angel investors around the world we document that the choice between disintermediated individual angel investments and intermediated private equity and venture capital investments depends on legal economic and cultural differences we find evidence of this using pitchbook s comprehensive data on more than 5000 angel and 80 000 private equity and venture capital investments in 96 countries from 1977 to 2012 the data further indicate that investee firms funded by angels are less likely to successfully exit through either an ipo or an acquisition these findings are robust to propensity score matching methods as well as to clustering standard errors and excluding u s observations among other approaches

an overview of hofstede inspired country level culture research in international business since 2006 kirkman lowe gibson s 2006 jibs article summarized and critiqued international business research inspired by the most cited book in the field hofstede s 1980 culture s consequences international differences in work related values hofstede 1980 2001 they identified a number of issues in this research and offered several recommendations for improving it in the future thus laying a strong foundation for hofstede related work since 2006 in this commentary we assess kirkman et al s 2006 impact on the field our review shows that their ideas have informed and inspired their own and other scholars work and have led to significant progress in the way in which hofstede s framework has been used in international business in the last decade here we specifically focus on the country level culture studies and assess how research has implemented kirkman et al s three main recommendations to explore cultural dimensions beyond those introduced by hofstede to distinguish between country effects and cultural effects and to show not only if culture matters but also how much it matters in addition to the overview we provide a comprehensive test of these recommendations showing how they can be put into research practice underscoring the theoretical and empirical relevance of the original 2006 article our commentary concludes with additional ideas on further strengthening hofstede inspired research at the country level of analysis

developing acquired foreign subsidiaries the experience of mnes in transition economies drawing on subsidiary evolution and dynamic capabilities research i test how development and growth of subsidiaries recently acquired in transition economies are affected by multinational enterprise mne and target capabilities these subsidiaries often lack important resources their cross border transfer enhancement and exploitation are problematic however data on 170 acquisitions in central and eastern europe confirmed the importance of the pre acquisition experiences of both target and mne for subsidiary growth although cultural differences moderated the predicted effects notably

dynamic analysis of innovation and international transfer of technology through licensing abstract this paper develops a quality ladder type dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous innovation and technology licensing as a major source of international technology transfer in developing countries examining the dynamic characteristics of the model fully we explore the short and long run effects of both an improvement in the probability of reaching a licensing agreement with a given effort and an increase in the license fee rate the model shows that the former promotes innovation and technology transfers in both the long and short run while the latter discourages them

overcoming the liability of outsidership for emerging market mnes a capability building perspective this paper develops and discusses a model describing how multinational enterprises from emerging economies emnes overcome the liability of outsidership in their internationalization from a capability building perspective our aim is to celebrate the important intellectual contribution of johanson and vahlne j int bus stud 40 9 1411 1431 2009 who introduced the liability of outsidership concept we first discuss learning from the local environment that can reduce outsidership and then explain how greater absorptive capacity can translate into better performance internationally finally we elaborate on how the institutional environment further conditions the process and the outcomes of learning we conclude with some suggestions for future research from five theoretical perspectives learning social network theory institutional theory resource dependence theory and mne structure and design

conceptualizing and measuring cultures and their consequences a comparative review of globe s and hofstede s approaches this paper explains why globe used a set of cultural values and practices to measure national cultures we show why there is no theoretical or empirical basis for hofstede s criticism that globe measures of values are too abstract or for his contention that national and organizational cultures are phenomena of different order we also show why hofstede has a limited understanding of the relationship between national wealth and culture furthermore we explain why hofstede s reanalysis of the globe data is inappropriate and produces incomprehensible results we also show the validity of managerial samples in studying leadership finally we explain why hofstede s claim that globe instruments reflect researchers psycho logic reveals ignorance of psychometric methodologies designed to ensure scale reliability and construct validity

interpreting societal culture value dimensions societal cultural value dimension scholarship can both learn from and inform the family of interrelated approaches to culture research in ib that appear in recent commentaries it can exchange insights about societal values and meaning systems with neo institutional and institutional logics research it can also exchange insights with dual processing cognition theories that are used to understand individuals in an international context by treating societal culture values and institutional characteristics as essential to interpreting personal values and attitudes rather than merging them integrating culture related specialties by exchanging insights can promote the further development of research in each of these societal and individual level fields

foreign entry cultural barriers and learning this paper examines the longevity of foreign entries hypotheses are developed on the mode start ups vs acquisitions and ownership structure wholly owned vs joint ventures in relation to cultural distance the hypotheses are tested within a framework of organizational learning using data on 225 entries that 13 dutch firms carried out from 1966 onwards results show that the presence of cultural barriers punctuates an organization s learning cultural distance is a prominent factor in foreign entry whenever this involves another firm requiring the firm to engage in double layered acculturation we also identify locational paths of learning the longevity of acquisitions is positively influenced by prior entries of the firm in the same country similarly the longevity of foreign entries in which the firm has a majority stake improves whenever the expanding firm engaged in prior entries in the same country and in other countries in the same cultural block

differences in managerial values a study of u s hong kong and prc managers in this study of convergence divergence of managerial values four western developed measures machiavellianism locus of control intolerance of ambiguity and dogmatism and the four dimensions of the eastern developed chinese value survey confucian dynamism human heartedness integration and moral discipline were the measures used the findings indicate that often times both culture and the business environment interact to create a unique set of managerial values in a country

a framework to update hofstede s cultural value indices economic dynamics and institutional stability this study offers an update of the hofstede cultural value dimensions we argue that changes in economic conditions are the source of cultural dynamics while the endurance of institutional characteristics provides the foundation for cultural stability it is found that national wealth measured by gdp per capita has a curvilinear relationship with individualism long term orientation and power distance scores relatively speaking uncertainty avoidance and masculinity mainly reflect some rather stable institutional traditions such as language religion climate ethnic homogeneity and legal origin and are less likely to change over time

mars venus marriages culture and cross border m a using a sample of over 800 cross border acquisitions during 1991 2004 we find that contrary to general perception cross border acquisitions perform better in the long run if the acquirer and the target come from countries that are culturally more disparate we use mainly the hofstede measure of cultural dimensions to measure cultural distance but also examine alternative proxies the positive relationship of performance to cultural distance persists after controlling for several deal specific variables and country level fixed effects and is robust to alternative specifications of long term performance cash and friendly acquisitions tend to perform better in the long run there is also some evidence of synergies when acquirers are from stronger economies relative to the targets

a welfare analysis of global patent protection in a model with endogenous innovation and foreign direct investment abstract this paper constructs a north south quality ladder model in which foreign direct investment fdi is determined by the endogenous location choice of firms and examines analytically how strengthening patent protection in the south affects welfare in the south strengthening patent protection increases the south s welfare by enhancing innovation and fdi but it also allows the firms with patents to charge higher prices for their goods which decreases welfare however the model shows that the former positive welfare effect outweighs the latter negative effect moreover introducing the strictest form of patent protection in the south that is harmonizing patent protection in the south with that in the north may maximize welfare in the south as well as in the north further a similar result can also be obtained in a nonscale effect model

patent protection innovation and technology transfer in a schumpeterian economy abstract this paper analyzes the cross country effects of intellectual property rights ipr protection on the relative wage innovation and technology transfer in a north south quality ladder model with innovative northern r d and adaptive southern r d the degree of ipr protection in two countries differs in terms of patent breadth which determines the markups of northern firms and their southern affiliates respectively in this model stronger ipr protection in the south leads to a permanent decrease in the north south wage gap a temporary increase in the northern innovation rate and a permanent increase in technology transfer by contrast stronger ipr protection in the north leads to a permanent increase in the north south wage gap ambiguous effects on the northern innovation rate and a permanent decrease in technology transfer finally we perform a quantitative analysis by calibrating the model to the us china data and the numerical results support these policy implications in addition to a welfare implication such that strengthening patent protection in one country leads to sizable welfare improvements in both countries

closing knowledge gaps in foreign markets knowledge and learning are ascribed pivotal roles in firms internationalization processes perceived market uncertainties namely knowledge gaps related to business environments in foreign markets may curb firms inclinations to commit resources to these markets this study explores whether knowledge gaps tend to increase or decrease with time when operating in the foreign market and it discusses which learning components narrow or widen the perceived knowledge gap a theoretical model is developed based on the internationalization process view and the more recent organizational learning perspective including such concepts as overconfidence and absorptive capacity the theoretical model is tested on a set of primary data covering danish and swedish firms and their foreign market operations the results suggest a more subtle relationship between experience and perceived knowledge gaps than the mechanical relationship portrayed by the internationalization process view a relationship in which absorptive capacity and in particular overconfidence play important roles

repatriating knowledge variables influencing the transfer process because of the strategic importance of organizational learning in a global economy the knowledge that repatriates acquire during international assignments is a valuable resource few multinational enterprises however actively harvest this knowledge and little quantitative empirical research on this topic exists to date we propose an original model and propositions that delineate the facilitative and inhibiting factors affecting repatriate knowledge transfer to work units we conclude with suggestions for future research and practical implications

transfer of marketing know how in international strategic alliances an empirical investigation of the role and antecedents of knowledge ambiguity the competitive nature of knowledge transfer and the process of organizational learning between partners constitute a fundamental challenge for both academics and practitioners alike by focusing on one type of competency marketing know how this research examines the role of knowledge ambiguity pertaining to the process of knowledge transfer in international strategic alliances based on a cross sectional sample of 151 multinationals and a structural equation methodology this study empirically investigates the antecedents of knowledge ambiguity tacitness asset specificity complexity experience partner protectiveness cultural distance and organizational distance further the strength of the relationships between these theoretical constructs and ambiguity is examined in light of the possible moderating effects of collaborative experience firm size and the duration of the alliance entered consistently tacitness emerges as the most significant determinant of knowledge transferability moreover the effects of cultural distance asset specificity and prior experience are moderated respectively by the firm s level of collaborative experience the duration of the alliance and the firm s size

how does regional institutional complexity affect mne internationalization international business research is only beginning to develop theory and evidence highlighting the importance of supranational regional institutions to explain firm internationalization in this context we offer new theory and evidence regarding the effect of a region s institutional complexity on foreign direct investment decisions by multinational enterprises mnes we define a region s institutional complexity using two components regional institutional diversity and number of countries we explore the unique relationships of both components with mnes decisions to internationalize into countries within the region drawing on semiglobalization and regionalization research and institutional theory we posit an inverted u shaped relationship between a region s institutional diversity and mne internationalization extremely low or high regional institutional diversity has negative effects on internationalization but moderate diversity has a positive effect on internationalization larger numbers of countries within the region reduces mne internationalization in a linear fashion we find support for these predicted relationships in multilevel analyses of 698 japanese mnes operating in 49 countries within 9 regions regional institutional complexity is both a challenge and an opportunity for mnes seeking advantages through the aggregation and arbitrage of individual country factors

what will the likely range of my wealth be the median is often a better measure than the mean in evaluating a portfolio s long term value the standard plug in estimate of the median however is too optimistic it has a substantial upward bias that can easily exceed a factor of 2 this article provides an unbiased forecast of the median of a portfolio s long term value it also provides an unbiased forecast of an arbitrary percentile of a portfolio s long term value distribution which enables the construction of the likely range of a portfolio s long term value for any given confidence level the article offers an unbiased forecast of the probability of a portfolio s long term value falling within a given interval the article s unbiased estimators give a more accurate assessment of a portfolio s long term value than do traditional estimators and are useful for long term planning and investment

performance effects of added cultural distance in the path of international expansion the case of german multinational enterprises this paper contributes to the debate on the performance impact of added cultural distance in the multinational enterprise s mne s expansion path our research focuses on the ability of mnes to handle complexity associated with added cultural distance in international expansion and on the effect this may have on profitability we hypothesise that firms that make expansion moves involving a high level of added cultural distance per unit of time and those that expand in culturally distant countries in an irregular fashion that is with a higher variability will be less profitable we test these hypothesised relationships using detailed data on 2404 expansion moves undertaken by our panel of 91 german mnes whose expansion paths we tracked during periods ranging between 5 and 20 years

local knowledge transfer and performance implications for alliance formation in asia foreign firms in host country environments frequently face location based disadvantages this study proposes three means channels of overcoming local knowledge disadvantages based on a sample of 558 japanese joint ventures jvs located in southeast and east asia we find that partnering with local firms the first channel can be a primary strategy for accessing local knowledge and improving jv performance jv experience in the host country the second channel also mitigates local knowledge disadvantages and leads to increased jv performance the third channel the foreign parent s host country experience leads to increased performance in the absence of a local partner however when a jv is formed with a local partner increased parent experience in the host country leads to decreased performance suggesting that the need for a local partner declines as parent experience in a host country increases

culture and international business recent advances and their implications for future research the paper provides a state of the art review of several innovative advances in culture and international business ib to stimulate new avenues for future research we first review the issues surrounding cultural convergence and divergence and the processes underlying cultural changes we then examine novel constructs for characterizing cultures and how to enhance the precision of cultural models by pinpointing when cultural effects are important finally we examine the usefulness of experimental methods which are rarely used by ib researchers implications of these path breaking approaches for future research on culture and ib are discussed

the psychic distance paradox companies tend to begin their internationalization process in countries that are psychically close researchers describe the sequence of entry that firms follow and the mode of entry they choose they suggest that psychically close countries are more easily understood than distant ones and offer more familiar operating environments although not prescriptive an unstated conclusion can be drawn linking sequence of entry to performance evidence from thirty two canadian retail companies shows that only seven 22 were functioning successfully in the united states the psychic distance paradox is that operations in psychically close countries are not necessarily easy to manage because assumptions of similarity can prevent executives from learning about critical differences moreover empirical evidence from 271 ceos confirms greater cultural differences between canada and the u s than assumed previously modifications are suggested to improve the psychic distance concept

learning across geographic space pro market reforms multinationalization strategy and profitability building on economic geography and knowledge based theory i argue that pro market reforms augment the profitability of firms by increasing their competitiveness and market knowledge however i propose that this effect is greater for firms that operate internationally firms that operate in more advanced markets and firms that become multinationals before reforms are implemented this is because such firms acquire market knowledge abroad that they can use when responding to reforms at home giving them a head start advantage over other local firms the analyses of a panel of the largest 500 latin american companies from 1989 to 2008 provide support for these arguments

is the recent financial crisis really a once in a century event on 9 october 2007 the dow jones industrial average reached a high of 14 164 53 by 9 march 2009 it had dropped about 54 percent to a low of 6 547 05 former fed chairman alan greenspan called this a once in a century crisis the authors show that the probability of a stock market drop of 50 percent from a high is about 90 percent over a 100 year period based on the popular random walk model of stock prices with a broad market index and a more sophisticated asset pricing model that captures more risks in the economy the probability rises to above 99 percent a market drop of 50 percent or more is very likely in long term stock market investments and investors should be prepared for it

cultural differences mne learning abilities and the effect of experience on subsidiary mortality in a dissimilar culture evidence from korean mnes in a departure from prior studies presuming a beneficial experience effect in foreign direct investment fdi the present paper examines the conditions under which fdi experience may actually harm subsequent subsidiaries we argue that multinational enterprises mnes may draw erroneous inferences and learn incorrectly from their early expansions when new to a dissimilar culture because their learning abilities are eroded by cultural differences we posit that the characteristics of an mne s international expansion including scope pace rhythm and entry mode moderate this negative experience effect by influencing the mne s learning ability in foreign cultures using a data set of fdis by south korean mnes between 1990 and 2006 we find a positive relationship between subsidiary mortality and experience when an mne has a low level of experience in a dissimilar culture this relationship is weaker if the mne s prior fdi has been dispersed across different cultures is stronger if it expanded internationally at a fast pace and becomes negative once the mne has accumulated a high level of experience in the host culture we conclude that when expanding into dissimilar cultures mnes must establish mechanisms to mitigate incorrect learning and reexamine the correctness of inferences drawn from past experience before applying them

uncertainty avoidance moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and innovation a meta analysis transformational leadership is commonly assumed to facilitate employee innovation in all cultures drawing upon field studies from 17 countries this meta analysis revealed that supervisor transformational leadership is positively related to individual and team level innovation regardless of national boundaries however the relationship trended somewhat more strongly in countries with higher levels of uncertainty avoidance these findings suggest that employee innovation in most countries can be enhanced by investing in supervisor transformational leadership but organizations operating in countries with higher levels of uncertainty avoidance may benefit more from this strategy

intellectual property rights and foreign direct investment abstract this paper develops a product cycle model with endogenous innovation imitation and foreign direct investment fdi we use this model to determine how stronger intellectual property rights ipr protection in the south affects innovation imitation and fdi we find that stronger ipr protection keeps multinationals safer from imitation but no more so than northern firms instead the increased difficulty of imitation generates resource wasting and imitation disincentive effects that reduce both fdi and innovation the greater resources absorbed in imitation crowd out fdi reduced fdi then transmits resource scarcity in the south back to the north and consequently contracts innovation

the globalization of our mental maps evaluating the geographic scope of jibs coverage this article analyzes patterns of country coverage in the journal of international business studies during the twenty five years of its existence the analysis shows a substantial expansion in the journal s geographic reach over the years but also a somewhat narrow mental map with many countries and areas receiving only minimal coverage explanations for country preferences among researchers are explored and implications for the future are discussed

the role of country alliances in reducing the transaction costs of internationalisation evidence from indian multinational enterprises this paper analyses the role of home host country alliances in reducing transaction costs in the internationalisation process we test hypotheses about the role of country level alliances and firm internationalisation with comprehensive longitudinal multi industry data on 623 acquisitions made by indian multinational enterprises mnes between 2000 and 2007 on a panel of 65 host countries the results show that country alliances reduce the transaction costs arising from the distance between home host countries thereby positively influencing the internationalisation of indian mnes however the extent of that influence depends upon the nature of the alliance our findings have significant implications for public policy and theory

geometric or arithmetic mean a reconsideration an unbiased forecast of the terminal value of a portfolio requires compounding of its initial value at its arithmetic mean return for the length of the investment period compounding at the arithmetic average historical return however results in an upwardly biased forecast this bias does not necessarily disappear even if the sample average return is itself an unbiased estimator of the true mean the average is computed from a long data series and returns are generated according to a stable distribution in contrast forecasts obtained by compounding at the geometric average will generally be biased downward the biases are empirically significant for investment horizons of 40 years the difference in forecasts of cumulative performance can easily exceed a factor of 2 and the percentage difference in forecasts grows with the investment horizon as well as with the imprecision in the estimate of the mean return for typical investment horizons the proper compounding rate is in between the arithmetic

mapping india s regional subcultures implications for international management as india continues to emerge as a global economic player scholars and practitioners increasingly need to understand the cultural heterogeneity within this large and populous nation based on lenartowicz and roth s framework of culture assessment we have identified nine distinct subcultural regions of india and used explanations grounded in functional and neo institutional theories to account for the origin and maintenance of cultural distinctiveness of these regions further we developed seven cultural value dimensions for the indian society and used these to hypothesize and empirically test the existence of cultural differences within india results supported our hypothesized arguments this study advances our knowledge of how global functional and institutional forces have combined with national forces to shape india s overall culture and how more local forces have shaped its regions methodologically it identifies and develops measures that specifically reflect the values of individuals living in india and uses these to assess intra national cultural differences within this nation further it suggests how use of multiple methods can enable us to understand the simultaneous presence of somewhat contradictory values within a society the study also provides applications of the proposed cultural value dimensions and advises implications of regional subcultures for various social and organizational phenomena

national culture and international business a path forward the anniversary of kogut and singh s construct of cultural distance is a good time to reflect on this immensely popular but flawed construct assess the efficacy of the remedies offered for its reform and refinement and chart an alternative approach that represents a departure from distance as the dominant paradigm with which to view and analyze the impact of national culture on cross border business the proposed alternative a contact based framework shifts attention from what sets cultures apart towards the actual cultural interface that firms and their executives experience when participating in an international transaction with this lens the cultural exchange is regarded as an evolving interactional process of engagement which commences prior to a transaction and proceeds through the life of the inter party arrangement and beyond and whose potential to yield negative or positive outcome is subject to specific contingencies implications for theory methodology and practice are delineated

routine microprocesses and capability learning in international new ventures drawing on the distinction between the ostensive aspects abstract patterns and performative aspects specific actions of organizational routines the paper offers a micro level explanation of capability learning in international new ventures invs that is firms that internationalize actively from inception the paper argues that variability in the performative aspects of internationalization routines is associated with improvisational learning and new capability development whereas variability in the ostensive aspects is associated with trial and error learning and existing capability improvement furthermore psychic distance moderates these relationships low psychic distance facilitates both improvisation and trial and error learning high psychic distance frustrates learning of both types moderate psychic distance makes the success of both learning forms more likely but only for more experienced invs the paper also argues that social capital may mitigate the negative effects of high psychic distance it contributes to the extant literature by providing a micro level explanation of how invs accomplish capability learning and avoid wasteful learning efforts and by theorizing the moderating effects of psychic distance on the relationships between routine microprocesses and capability learning

think glocally act glocally a culture centric comment on leung bhagat buchan erez and gibson 2005 culture is a critical variable in international business ib and leung bhagat buchan erez and gibson 2005 enrich our understanding of its role however that said their framing of this variable conflates the role of national culture nc a particular form of culture with culture itself a more pivotal holistic and central construct this paper by commenting on and critiquing their approach seeks to shift the theoretical center of gravity from a nc centric paradigm to a culture centric constructivist one and from a top down bottom up view to a flatter glocalized one implications are provided which suggest that research should address cultural processes of patterning and production as well as cultural forms such as global communities and global culture gc which share with or even capture the spotlight from nc as a focus for studying and developing ib cultural theory journal of international business studies 2009 40 237 254 doi 10 1057 palgrave jibs 8400410

international patent protection 1960 2005 abstract this note provides an update to the index of patent protection published in this journal in 1997 the original paper presented the index for 1960 1990 for 110 countries the index has now been updated to 2005 and extended to 122 countries the adoption of stronger patent laws and the composition of patent rights vary across countries by level of economic development

a retrospective on institutional cultural and transaction cost influences on entry mode choice and performance for several decades researchers have focused on the entry mode decision because it is critically important for firms expanding abroad despite this attention we still lack clear tools to help managers make effective entry decisions in this paper i review past research exploring transaction cost and institutional perspectives of mode choice provide a critique of this literature and generate suggestions to move our knowledge forward in addition i review the limited research exploring entry mode performance and emphasize the importance of examining the normative merits of proposed theoretical models i hope these suggestions will lead to the development of prescriptive tools for managers to make better entry mode decisions that result in improved firm performance

local regional or global quantifying mne geographic scope this paper proposes a multidimensional index of regional and global orientation that can be used in confirmatory studies with econometric methodologies unlike extant measures the index is objectively scaled and controls for home country orientation and market size differences the index is shown to be consistent with models of internationalization that incorporate different assumptions about investment choice and global competition preliminary results show that large multinationals follow home region oriented internationalization paths although much of the regional effect reported by previous studies in fact reflects strong home country biases

mindscapes across landscapes archetypes of transnational and subnational culture most research on culture in international business either aggregates people within a country into a single homogeneous national culture or examines heterogeneity within countries based on exogenous criteria in this study we explore heterogeneity in cultural values within and across countries endogenously through the configurations of values people share in common we develop a theory of culture archetypes and use a novel methodology that identifies a small number of distinct configurations of values archetypes in our data these data come from the world values survey 2005 and schwartz s model of culture we identify four culture archetypes in japan usa and china and six in india the existence of transnational and subnational archetypes across the four countries suggests the need to recognize culture as a combination of universal etic as well as unique emic characteristics our approach also distinguishes between those individuals represented by our archetypes and those individuals who more closely resemble the average values of a country by unifying both archetypes and national averages within one theoretical and methodological schema we thus reconcile the conflicting perspectives in the field

interfirm diversity organizational learning and longevity in global strategic alliances organizational theorists have correctly argued that the emergence and maintenance of robust cooperation between global strategic alliance partners is related to the diversity in the partners characteristics yet previous research has failed to systematically delineate the important dimensions of interfirm diversity and integrate the dimensions into a unified framework of analysis this paper develops a multilevel typology of interfirm diversity and focuses on organizational learning and adaptation as critical processes that dynamically moderate diversity s impact on alliance longevity and effectiveness

the impact of natural culture and economic ideology on managerial work values a study of the united states russia japan and china this study assesses the impact of economic ideology and national culture on the individual work values of managers in the united states russia japan and china the convergence divergence crossvergence cdc framework was used as theoretical framework for the study while the schwartz value survey svs was used to operationalize over investigation of managerial work values across these four countries the findings largely support the crossvergence prospective while also confirming the role of national culture implications from the findings are drawn for the convergence divergence crossvergence of values as well as for the feasibility of multidomestic or global strategies for a corporate culture

task success based on contingency fit of managerial culture and embeddedness the article extends research on the contingency of fit in international management at the level of managerial tasks foreign firms managerial tasks are embedded in two environments with different profiles and different managerial cultures fit them to ensure task success study 1 analyzes 18 critical incidents summarizes chinese and japanese managerial cultures and identifies three types of managerial tasks we hypothesize that task success depends on the fit between task type and the chosen managerial culture such that foreign firms can have their operational local and people tasks successfully completed using home host or integrated managerial cultures respectively study 2 tests our hypotheses using 112 critical incidents the fit pattern at the level of managerial tasks advances the contingency perspective in international management and equips managers with cultural agility to confront international challenges

intellectual property rights and quality improvement this paper explores why theories about the effects of intellectual property rights ipr protection on foreign direct investment fdi and innovation have reached mixed conclusions in our model northern firms innovate to improve the quality of existing products and may later shift production to the south through fdi southern firms may then imitate the products of multinationals we find that imitation can increase fdi and innovation for quality improvements whereas the opposite occurs when innovators develop new varieties hence stronger ipr protection by reducing imitation may shift innovation away from improvements in existing products toward development of new products

cultural differences and capability transfer in cross border acquisitions the mediating roles of capability complementarity absorptive capacity and social integration this paper presents an integrative model of the impact of cultural differences on capability transfer in cross border acquisitions we propose that cultural differences affect the post acquisition capability transfer through their impact on social integration potential absorptive capacity and capability complementarity two dynamic variables the use of social integration mechanisms and the degree of operational integration of the acquired unit are proposed to moderate the effects of cultural differences on social integration and potential absorptive capacity the implications for acquisition research and practice are discussed

trust between international joint venture partners effects of home countries trust is an important factor in interorganizational relations interorganizational trust in cross border relationships is likely to be influenced by the home countries of both partners using data on 165 international joint ventures ijvs we show that the perceived trustworthiness of an ijv partner is influenced by the general propensity to trust in the trustor s home country moreover the trustworthiness perceived by a focal parent firm is also affected by the home country of the other ijv partner this second effect is mitigated by experience between the partners

traversing cultural boundaries in ib the complex relationships between explicit country and implicit cultural group boundaries at multiple levels international business ib scholars continue to struggle to theorize the relationship between country and cultural group boundaries to progress we first consider functional institutional and critical event explanations for cultural characteristics and boundaries second we contrast theories of explicit global structure based on countries with theories based on implicit cultural groups third we consider the implications of explicit country based and implicit culture group based theorizing for the relationship between explicit country boundaries and implicit cultural group boundaries we do so at three levels that are roughly analogous in country based and culture group based theorizing country ethnic group country cluster civilization and within country region subcultural group political science and other fields that help to understand the relationship between countries and cultural groups but that seldom appear in ib discussions of culture are emphasized one main conclusion is that countries remain linked to cultures because of continuing political reasons for cultural groups to seek to be governed by co ethnics political considerations other than cultural identity however also continue to promote important discontinuities between country and cultural group boundaries we suggest that ib scholars and scholarly ib associations should reconsider their traditional way of defining the ib field because of our advancing understanding of the complex mix of correspondence and discontinuity between country and cultural group boundaries

intellectual property rights and foreign direct investment a welfare analysis abstract this paper examines how intellectual property rights ipr protection affects innovation and foreign direct investment fdi using a north south quality ladder model incorporating the exogenous and costless imitation of technology and subsidy policies for both r d and fdi we show that for the interior steady state to be stable either r d or fdi subsidy rates must be positive our findings also indicate that strengthening ipr protection promotes both innovation and fdi moreover a strengthening of ipr protection can also improve welfare if the initial ipr protection in the south is weak and the r d subsidy rate is not too high

culture and congruence the fit between management practices and national culture the financial performance of european and asian work units of one multinational company is examined as a function of the congruence between management practices and national culture using hofstede s five national culture dimensions and analogous management practices we find that work unit financial performance is higher when management practices in the work unit are congruent with the national culture

dynamic capabilities what are they this paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and more generally the resource based view of the firm we argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development strategic decision making and alliancing they are neither vague nor tautological although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence they have significant commonalities across firms popularly termed best practice this suggests that they are more homogeneous fungible equifinal and substitutable than is usually assumed in moderately dynamic markets dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines they are detailed analytic stable processes with predictable outcomes in contrast in high velocity markets they are simple highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes finally well known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities in moderately dynamic markets the evolutionary emphasis is on variation in high velocity markets it is on selection at the level of rbv we conclude that traditional rbv misidentifies the locus of long term competitive advantage in dynamic markets overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage and reaches a boundary condition in high velocity markets copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

the commonwealth effect and the process of internationalisation t his paper reports the results of a research project the purpose of which was to assemble the first comprehensive data set on trade and investment relationships within the commonwealth and to provide an initial analysis to assess the significance of a commonwealth effect in trade and investment the empirical results confirmed an overall tendency for high levels of intra commonwealth trade and investment which was not solely explainable by other factors such as regional trade agreements or geographical proximity in particular the discovery of a de facto business network is of theoretical interest as there has been a fair amount of discussion recently concerning the stickiness of wealth producing assets and the competitive advantages arising from the combination of such assets with mobile capital and the ownership specific advantages of multinational enterprises following the decision taken by the commonwealth in october 1997 to capitalise on its existing network of relationships to foster trade and investment creation it is pertinent to examine which particular institutional features would account for the observed lumping of economic activity within the commonwealth whether there is a learning and familiarity effect and what the relative magnitude of such factors is in comparison to other effects towards this purpose this paper will apply the swedish internationalisation model of johanson and

asia s materialists reconciling collectivism and materialism materialism has an ugly face the dominant view of materialism regards materialists as self prioritizing individuals who oppose collective and prosocial goals in favor of a lifestyle led by money possessions and status the present research argues that there is a side of materialism that is concerned with collective oriented interests we examine the nature and consequences of collective oriented materialism the belief system that ascribes importance to possessions for their symbolic and signaling capacities to construct desirable social attributes drawing from cultural and consumer theories we find considerable support that materialists espouse a collective oriented quality to an otherwise self oriented interest towards possessions

ethical preferences for influencing superiors a 41 society study with a 41 society sample of 9990 managers and professionals we used hierarchical linear modeling to investigate the impact of both macro level and micro level predictors on subordinate influence ethics while we found that both macro level and micro level predictors contributed to the model definition we also found global agreement for a subordinate influence ethics hierarchy thus our findings provide evidence that developing a global model of subordinate ethics is possible and should be based upon multiple criteria and multilevel variables

on the trade growth and welfare effects of intellectual property rights protection to examine how intellectual property rights protection affects trade growth and welfare i develop a two country r d based growth model in which final goods firms in both countries determine the range of imported varieties in the overall use of intermediate inputs i show that strengthening patent protection in either country increases the range of imported varieties of intermediate goods and stimulates economic growth in the country that strengthened patent protection moreover i also show that the nash equilibrium level of patent protection is stronger than the globally optimal level of patent protection i

mapping world cultures cluster formation sources and implications this paper extends and builds on ronen and shenkar s synthesized cultural clustering of countries based on similarity and dissimilarity in work related attitudes the new map uses an updated dataset and expands coverage to world areas that were non accessible at the time cluster boundaries are drawn empirically rather than intuitively and the plot obtained is triple nested indicating three levels of similarity across given country pairs also delineated are cluster adjacency and cluster cohesiveness which vary from the highly cohesive arab and anglo clusters to the least cohesive confucian and far eastern clusters exploring predictors of cluster formation we draw on the ecocultural perspective and other inputs and examine the combined role of language religion and geography in generating cluster formation we find that these forces play a prominent yet complex role for instance the religion and language brought by the spanish fail to create a singular cohesive latin american cluster akin to the anglo cluster the role of economic variables is similarly considered finally comparing the current map with that of 1985 we find strong support for the divergence vs convergence argument implications for international business are delineated

an institutional approach to cross national distance cross national distance is a key concept in the field of management previous research has conceptualized and measured cross national differences mostly in terms of dyadic cultural distance and has used the euclidean approach to measuring it in contrast our goal is to disaggregate the construct of distance by proposing a set of multidimensional measures including economic financial political administrative cultural demographic knowledge and global connectedness as well as geographic distance we ground our analysis and choice of empirical dimensions on institutional theories of national business governance and innovation systems in order to overcome the methodological limitations of the euclidean approach we calculate dyadic distances using the mahalanobis method which is scale invariant and takes into consideration the variance covariance matrix we empirically analyze four different foreign expansion choices of us companies to illustrate the importance of disaggregating the distance construct and the usefulness of our distance calculations which we make freely available to managers and scholars

knowledge acquisition from foreign parents in international joint ventures an empirical examination in the hungarian context in this paper we examine organizational characteristics structural mechanisms and contextual factors that influence knowledge acquisition from the foreign parent in international joint ventures ijvs we in turn relate assessments of knowledge acquisition to ijv performance the data come from a survey of ijvs in the hungarian context where learning and knowledge acquisition from the foreign parent is thought to be particularly critical adaptation mechanisms such as capacity to learn articulated goals and structural mechanisms such as the provision of training technology and managerial assistance by foreign parents all were positively associated with the degree to which ijvs reported acquiring knowledge from their foreign parents we also found limited support for the belief that cultural conflicts can impede knowledge acquisition but only for two party joint ventures with 50 50 equity arrangements we also looked at the relationship between knowledge acquisition and different dimensions for evaluating ijv performance the relationship between knowledge acquisition and performance was significant for all indicators of performance through knowledge acquisition from the foreign parent and the organizational characteristics hypothesized to enhance ijv knowledge acquisition affected assessments of some dimensions of performance more than others our findings contribute to advancing knowledge about the relationship between organizational characteristics and organizational knowledge acquisition in ijvs as well as the relationships between knowledge acquisition and different dimensions of ijv performance

endogenous growth without scale effects comment segerstrom 1998 demonstrates that the social optimum requires radical technological breakthroughs to be treated less favorably than incremental innovations in a growing economy the aim of this note is to assess the robustness of this welfare result on the basis of two levels of generalization i the elasticity of substitution between any two goods is allowed to be larger than one and ii inter industry spillovers are introduced we show that segerstrom s results can be reversed it is also shown that in contrast to segerstrom r d subsidies can be globally optimal irrespective of the size of innovation when inter industry spillovers are large

black monday and black swans investors need to be aware that rare events with an extreme impact that afterwards we think we could have predicted in short black swans happen in the markets those who are trying to measure risk in the financial markets need to carefully distinguish risk with its probabilities from uncertainty which cannot be measured we have become increasingly vulnerable to black swans because our financial economy has come to play an ever larger role in our productive economy

intellectual property rights multinational firms and economic growth abstract this paper develops a model of north south trade with multinational firms and economic growth in order to analyze formally the effects of stronger intellectual property rights ipr protection in developing countries in the model northern firms invent new higher quality products multinational firms transfer manufacturing operations to the south and the southern firms imitate products produced by multinational firms it is shown that stronger ipr protection in the south i e the adoption and implementation of the trips agreement leads to a permanent increase in the rate of technology transfer to the south within multinational firms a permanent increase in r d employment by southern affiliates of northern multinationals a permanent decrease in the north south wage gap and a temporary increase in the northern innovation rate

cultural diversity and the performance of multinational firms we test the hypothesis that culturally related international diversification will have a positive impact on firm performance and that the opposite will be true for culturally unrelated globalization cultural diversity for fortune 500 firms was used to predict performance over a ten year period 1985 1994 controlling for several organizational and industry characteristics regression tests using nine indicators of cultural diversity revealed no significant cultural effects alternate interpretations are offered

international protection of intellectual property we study the incentives that governments have to protect intellectual property in a trading world economy we consider a world economy with ongoing innovation in two countries that differ in market size and in their capacities for innovation after describing the determination of national patent policies in a non cooperative regime of patent protection we ask why is intellectual property better protected in the north than in the south we also study international patent agreements by deriving the properties of an efficient global regime of patent protection and asking whether harmonization of patent policies is necessary or sufficient for global efficiency jel o34 f13 during the 1980 s and early 1990 s the united states and several european countries expressed strong dissatisfaction with what they deemed to be inadequate protection of intellectual property in many developing countries the developed countries made the upgrading of intellectual property rights iprs one of their highest priorities for the uruguay round of trade talks their efforts bore fruit in the agreement on traderelated aspects of intellectual property rights trips which was approved as part of the final act of the uruguay round trips establishes minimum standards of protection for several categories of intellectual property for example in the area of new technology it essentially harmonizes

egalitarianism and international investment abstract this study identifies how country differences on a key cultural dimension egalitarianism influence international investment flows a society s cultural orientation toward egalitarianism is manifested by intolerance for abuses of market and political power and a desire for protecting less powerful actors we show egalitarianism to be based on exogenous factors including social fractionalization dominant religion circa 1900 and war experience from the 19th century we find a robust influence of egalitarianism distance on cross national flows of bond and equity issuances syndicated loans and mergers and acquisitions an informal cultural institution largely determined a century or more ago egalitarianism exercises its effect on international investment via an associated set of consistent contemporary policy choices but even after controlling for these associated policy choices egalitarianism continues to exercise a direct effect on cross border investment flows likely through its direct influence on managers daily business conduct

conceptualizing and measuring culture in international business and management from challenges to potential solutions understanding the influence of culture on business operations has been one of the most enduring components of international business ib and international management im theorizing and empirical investigation while several critiques and debates questioned the significant progress made in this domain the special issue we introduce here is meant to demonstrate that further advancement on how we conceptualize and measure culture is not only needed but also possible we provide an overview of past and current approaches in the measurement of culture in ib im and the challenges associated with these approaches and emphasize the important yet insufficiently acknowledged link between the theoretical conceptualization of culture and its measurement we then introduce the four articles included in the special issue and highlight how they break away from the addiction to approaches that have been very useful in getting where we are today but that might not always be useful in advancing knowledge beyond what we already know last but not the least we offer our own perspective on promising directions in conceptually and methodologically rethinking the study of culture in ib and im

conceptualizing and measuring distance in international business research recurring questions and best practice guidelines distance is a central concept in international business research yet there is debate about the construct as well as its operationalization in this editorial we address three of the most important recurring questions posed by authors editors and reviewers by examining the theory methods and data of distance research we discuss 1 how to theorize on distance and 2 what method and 3 what data to use when constructing a distance index we develop practical recommendations grounded in theory illustrating and supporting them by calculating cross country distance indices for all available country pairs and two of the most used distance indices cultural and institutional we show that whereas a specific method to calculate distance may matter to some extent the choice for a specific cultural or institutional framework to measure cultural or institutional distance has a major impact on country pair distances overall this editorial highlights the importance of matching data and method to the theoretical argument

opportunity and constraint organizations learning from the operating and competitive experience of industries organizational learning is central to a number of strategic theories recent arguments however identify risks associated with learning from own experience in the form of overattention to the short term and local conditions the experience of the industry may offer opportunities for organizational learning that the experience of the organization does not because industry experience is more varied and not tied to the path dependent history of any one organization we investigate the influence of own experience and of two types of industry experience on the failure rates of u s hotel chains the two types of industry experience are operating experience which is a discounted sum of the units operated by u s hotel chains in the history of the industry and competitive experience which is a discounted sum of the number of failures of u s hotel chains in the history of the industry we find that a organizations initially benefit from their own experience but are harmed in the long run b generalist organizations are more weakly affected by their own experience than specialists c organizations benefit from their industry s operating experience accumulated both before and after the organization s entry and d organizations benefit from their industry s competitive experience but only after the organization s entry 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

the uppsala internationalization process model revisited from liability of foreignness to liability of outsidership the uppsala internationalization process model is revisited in the light of changes in business practices and theoretical advances that have been made since 1977 now the business environment is viewed as a web of relationships a network rather than as a neoclassical market with many independent suppliers and customers outsidership in relation to the relevant network more than psychic distance is the root of uncertainty the change mechanisms in the revised model are essentially the same as those in the original version although we add trust building and knowledge creation the latter to recognize the fact that new knowledge is developed in relationships

theoretical foundations of emerging economy business research in probing theoretically into central and eastern europe transactions resources and institutions we outlined the contributions of research in central and eastern europe cee to theoretical debates in business research in this retrospective we reflect upon the evolution of the field over the past decade with the fading impact of cee s distinct shared history we suggest that cee best be analyzed as emerging economies rather than as a distinct geographic entity emerging economy business research is converging on common themes and shared theoretical ideas while identifying critical variations that constrain generalizations among and beyond emerging economies this research thus highlights the need to develop a better understanding of the boundary conditions of scholarly theories of business knowledge over the past decade the institution based view has emerged from distinct intellectual traditions in institutional economics organizational theory and the analysis of business government bargaining research in these converging lines of theorizing places contextual variations at the center of explanations of business phenomena around the world we suggest that the institution based view is evolving toward a paradigm and offer suggestions on how to advance this research agenda further in particular by exploring how firms engage with different sets of potentially conflicting institutions at multiple levels and locations

tranching in the syndicated loan market around the world loan tranching allows banks to manage risk and facilitate firm financing which may be essential for firms that cannot access investors from stock markets we analyze the determinants and benefits of loan tranching by pooling the tranches of individual loans to create the largest cross country sample of syndicated loans covering more than 150 000 loans from multinational and domestic firms we find that in addition to market deal and borrower characteristics legal and institutional differences impact loan tranching strong creditor protection and efficient debt collection increase the probability of tranching and reduce tranche spreads ultimately promoting firms access to debt we also find evidence that tranching facilitates the financing of multinational firms abroad due to the transfer of legal and cultural institutions to foreign subsidiaries overall our results suggest that tranching plays an important role in reducing a country s financial development gap and promotes firms access to debt

a culture theory commentary on meyer and peng s theoretical probe into central and eastern europe meyer and peng s decade award article and retrospective integrate economic and sociological theories of transaction costs firm resources and institutions and apply them to firms in central and eastern europe in ways that can inform and be informed by culture theory culture theorizing in ib typically uses dimensions of values and norms to analyze the ib implications of the underlying logics that characterize patterns of thought action and interaction of countries and other large societies transaction cost theorizing helps explain the social forces that link cultural group boundaries with country boundaries firm resource theory can be informed by the toolbox metaphor to understand cultural patterns in the resources that firms in a particular locale have most readily available neo institutional theory particularly its political science thread cautions ib scholars to represent governmental arrangements and policies as arising from cultural norms and values rather than as independent variables that spring de nova from government leaders integrative analyses like the decade award article and retrospective point out links and complementarities among diverse theories but need to take care lest superficial similarities in how terms like institution and culture are used in different theories mask fundamental conceptual differences