational dynamics. We suggest that combining organisational institutionalism and comparative institutionalism offers a pathway to push the outlined research frontiers.

By presenting an investigation of the impact of international trade protectionism on the reconfigurations of the global value chains (GVCs), this paper challenges the perceived assumption of ongoing globalization and the free flow of goods and services. Building on the de-globalization and GVCs’ literature, we performed a historical content analysis on 174 articles from 2016 to 2020 published in leading and major national and international newspapers. Our findings suggest that international trade protectionism has altered the landscape of GVCs by causing widespread disruption to their functioning, thus making them prone to future external policy risks. Such disruption is having a varying impact on various industries, whereby it is causing greater harm to those industries that are more global in nature and thus rely on global suppliers. We draw implications of our findings for research and practice.