minimum wages and training revisited theory predicts that minimum wages will reduce employer provided on the job training designed to improve workers skills on the current job but it is ambiguous regarding training that workers obtain to qualify for a job we estimate the effects of minimum wages on both types of training received by young workers exploiting cross state variation in minimum wage increases much of the evidence supports the hypothesis that higher minimum wages reduce formal training to improve skills on the current job but there is little or no evidence of offsetting increases in training undertaken to qualify for or obtain jobs

the firm as an epistemic community the knowledge based view revisited based on a social constructivist conceptualization of knowledge as residing in groups of practitioners epistemic communities this paper proposes a new perspective on the knowledge based view of the firm and sketches the outline of a new research agenda it argues that the cost of governing knowledge processes depends as much on the cognitive background of the exchange partners as on the tacitness of the knowledge firms exist because they may form epistemic communities in their own right with enabling and motivational properties superior to those of markets in the governance of knowledge processes across epistemic boundaries establishing a firm as an epistemic community requires transaction specific investments that are difficult to realize under market forms of governance

foreign direct investment mode choice entry and establishment modes in transition economies in this study we bridge two streams of foreign direct investment literature specifically studies on establishment mode choice i e the choice between an acquisition and a greenfield establishment and studies on entry mode choice i e the choice between a wholly owned outlet and a subsidiary with shared ownership we arrive at a conceptual synthesis for an examination of the effects of the same predictors on the dual entry establishment mode choice made in the context of a single foreign investment we demonstrate that a parent firm s technological intensity international strategy and experience determine both establishment and entry mode choices moreover we apply williamson s new institutional economics to investigate the influence of institution building on multinational enterprises dual investment choice in the context of transition economies we test empirically the possible moderating effect of a host country s institutional environment we conclude that the degree of the host country s institutional advancement moderates the effect of both technological intensity and international strategy on the establishment and entry mode choice

creation adoption and diffusion of innovations by subsidiaries of multinational corporations this paper reports some of the findings of a multi phased and multi method study on the organizational attributes that facilitate creation adoption and diffusion of innovations by subsidiaries of multinational companies comparison of results obtained through case research in nine companies multiple respondent questionnaire surveys in three companies and a single respondent survey in 66 north american and european multinationals reveal unambiguous and positive impacts of normative integration through organizational socialization and dense intra and inter unit communication on an mnc subsidiary s ability to contribute to the different innovation tasks the findings are less consistent with regard to the effects of local resources and autonomy and it appears that the influences of these two attributes are strongly mediated by the levels of normative integration and organizational communication

silicon envy how global innovation clusters hurt or stimulate each other across developed and emerging markets the authors examine intercluster dynamics among rival global clusters on monthly counts of patents startups and new product commercializations between 1999 and 2014 while controlling for numerous exogenous variables results show that rival innovation clusters facilitate rather than hinder each other s growth due to resources complementarities reverse fertilization occurs from emerging to developed clusters contrary to the received wisdom this study is the first to show intercluster dynamics as important drivers of cluster growth to explain the counterintuitive findings the authors draw upon the coopetition view which suggests mutually beneficial growth across all rival clusters rather than zero sum gains

the entry mode choice of mnes an evolutionary approach abstract the literature on foreign direct investment fdi has recently analysed the nature of the firm s entry mode choice in a foreign market particularly the choice between a joint venture and a wholly owned subsidiary the paper aims at providing further empirical evidence on the influence of some key variables in explaining it the theoretical framework relates to the resource based view of the firm and to the more recent competence based theory it focuses on the concept of the firm as a collection of productive resources and assets built through internal learning processes in the form of evolutionary experimentation the inability of the firm to build internally all the needed knowledge and competencies forces it to acquire them outside influencing the growth strategy of the firm as resources and complementary assets are spread out the firm has to deal with constraints which become more crucial when the firm enters into unfamiliar markets and areas of activity in particular when deciding about the entry mode on foreign markets the firm has to face transaction costs concerning actors and potential partners and their opportunism and costs related to the need for acquiring information about new institutional environments and their working according to this view the resort to co operative solutions and joint ventures allows firms to reduce costs and uncertainty related to foreign markets and rises if technological opportunities tacit skills and competencies constitute an important source of competitive advantage for the firm an empirical analysis with reference to a representative sample of fdi undertaken by italian firms in mining and manufacturing industries over the period 1986 1993 has been developed in order to test the hypotheses

foreign research and development in swedish multinationals abstract in 1987 sweden s 20 largest multinationals together operated some 170 foreign rd 2 market proximity i e adaptation of centrally developed products and processes to local market conditions 32 3 exploitation of foreign rd 4 political factors i e environmental factors more or less directly influenced by government action 34 the remaining 20 of employment seemed to be motivated by a combination of factors the primary aim of the first three types of foreign r d units is to enhance a company s competitive position in ways not possible from a domestic location hence they should be little cause of concern for swedish policy makers

entry mode organizational learning and r d in foreign affiliates evidence from japanese firms this paper develops hypotheses concerning the role of entry mode and experience based organizational learning as determinants of the r d intensity of foreign affiliates and tests these hypotheses on a sample of 420 japanese manufacturing affiliates abroad entry mode has a major impact on r d activities the r d intensities of acquired affiliates substantially exceed those in wholly owned greenfield affiliates while the r d intensities of minority owned ventures are higher if japanese parent firms lack strong r d capabilities at home for greenfield operations support is found for an incremental growth pattern of foreign r d as a function of organizational learning and affiliate capability building the results are consistent with the view that part of the explanation for japanese firms relative lack of involvement in overseas r d must be sought in their status as latecomers in the establishment of overseas manufacturing networks at the same time a number of japanese firms have actively used foreign acquisitions and joint ventures to gain access to overseas technology and to establish overseas r d capabilities at a faster pace copyright 2002 john wiley sons ltd

the management of multinational r d a neglected topic in international business research despite the growing involvement of multinational firms in foreign based r d during the past fifteen years little research has been done on why and how firms internationalize their r d and what effects it might have on firm competitiveness the present paper calls attention to this neglect and seeks to advance the management of multinational r d as an area of study for international business scholars to this end the paper first examines the key contributing factors to increased foreign r d investments among multinationals it then reviews the research literature to find out what we presently know about the management of multinational r d finally a research agenda is proposed to provide a foundation and stimulus for future investigations seven research directions are recommended with an emphasis on interdisciplinary inquiry and a focus on issues that have both theoretical and practical significance

is there a glass ceiling over europe exploring the gender pay gap across the wages distribution using harmonised data from the european union household panel we analyse gender pay gaps by sector across the wages distribution for ten countries we find that the mean gender pay gap in the raw data typically hides large variations in the gap across the wages distribution we use quantile regression qr techniques to control for the effects of individual and job characteristics at different points of the distribution and calculate the part of the gap attributable to differing returns between men and women we find that first gender pay gaps are typically bigger at the top of the wage distribution a finding that is consistent with the existence of glass ceilings for some countries gender pay gaps are also bigger at the bottom of the wage distribution a finding that is consistent with sticky floors third the gender pay gap is typically higher at the top than the bottom end of the wage distribution suggesting that glass ceilings are more prevalent than sticky floors and that these prevail in the majority of our countries fourth the gender pay gap differs significantly across the public and the private sector wages distribution for each of our eu countries

internet advertising and the generalized second price auction selling billions of dollars worth of keywords we investigate the generalized second price gsp auction a new mechanism used by search engines to sell online advertising although gsp looks similar to the vickrey clarke groves vcg mechanism its properties are very different unlike the vcg mechanism gsp generally does not have an equilibrium in dominant strategies and truth telling is not an equilibrium of gsp to analyze the properties of gsp we describe the generalized english auction that corresponds to gsp and show that it has a unique equilibrium this is an ex post equilibrium with the same payoffs to all players as the dominant strategy equilibrium of vcg

online ad auctions i describe how search engines sell ad space using an auction i analyze advertiser behavior in this context using elementary price theory and derive a simple way to estimate the producer surplus generated by online search advertising it appears that the estimated value of online advertising tends to be between 2 and 2 3 times advertising expenditures jel d44 auctions d21 firm behavior

the underdetermined knowledge based theory of the mnc in this note we revisit two core propositions of the knowledge based view of the firm found in the seminal work of kogut and zander 1 that multinational corporations mncs exist because transfers and re combinations of knowledge occur more efficiently inside mncs than between mncs and third parties and 2 that the threat of opportunism is not necessary although it may be sufficient to explain the existence of the mnc their knowledge based view shifted the conceptualization of the firm from an institution arising from market failure and transaction costs economizing to a progeny of superior knowledge governance we question these conclusions arguing that firms are but one of the many types of epistemic communities possessing and nurturing procedural norms identity and the cognitive linguistic and reflexive attributes conducive to efficient exchange and re combination of knowledge among their members important insights may be gained by applying the concept of epistemic communities implicit in the knowledge based perspective beyond firm level hierarchies journal of international business studies 2011 42 427 435

knowledge market failure and the multinational enterprise a reply debate is an indication that an issue warrants discussion the comments of james love and donald mcfetridge in this issue are fine statements that articulate a received wisdom their comments differ with each other and these differences remind us that there is less consensus in our understanding of internalization and transaction costs than commonly supposed if we do not address all of the commentators specific points it is not for lack of appreciation but because it is our belief that a fuller vision of the terrain already mapped and that which is yet uncharted would provide a more useful basis for exploration and discovery a listing of issues is the task of a referee while a published debate might perform a useful task by laying out the contours of the research tradition and future

intellectual property protection market orientation and location of overseas r d activities by multinational enterprises abstract this paper develops an analytical framework to explain the determinants of location of overseas research and development r d by multinational enterprises mnes in terms of the nature and extent of foreign direct investment fdi and host country resources and policy regimes empirical findings for us mnes suggest that mnes prefer to locate their r d activities in countries that are able to offer them among other things larger markets technological resources and infrastructure host market oriented affiliates are more likely to have r d units than the export oriented ones especially in developing countries the relative strength of the patent regime appears to affect the direction rather than the magnitude of r d investments made in a country

localised production of technology for global markets given the trends towards increasing globalization of markets and of production the globalization of technology remains a subject of considerable interest to analysts and policymakers in the 1990s the main conclusion of this paper is that there is no systematic evidence to suggest that widespread globalization of technological activities occurred in the 1980s the evidence based on the u s patenting activities of 569 of the world s largest firms based in 13 countries and covering 17 product groups shows that for an overwhelming majority of them technology production remains close to the home base the analysis also shows the dangers of generalizing on the basis of anecdotal evidence from a small sample of firms from a particular country or sector c 1995 academic press inc copyright 1995 by oxford university press

the significance of bruce kogut s and udo zander s article knowledge of the firm and the evolutionary theory of the multinational corporation the journal of international business article knowledge of the firm and the evolutionary theory of the multinational corporation by kogut and zander 1993 is an important marker in the transition of the dominant conceptual model of the multinational firm from the market failure approach of internalization theory and transaction cost economics theory to the market imperfections approach of capabilities or knowledge based theories of the firm in a similar manner peter buckley and mark casson s 1976 book the future of multinational enterprise while not the first or necessarily the most comprehensive contribution to the application of coasian economics to the mne marked the switch of focus from market power to market failure as an explanation for the existence of mnes while the article itself is an important and well cited contribution it is also a fundamental statement that a new theory has arrived to supplement and partly to displace the old also similar to buckley and casson it arrived at a time that the same transition was gaining traction in the more generic field of business policy and strategy the ascendancy of williamson s 1975 version of transaction cost economics in the earlier case and the rise of a variety of resource based capability based and knowledge based models barney 1991 teece et al 1997 grant 1996 in the case of kogut and zander the critical distinction made by kogut and zander is that if the value of the firm is defined as its store of knowledge and expansion of the firm s boundaries is related to the transfer of knowledge then inescapable uncertainties about the value of this knowledge are enough to explain internal transmission and therefore the existence of firms opportunism is not required therefore they find the critical role that opportunistic behavior by transactional partners in markets plays in internalization models is not necessary but leads to an overdetermined model kogut and zander maintain that differential costs of transmission of knowledge within the firm journal of international business studies 2003 34 495 497 2003 palgrave macmillan ltd all rights reserved 0047 2506 25 00

bayes stein estimation for portfolio analysis in portfolio analysis uncertainty about parameter values leads to suboptimal portfolio choices the resulting loss in the investor s utility is a function of the particular estimator chosen for expected returns so this is a problem of simultaneous estimation of normal means under a well specified loss function in this situation as stein has shown the clas sical sample mean is inadmissible this paper presents a simple empirical bayes estimator that should outperform the sample mean in the context of a portfolio simulation analysis shows that these bayes stein estimators provide significant gains in portfolio selection problems

firm specific assets multinationality and financial performance a meta analytic review and theoretical integration through a meta analysis of 120 independent samples reported in 111 studies we test the predictions of internalization theory in the context of the multinationality performance relationship findin

minimum wages on the job training and wage growth using data from the employment opportunities pilot project we examine the relationships between minimum wages wage growth and on the job training we find that minimum wage jobs exhibit less wage growth than other jobs particularly for men we find no evidence however of a unique minimum wage effect on training opportunities we conclude that indirect methods of proxying training with wage growth can be misleading as they fail to distinguish whether the reduced wage growth of workers on minimum wage jobs results from their receiving less training than other workers or whether it is strictly a result of the wage determination process

utilization of r d results in the home and foreign plants of multinationals this paper analyzes the utilization of r d results in the home and foreign plants of swedish multinational enterprises mnes the findings indicate that firms r d undertaken in the home country is used as an input in both the home and foreign plants of the mnes this suggests that technology is transferred to the foreign plants around four fifths of the gain in value added attributed to home r d was realized in the mnes home plants while the remaining fifth benefitted the foreign plants r d in foreign affiliates does not appear to be used as an input in home plants

is a minimum wage an appropriate instrument for redistribution textabstractwe analyze the redistributional dis advantages of a minimum wage over income taxation in competitive labor markets without imposing assumptions on the in efficiency of labor rationing compared to a distributionally equivalent tax change a minimum wage increase raises involuntary unemployment but also raises skill formation as some individuals avoid unemployment a minimum wage is an appropriate instrument for redistribution if and only if the public revenue gains from additional skill formation outweigh both the public revenue losses from additional unemployment and the utility losses of inefficient labor rationing we show that this critically depends on how labor rationing is distributed among workers a necessary condition for the desirability of a minimum wage increase is that the public revenue gains from higher skill formation outweigh the revenue losses from higher unemployment we write this condition in terms of measurable sufficient statistics our empirical analysis suggests that a minimum wage increase is undesirable in nearly all oecd countries a reduction in the minimum wage along with tax adjustments that keep net incomes constant would yield a pareto improvement

a dynamic capabilities based entrepreneurial theory of the multinational enterprise this paper develops a dynamic capabilities based theory of the multinational enterprise mne it first reviews scholarship on the mne with a focus on what has come to be known as internalization theory one prong of this theory develops contractual transaction cost informed governance perspectives and another develops technology transfer and capabilities perspectives in this paper it is suggested that the latter has been somewhat neglected however if fully integrated as part of a more complete approach it can buttress transaction cost governance issues and expand the range of phenomena that can be explained in this more integrated framework dynamic capabilities coupled with good strategy are seen as necessary to sustain superior enterprise performance especially in fast moving global environments entrepreneurial management and transformational leadership are incorporated into a capabilities theory of the mne the framework is then used to explain how strategy and dynamic capabilities together determine firm level sustained competitive advantage in global environments it is suggested that this framework complements contract based perspectives on the mne and can help integrate international management and international business perspectives

knowledge transfer capacity and its implications for the theory of the multinational corporation this study updates and extends research on foreign entry modes by examining the impacts of knowledge transfer capacity and knowledge tacitness research on international corporate expansion has long emphasized that deploying intangible knowledge based assets is required for successful international expansion more recently research from a knowledge based perspective has addressed the role of tacitness in constraining a firm s ability to transfer knowledge internationally we combine these perspectives to describe how knowledge tacitness affects the relative suitability of four archetypal entry modes exporting licensing establishing an alliance and wholly owned entry we then examine and develop conceptually a seldom studied firm characteristic knowledge transfer capacity we offer predictions that describe the combined effects of knowledge tacitness and transfer capacity on entry mode choice we distinguish between the transfer capacity of the organization that develops knowledge source transfer capacity and that of the organization that seeks to access that knowledge recipient transfer capacity the discussion addresses how our model generalizes to knowledge seeking strategies and to the study of ongoing multinational networks the study enriches and reconciles multiple theoretical perspectives on entry strategy it brings together the study of knowledge characteristics and firm heterogeneity in the theory of the multinational corporation and in international and strategic management more generally journal of international business studies 2003 34 356 373 doi 10 1057 palgrave jibs 8400037

how multinational subsidiary mandates are gained and lost a subsidiary mandate is a business or element of a business in which the subsidiary participates and for which it has responsibilities beyond its national market this research studied thirty one mandates in six canadian subsidiaries of u s owned multinational corporations a life cycle framework was proposed and used to explore the factors associated with the gain development and loss of mandates by subsidiaries two key findings emerged first it was shown that there is a risk in having a full scope world product mandate because it is possible to become marginal to the corporate strategy second it was observed that the engine of subsidiary growth is its distinctive capabilities and that for a mandate to be effective it must be built on those capabilities implications for mandate sustainability are proposed on the basis of these two insights

internationalization of r d a survey of some recent research this paper surveys the current state of the art concerning the management and economic impact of geographically decentralized research and development r d in multinational companies mncs this line of research has recently begun to attract renewed interest in reflection of not only critical new trends regarding the nature and conditions of technological change but also significant developments in the realm of economic and managerial theory the aim of this paper is first to outline the empirical and theoretical background and perspective of this new research agenda second it gives a summary and overview of prior research in the area third it outlines the content and structure of a number of recent studies based on these studies the paper identifies a number of trends and implications in terms of policy issues and critical areas for future research

the regional nature of japanese multinational business in the world s largest 500 firms there are 64 japanese multinational enterprises mnes with data on regional sales but only three operate globally whereas 57 of them average over 80 of their sales and foreign assets in their home region why is there such a strong intra regional dimension to their activities using empirical data and a new framework for analysing both downstream sales assets and upstream production assets we analyse why most large japanese firms appear to have firm specific advantages fsas that are based in their home region a structural contingency approach is applied to two case studies to explain how home region bound fsas constrained the ability of japanese mnes to implement internationalisation strategies

new concepts and trends in international r d organization abstract the globalization of markets the regionalization of technical and scientific expertise and the rapid change in technologies are forcing technology based companies to continuously adjust their r d organization our study of 33 companies reveals five different types of r d organization in multinational companies mnc we classified r d organizations according to the dispersion of r d activities and the degree of cooperation between individual r d units and identified the ethnocentric centralized the geocentric centralized the polycentric decentralized the r d hub and the integrated r d network organization five trends of organizational change among these forms of international r d organization were identified 1 stronger orientation of r d activities towards international markets and knowledge centers 2 establishment of tightly coordinated listening posts 3 strengthening and reinforcement of foreign r d sites 4 increased integration of decentralized r d units and 5 tighter coordination and recentralization of r d activities at fewer know how centers the search for the optimal balance between coordination and control is reflected by hybrid structures and intermediary configurations detected in some of the investigated companies since effective changes in behavioral orientation require considerable time successful quantum leaps in multinational r d organization are next to impossible

comparing predicted prices in auctions for online advertising abstract online publishers sell opportunities to show ads some advertisers pay only if their ad elicits a user response publishers estimate response rates for ads in order to estimate expected revenues from showing the ads then publishers select ads that maximize estimated expected revenue by taking a maximum among estimates publishers inadvertently select ads based on a combination of actual expected revenue and inaccurate estimation of expected revenue publishers can increase actual expected revenue by selecting ads to maximize a combination of estimated expected revenue and estimation accuracy

transactions cost economics and the multinational enterprise an assessment abstract this paper applies transactions cost principles to the multinational enterprise in order to ascertain its distinctive properties as a mode of economic organization the analysis helps identify just when and where contractual alternatives to the multinational firm are likely to be viable this turns out to depend upon the nature of the technology the regime of appropriability within which the firm operates and the characteristics of the markets in question transactions cost analysis is also extended to the multinational enterprise host country relationship implications for management and public policy are derived

organizing knowledge processes in the multinational corporation an introduction this introduction discusses the contrast between on the one hand the current popularity of addressing mnc organization in knowledge terms and on the other the lack of adequate understanding of many of the causal mechanisms and contextual factors in relations between knowledge processes and organizational factors a number of the relevant research challenges are identified and it is clarified how the five articles in this focused issue addresses some of these

training and the new minimum wage using the british household panel survey we estimate the impact of the national minimum wage introduced in april 1999 on the work related training of low wage workers we use two treatment groups those workers who explicitly stated they were affected by the new minimum and those workers whose derived 1998 wages were below the minimum using difference in differences techniques for the period 1998 to 2000 we find no evidence that the introduction of the minimum wage reduced the training of affected workers and some evidence that it increased it

the globalization of r d results of a survey of foreign affiliated r d laboratories in the usa abstract this paper examines the globalization of innovation and the phenomenon of foreign direct investment fdi in research and development to do so it draws from a survey of foreign affiliated r d laboratories in the united states while the literature on foreign direct investment has emphasized the role of markets in driving off shore investments the main conclusion of this research is that the globalization of innovation is driven in large measure by technology factors of particular importance is the objective of firms to secure access to scientific and technical human capital

japanese firms and the decision to invest abroad business groups and regional core networks the determinants of the decision by japanese firms to set up manufacturing plants in southeast asia europe and north america are analyzed using micro data on the behavior of firms in the electronics industry while firm specific intangible assets based on r d and marketing efforts are positively related to the decision to invest in europe and north america investment in southeast asia is mainly related to human resources and driven by interfirm ties within horizontal and vertical business groups the empirical results suggest that membership of horizontal keiretsu relaxes liquidity constraints while the manufacturing networks of horizontal and vertical keiretsu in southeast asia facilitate the establishment of manufacturing plants by member firms copyright 1996 by mit press

the transaction costs theory of joint ventures an empirical study of japanese subsidiaries in the united states this paper offers the first large sample empirical study of the factors which influence the choice of japanese firms between full or partial ownership of their u s manufacturing subsidiaries it studies for the first time the ownership policies of investors of a single home country in a single host country thus keeping variations within home and host countries constant one methodological improvement over previous studies is the use as independent variables of the relevant characteristics of the investing firms these had been proxied in previous studies by data on u s industries entered the results suggest that the degree of ownership taken by japanese manufacturing investors in their american subsidiaries is driven by the same general transaction costs variables that determine the choices made by their u s counterparts japanese parents joint venture when they need to combine with other firms intermediate inputs which are subject to high market transaction costs an intriguing result however is the lack of significance of two variables which in the u s case strongly push towards full control of foreign subsidiaries in this study neither the japanese parent s r d nor its advertising intensities had any significant impact on their ownership policies

the returns to foreign r d extant research on research and development r d internationalization has not examined how effective foreign r d investments are in generating positive returns for the investing firms in particular in comparison and conjunction with the effects of domestic r d investments we examine the effectiveness of international knowledge sourcing through foreign r d in an empirical analysis of the productivity effects of foreign and domestic r d investments in a large panel of firms based in the netherlands we argue that foreign and domestic r d will exhibit complementarity in their effects on productivity but that the roles of domestic and foreign r d depend on the relative position of the home country with respect to the global technology frontier and the related relative opportunities for knowledge sourcing abroad we estimate a dynamic panel data model derived from a knowledge stock augmented production function framework allowing for productivity convergence and declining returns to r d we confirm that for firms active in industries in which the home country is behind the global technology frontier foreign r d provides positive returns and has a complementary relationship with domestic r d for industries at the global technology frontier in contrast domestic r d is the primary source of productivity growth

r d activities in affiliates of swedish multinational enterprises the fact that multinational enterprises mnes do not undertake all their research and development r d activities at home has become a matter of recent concern both in the home and host countries of these companies some empirical work has been done on the question of why mnes decentralize their rd see mansfield et al 1979 lall 1979 h akansson 1980 and hirschey and caves 1981 to the best of my knowledge the study by hwkansson 1980 is the only one that deals with the determinants of the r d intensity of mne affiliates but it is confined to subsidiaries that carry out r d while foreign affiliates that do not are excluded 2 furthermore the analysis does not take into account the characteristics of the mne to which the affiliates belong our study investigates the factors that explain the r d intensity of foreign subsidiaries of swedish mnes using data for 1978 following haikansson 1980 we concentrate on the technological capabilities developed at the subsidiary level but in contrast to him we take into account both affiliate host country and parent company characteristics furthermore our sample includes those foreign affiliates that do not perform r d which leads us to use a tobit model the study proceeds as follows section ii focuses on some factors of importance in determining the amount of research activity carried out by foreign affiliates in section iii we present the data and describe the model and method of estimation used the empirical results are presented in section iv we draw the main conclusions in section v

perspectives on multinational enterprises in emerging economies multinational enterprises mnes play a pivotal role in the development of many emerging economies in consequence they became the focus of scholarly research by economists and policy analysts in contrast international business scholars have been comparatively uninterested in analysing this role of mnes yet they could make important contributions to these debates first studies taking the individual firms as starting point would enhance understanding of the interaction between mnes and the local environment second theories and research methodologies developed in international business research could provide new insights into the dynamics of mnes in emerging economies the objective of this paper is to motivate more international business scholars to engage in research on positive and negative spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi in emerging economy societies to advance this research agenda scholars need to analyse the specific activities and capabilities of the firms involved and the impact of fdi on the broader social and environmental context for management this agenda raises the ethical question to what extent ought businesses to care about their local stakeholders

loss functions for predicted click through rates in auctions for online advertising summary we characterize the optimal loss functions for predicted click through rates in auctions for online advertising whereas standard loss functions such as mean squared error or log likelihood severely penalize large mispredictions while imposing little penalty on smaller mistakes a loss function reflecting the true economic loss from mispredictions imposes significant penalties for small mispredictions and only slightly larger penalties on large mispredictions we illustrate that when the model is misspecified using such a loss function can improve economic efficiency but the efficiency gain is likely to be small

geographical amplitude in the international generation of technology present situation and business determinants abstract building on a rich dataset with information on 65 000 firms and 465 000 european patent applications from 1978 to 2000 this paper addresses the geographical amplitude of international technology generation first we show that the number of countries hosting international technological activities is increasing the usa and some developing nations benefit from this internationalisation conversely although europe as a whole still plays a leading role in the encouragement of foreign technological activities some european countries such as germany and the uk appear to be losing their technological appeal second we verify that multinational corporations mncs have increased the geographical amplitude of their technological activities in fact the mean number of countries in which mncs internationalised technology generation has doubled during the 23 years we have analyzed third we address the business characteristics that explain this phenomenon a negative binomial regression suggests that internationalisation is higher in mncs showing a greater technological diversification a higher volume of technological activity a wider presence in international markets and more experience in the international generation of technology finally american corporations and regardless of the home country those firms whose main technological fields are in chemistry pharmaceuticals or electronics present the highest geographical dispersion of their international technological activities

the evolutionary view of the mne and the future of internalization theory kogut and zander s 1993 jibs article which developed an evolutionary perspective on the multinational enterprise mne has had three critical impacts on mne research first it has stimulated scholars to conduct more eclectic empirical analyses which should include both transaction cost related parameters and broader learning competence related variables second it has usefully argued that the rigorous study of mne behavior does not need to reply upon the williamsonian behavioral assumption of opportunism third it has implicitly suggested a new path to be followed by internalization theory scholars in order to remain relevant to the field of international business the transaction cost economics lens adopted in internalization theory clearly remains critical to any analysis of mne strategy with impacts on the boundaries of the firm in addition the co evolution of the mne s governance structure and its technological competences determines present and future strategy choices here both transaction cost considerations and learning effects influence strategy selection

trans specialization understanding in international technology alliances the influence of cultural distance in the information age the firm s performance hinges on combining partners specialist knowledge to achieve value co creation combining knowledge from different specialties could be a costly process in the international technology alliances itas context we argue that the combination of different specializations requires the development of trans specialization understanding tsu instead of the internalization of partners specialist knowledge this article examines the extent to which inter firm governance in itas shapes tsu and whether the development of tsu is endangered by cultural distance we hypothesize that relational governance product modularity and cultural distance influence tsu development which in turn influences firm performance we collected data from 110 non equity itas between software and hardware firms participating in the mobile device sector we analyzed the data using partial least squares path modeling our findings suggest that tsu largely depends on product modularity and relational governance in alliances however while cultural distance negatively moderates the path from relational governance to tsu it has no effect on the relationship between product modularity and tsu based on this we conclude that product modularity can substitute for relational governance when strong relational norms are not well developed in international alliances thus cultural distance does not invariably amount to a liability in itas

training and union wages abstract this paper investigates whether unions through imposing wage floors that lead to wage compression increase on the job training our analysis focuses on germany based on a model of unions and firm financed training we derive empirical implications regarding apprenticeship training intensity layoffs wage cuts and wage compression in unionized and nonunionized firms we test these implications using firm panel data matched with administrative employee data we find support for the hypothesis that union recognition via imposing minimum wages and wage compression increases training in apprenticeship programs

why are japanese firms so innovative in engineering technology abstract japanese firms belonging to the electric and electronics industry have been producing a large number of innovations concentrated in the field of engineering technology and directly related to commercial products one reason why japanese firms have such characteristics can be explained by their unique behavior and organization of research and development r d the behavior of the r d division of japanese firms is characterized by less independence from other divisions of the firms a close relationship with other divisions and concerted behavior to maximize total corporate profits these are indicated by the fact that r d funds are allocated flexibly by taking into account the intentions of other operational divisions or the headquarter s office and the fact that there exists a unique career path in a japanese firm by which r d personnel do not always stay in the research division but are frequently assigned to other various divisions as they climb upward however these structural and behavioral characteristics of japanese corporate r d which so far have been efficient in applied research and product development are not adaptable to basic research recently japanese firms are seeking a new r d organization and management system to solve the problem

innovation in multinational corporations control and communication patterns in international r d operations this paper addresses issues of global innovation in multinational corporations by examining the patterns of communication and control in international rd 2 local and international adaptors both focus their communication on their internal corporate network and 3 international creators have strong internally and externally oriented networks of relationships the implications for the management of global innovation are discussed 1998 john wiley sons ltd

internal r d expenditures and external technology sourcing abstract the paper examines the two way relationship between external r d activities and internal r d expenditures on a cross section of flemish r d active companies the analysis extends the classical explanatory variables like size diversification ownership structure and technological opportunities to include the impact of various external sourcing strategies r d cooperation and to a lesser extent r d contracted out are found to have a significant positive effect on internal r d but only if the companies have absorptive capacity in the form of a full time staffed r d department at the same time firms are found to be more frequently engaged in r d cooperation the more they spend on internal r d

the drivers of foreign direct investment into research and development an empirical investigation this paper examines the determinants of foreign direct investment fdi in research and development laboratories by 32 multinational enterprises in the pharmaceutical and electronics industries the paper applies a dichotomous set of motives for fdi results from an econometric analysis of 136 laboratory investments show that relative market size and relative strength of a country s science base determine whether fdi in research and development is carried out in order to exploit existing firm specific advantages or in order to build up new firm specific advantages this holds true in similar form for japanese european and u s firms and across the two industries

sequencing the expansion of geographic scope and foreign operations by born global firms born global firms are not actually born global but rather internationalize rapidly from their inception by expanding their geographic scope and extent of foreign operations however it remains unclear whether such firms 1 simultaneously expand along both dimensions 2 focus on expanding along a single dimension at a given time and switch interchangeably between expanding geographic scope and extent of foreign operations in subsequent periods or 3 stick solely to a specific internationalization path over several subsequent periods this study theorizes and empirically demonstrates that born global firms stick to a dominant internationalization path over subsequent periods arguably this phenomenon reflects managerial efforts to reduce the perceived risk of internationalization and their preference to develop and leverage capabilities that are specific to either of the internationalization paths until the economies of further expanding this path are exhausted

anomalies the winner s curse abstract next time that you find yourself a little short of cash for lunch try the following experiment in your class take a jar and fill it with coins noting the total value of the coins now a

r d intensity and international joint venture performance in an emerging market moderating effects of market focus and ownership structure in this study we examine the contingent relationship between r d intensity and performance of international joint ventures ijvs in an emerging market context based on teece s 1986 arguments regarding the appropriability of innovation we identify two types of appropriability hazard related to ijvs r d activities in this context local market related and local partner related hazards we argue that a positive relationship between r d intensity and ijv performance is more likely to occur if these appropriability hazard can be mitigated results using a sample of manufacturing ijvs in china provide support for these arguments we find that r d intensity is positively related to performance in export market focused ijvs but not in local market focused ijvs in addition using a configuration approach we find that r d intensity is positively related to performance in ijvs that have an export market focus and in which the multinational companies mncs have a majority ownership but not in other market focus ownership structure configurations these findings contribute to our knowledge of r d activities of mncs overseas subsidiaries

internationalization of corporate technology through strategic partnering an empirical investigation this paper explores some trends in the internationalization of corporate r d efforts innovation output and strategic technology partnering in the past decade inter firm strategic technology partnering through which companies share their innovation efforts supplements the standard indicators of technological competence to broaden the scope from internal innovation processes to a wider range of innovative activities the international information technology industry is singled out for empirical study the main conclusion of this contribution is that even in a global industry such as information technology internationalization of innovation although by no means insignificant appears less important than expected