urbanization and industrialization impact of co2 emissions in china abstract this study investigates the causal linkage among co2 emissions per capita energy intensity real gdp per capita industrialization share of industrial value added in gdp urbanization share of urban population in total population and share of renewable energy consumption in china over the period from 1970 to 2015 we employ autoregressive distributed lag ardl technology to test the co integration and short and long run estimates and apply the vector error correction model vecm to analyze the directional causality among the time series data the estimates of long run parameters indicate that 1 augments of energy intensity real gdp industrialization and urbanization increase co2 emissions by 1 1 0 6 0 3 and 1 0 respectively long run feedback granger causalities exist among emissions real gdp and industrialization thus our main policy suggestions are as follows i to encourage green and sustainable urbanization as it increases economic growth but not at the expense of environmental degradation ii to strategically adjust and optimize the industrial structure iii to improve the efficiency of energy use and technological innovation and iv to increase the proportion of renewable energy in total energy consumption

does culture affect behavior and performance of firms the case of joint ventures in china this study applies a resource based view of the firm to analyze data from a sample of 898 joint venture firms in china including both joint ventures established by overseas chinese and by firms from western cultures it is hypothesized that culture could influence the timing of entry of joint ventures their investment preferences and performance anovas and regressions were conducted and the results suggest the impact of cultural as well as technological resources this paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of the findings

public regulation of agricultural biotechnology field tests economic implications of alternative approaches federal oversight of agricultural biotechnology field testing is based on public concerns that unknown consequences could arise from such tests and that firms may not adequately consider the public consequences of their research and development activities in this paper four general types of ex ante and ex post approaches to manage public risks from field testing are explored the analysis shows that the approaches are least effective at facilitating the research process yet controlling public risks when the research firm is small in size and potential damages exceed the value of the firm

competition in global markets a case study of american and japanese competition in the british market the results of a three year study of the objectives strategies and organisation of american subsidiaries are presented their operations are compared against a matched sample of competitive british and japanese subsidiaries american subsidiaries were found to be less ambitious more orientated towards delivering short term profit performance and less adapted to local market conditions than their japanese competitors over the five year period only one in three u s subsidiaries exhibited successful profit and market performance against more than three out of four japanese subsidiaries

standardization preferences a function of national culture work interdependence and local embeddedness both theoretical and empirical studies of professional service employee standardization preferences are relatively scarce using responses from 398 employees of an international public relations firm this study finds that employees from high power distance high uncertainty avoidance and high context cultures prefer greater standardization whereas employees from high individualism cultures prefer less standardization additionally work interdependence is positively associated with standardization preferences whereas local embeddedness is negatively associated with standardization preferences

a four nation study of thee relationship between marketing effectiveness corporate culture corporate values and market orientation the aim of this study was to establish the ways in which senior executives in four countries which shared a common language united kingdom united states australia and new zealand characterized both their firm s marketing effectiveness and corporate culture and beliefs results give support to those theorists who advance cultural specificity as the primary moderator of top managerial attitudes but also emphasise that the best predictor of marketing effectiveness is similar in all four nations the primacy of the importance of people and with quality

the effect of the governance environment on marketing channel behaviors the diamond industries in the u s china and hong kong international differences in how market exchanges are conducted e g the mode of entry level of ownership and conflict resolution have been attributed mainly to national culture and cultural distance however the cultural arguments cannot explain why economies countries with similar cultural backgrounds e g hong kong and china exhibit differences in exchange arrangements thus the cultural arguments provide little strategic guidance to multinational corporations mncs in international marketing we propose that in addition to culture the governance environment in a country namely the political economic and social institutions that facilitate or constrain the choice of governance mechanisms influences the way organizations conduct market exchanges this important factor heretofore has been ignored specifically we introduce a typology of rule based and relation based governance environment to explain how the environment affects marketing channel behaviors such as barriers to entry channel exclusivity information access trust and dispute resolution we analyze the diamond industry in the rule based governance environment in the u s and in the relation based governance environment in china and using the diamond industry in hong kong as a validation to develop theoretical propositions and strategic implications for mncs

carbon inequality at the sub national scale a case study of provincial level inequality in co2 emissions in china 1997 2007 abstract this study asks whether sub national inequalities in carbon dioxide co2 emissions mirror international patterns in carbon inequality using the case study of china several studies have examined global level carbon inequality however such approaches have not been used on a sub national scale this study examines inter provincial inequality in co2 emissions within china using common measures of inequality coefficient of variation gini index theil index to analyze provincial level data derived from the ipcc reference approach for the years 1997 2007 it decomposes co2 emissions inequality into its inter regional and intra regional components patterns of per capita co2 emissions inequality in china appear superficially similar to though slightly lower than per capita income inequality however decomposing these inequalities reveals different patterns while inter provincial income inequality is highly regional in character inter provincial co2 emissions inequality is primarily intra regional while apparently similar global patterns in co2 emissions are not mirrored at the sub national scale

international inequalities in per capita co2 emissions a decomposition methodology by kaya factors in this paper we provide a methodology for decomposing international inequalities in per capita co2 emissions into kaya multiplicative factors and two interaction terms we use the theil index of inequality and show that this decomposition methodology can be extended for analyzing between and within group inequality components we can thus analyze the factors behind inequalities in per capita co2 emissions across countries between groups of countries and within groups of countries the empirical illustration for international data suggests some points firstly international inequality in per capita co2 emissions is mainly attributable to inequalities in per capita income levels which helps to explain its recent reduction while differences in carbon intensity of energy and energy intensity have made a less significant contribution this result is strongly influenced by the performance of china and india secondly the between group inequality component which is the biggest component is also largely explained by the income factor thirdly the within group inequality component increased slightly during the period something mainly due to the change in the income factor and the interaction terms in a few regions

assessing global co2 emission inequality from consumption perspective an index decomposition analysis abstract co2 emission inequality among countries is a key issue in international climate negotiations in view of the growing popularity of the consumption based emission accounting system in climate policy studies analyzing the emission inequality from the consumption perspective can help policymakers design emission abatement scenarios that are fairer to all parties using a new approach based on the theil index and the index decomposition analysis ida technique this paper examines global per capita consumption based emission inequality in 1995 2009 the sources and determinants of both the status and evolution of the emission inequality are quantified the empirical results show that the global emission inequality was sourced mainly from the emerging economies particularly china and india the global inequality decreased at an accelerating rate during the period studied the narrowing disparity among countries in per capita consumption level drove while the expanding disparity in consumption based emission intensity largely hindered the inequality reduction comparing the consumption based emission inequality with that under the production based principle reveals that the latter partly masked the inequality in the distribution of global co2 emissions through production outsourcing more detailed results and discussions are presented

prior conditions and early international commitment the mediating role of domestic mindset our study investigates why some firms engage in low international commitments such as exports in the early phases of internationalization whereas others leapfrog the internationalization process and start with high international commitments in the form of foreign direct investment fdi process models of internationalization propose that firms start with low commitment activities and gradually increase their commitments to international markets however recent empirical evidence has shown that many firms make high international commitments from the start our findings suggest that domestic resources and competitive action propensity affect early international commitments indirectly through domestic mindsets a domestic mindset refers to the knowledge structures of the top management team prior to starting international activities based on their managerial experience and learning in domestic markets our results suggest that knowledge and learning gained in domestic markets through diverse resource and competitive activities may be crucial in early international commitments

the choice between joint venture and wholly owned subsidiary an institutional perspective the study of foreign entry mode choice has been based almost exclusively on transaction cost theory this theory focuses mainly on the impacts of firm and industry specific factors on the choice of entry mode taking the effects of country specific contextual factors as constant or less important in contrast the institutional perspective emphasizes the importance of the influence of both institutional forces embedded in national environments and decision makers cognitive constraints on the founding conditions of new ventures still this theoretical perspective has yet to provide insights into how institutional factors influence the choice of foreign entry mode the primary goal of the present study is to provide a unifying theoretical framework to examine this relationship we synthesize transaction cost and institutional perspectives to analyze a sample of 364 japanese overseas subsidiaries our results support the notion that institutional theory provides incremental explanatory power of foreign entry mode choice in addition to transaction cost theory in particular we found that multinational enterprises tend to conform to the regulative settings of the host country environment the normative pressures imposed by the local people and the cognitive mindsets as bounded by counterparts and multinational enterprises own entry patterns when making foreign entry mode choices

welfare economics of decision making with changing preferences the paper considers the properties a decision tree needs to guarantee that there are no preferences such that the sophisticated equilibrium is pareto dominated when all agents act completely myopically it shows that the only decision trees with this property are the most trivial problems the analysis is generalized to agents who are not completely myopic and gives an example of union and shareholder conflict to illustrate the results 1 this paper is concerned with the welfare aspects of decision making in a non cooperative game where the players have different preferences over future actions and must move sequentially typically two outcomes are analysed in this context one is the naive or myopic outcome which is the result of all individuals making irrational myopic choices and the other is the sophisticated or perfect equilibrium 1 the results of hammond 1976 show that if there is no essential inconsistency2 between agents preferences then these two outcomes coincide the welfare comparison when there is essential inconsistency remains an open question and this paper will attempt to provide some answers although this issue has not been explicitly considered the terminology perfect and sophisticated compared to myopic or naive is itself persuasive the literature has tended to enhance this view e g blackorby et al 1973 the sophisticated solution would appear to be an improvement over naive planning by explicitly considering the future preferences each generation realises a level of utility greater than that which is possible under inconsistent naive planning it will be shown that this view is incorrect for all degrees of myopia of course there are many cases where the perfect equilibrium in non cooperative games is inefficient thus it is not surprising that actions by some agents which deviate from rational behaviour can result in a better outcome for all agents it is less obvious that if everyone behaved myopically this is possible yet it will be shown that in all but the most trivial decision trees there always exist preferences such that this is true the following section outlines the model that will be used and section 3 contains the results section 4 gives a topical economic example that reduces to the decision tree structure used extensively in section 3 this example clarifies the structure of the results and also highlights some of the difficulties with introducing precommitment

decoupling co2 emissions and industrial growth in china over 1993 2013 the role of investment abstract since industrial sector is a leading energy consumer and co 2 emitter in china the degree of the decoupling of co 2 emissions and industrial growth plays a critical role in realizing the energy conservation and emission reduction goals of china this is the first study to present a specific investigation on the decoupling of co 2 emissions and industrial growth in china from 1993 to 2013 using an extended logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi model focusing on both energy related and process related co 2 emissions and introducing three novel investment factors i e investment scale investment share and investment efficiency we highlight and explore the remarkable role of investment in the mitigation and decoupling of co 2 emissions with industrial growth the results show that china s industrial sector experienced the weak decoupling during 1993 2013 the investment scale is the most important factor responsible for the increase in co 2 emissions and the inhibition of the decoupling the investment efficiency effect has a volatile trend and overall it plays the most significant role in reducing co 2 emissions followed by the energy intensity effect and process carbon intensity effect whereas the energy mix carbon coefficient and investment share have marginal effects among 36 industrial sub sectors the seven factors of rcmcp raw chemical materials and chemical products nmp nonmetal mineral products and spfm smelting and pressing of ferrous metals have significant effects on the decoupling thus the three sub sectors should be among the top concerns for abating co 2 emissions finally we provide policy recommendations considering both conventional and investment factors for china s industrial sector to realize emission reduction targets

risk perceptions endogenous demand and regulation of agricultural biotechnology abstract this paper presents a dynamic model of optimal product regulation in which consumer acceptance and the rate of product innovation are included as endogenous variables insights derived from the model are used to critically evaluate recent policy controversies regarding regulation of agricultural biotechnology the results of the analysis indicate that if regulatory policy significantly affects consumer risk perceptions more stringent regulatory requirements than those based solely on scientific risk assessment may be economically efficient when demand is endogenously affected by regulatory policies industry may also benefit from stronger regulations even if this results in a significant increase in product development costs

surplus distribution from the introduction of a biotechnology innovation we examine the distribution of welfare from the introduction of bt cotton in the united states in 1996 the welfare framework explicitly recognizes that research protected by intellectual property rights generates monopoly profits and makes it possible to partition these rents among consumers farmers and the innovating input firms we calculate a total increase in world surplus of 240 3 million for 1996 of this total the largest share 59 went to u s farmers the gene developer monsanto received the next largest share 21 followed by u s consumers 9 the rest of the world 6 and the germplasm supplier delta and pine land company 5

high and declining prices signal product quality high and declining prices signal a high quality product high prices are the efficient means of signaling because the consequent loss of sales volume is most damaging for lower cost lower quality products as time passes and the number of informed consumers increases the signaling distortion lessens resulting in a declining price profile the prediction of high and declining prices is robust across a variety of dynamic models and is consistent with recent empirical findings copyright 1991 by american economic association

nationality and subsidiary ownership patterns in multinational corporations this paper examines the notion that the multinational s nationality influences its foreign subsidiary ownership decisions it identifies theoretically meaningful constructs to represent nationality and examines under carefully controlled conditions their influence on subsidiary ownership preferences in american and european multinationals the paper concludes that there are indeed significant differences in ownership preferences among various nationalities that can be explained using cultural as well as economic variables but that these differences may become weaker in larger multinationals

choice of foreign market entry mode impact of ownership location and internalization factors firms interested in servicing foreign markets face a difficult decision with regards to the choice of an entry mode the options available to a firm include exporting licensing joint venture and sole venture several factors that determine the choice of a specific foreign market entry mode have been identified in previous literature these factors can be classified into three categories ownership advantages of a firm location advantages of a market and internalization advantages of integrating transactions this study examines the independent and joint influences of these factors on the choice of an entry mode multinomial logistic regression model is employed to test the hypothesized effects

imperfect information and dynamic conjectural variations this article analyzes oligopoly interaction in an environment where firms are imperfectly informed about the evolution of the market demand curve the analysis develops a two period cournot framework under the assumptions that demand shifts are positively serially correlated that firms never directly observe the demand curve and that firms never observe the previous quantity decisions of rivals firms do draw inferences about the position of the demand curve from past observations on prices consequently the current output of a firm will influence the current market price which will then influence rivals inferences about future demand the future output decisions of rivals will respond accordingly the theory predicts negative dynamic conjectural variations essentially a firm perceives that an increase in its output will lower the current market clearing price which will cause rival firms to think that the demand curve has shifted down and hence induce them to lower their outputs in the future

intellectual property rights and the welfare effects of agricultural r d the profound changes that have affected agriculture in modern times are perhaps best illustrated by the evolution of production techniques due to mechanization new chemical inputs such as herbicides pesticides and fertilizers genetic selection of crops and animals new crop varieties and countless other technical and organizational improvements these innovations have allowed a generalized increase in physical output while at the same time agriculture has suffered a massive exodus of labor forces towards the non farm sectors indeed a stylized fact of developed countries post war growth is that productivity in agriculture has grown faster than in other sectors jorgenson and gollop 1992 this remarkable record naturally begs the question of what is at its root and a view that commands considerable consensus is that agricultural productivity growth is due to past investments in scientific research and development r d

host market government corruption and the equity based foreign entry strategies of multinational enterprises while extant theory suggests that the pervasiveness of host market government corruption should influence the equity ownership decisions of foreign investing multinational enterprises mnes empirical research has produced inconclusive results we leverage insights from transaction cost economics to advance an uncertainty oriented framework which can be used to explain the impact of host market government corruption on the equity based entry strategies of mnes we disaggregate government corruption into two distinct components grand corruption and petty corruption we propose that grand and petty corruption precipitate different types of uncertainty environmental and behavioral which motivate mnes to vary their equity based foreign entry strategies entry mode and partnering hypotheses pertaining to the entry strategies of mnes under conditions of more pervasive grand and petty corruption are developed and tested with a sample of 643 japanese investments in 30 countries between 2004 and 2007 we find that the main effect of grand corruption and the interaction between grand and petty corruption significantly impact a mne s entry mode further while more pervasive grand corruption increases the likelihood that a mne will engage in a joint venture investment with a host country partner we find that an increase in petty corruption heightens a mne s preference to invest with a home country partner

the impact of culture on the strategy of multinational enterprises does national origin affect ownership decisions this paper tests the proposition that national origin affects the strategies of multinational enterprises by looking at the determinants of the choice they make between entering the united states through partially versus wholly owned subsidiaries we pool entries into the united states made by firms based in two countries japan and finland which differ both in their cultural characteristics and in their cultural distance to the united states after carefully controlling for the known firm and industry level determinants of subsidiary ownership strategies we find that cultural distance between the home base of the investor and the target country or perhaps political risk exerts a powerful influence on ownership of subsidiaries but cultural characteristics of the home base do not

exploring china s carbon emissions peak for different carbon tax scenarios abstract under the united nations framework convention on climate change china has made a commitment to peak co2 emissions around 2030 china is still interested in fulfilling its commitment to address climate change in this study a diffusion model of energy technology based on endogenous technology learning under bounded rationality is developed to explore the possible impacts of different carbon tax conditions on the diffusion of energy technologies in china it is concluded that the substitution of energy technology is a long term and slow process in the case of a high carbon tax transition technologies and new technologies will appear earlier and replace the original technology 6 8 years earlier than in the case of a lower carbon tax the transition technology will become dominant only for a short period of time around 2030 but will be quickly replaced by new technology the traditional technology will cease to exist in the last thirty years of this century in all carbon tax scenarios in the low carbon tax or high carbon tax scenarios carbon emissions will peak in 2030 and then decline significantly the peak in carbon emissions is lower under the high carbon tax scenario than the low carbon tax scenario representing a 28 decrease

assessing the effects of culture on managerial attitudes a three culture test cross cultural studies are inherently difficult because the typical research design fails to differentiate cultural from other environmental influences the present study uses a research design that attempts to isolate the influence of culture japanese chinese and mexican managers their ethnic american counterparts and anglo americans are used to test the model results indicate unique persistent cultural characteristics with the cultural effect varying among the three groups of managers

benefits and costs of food safety regulation abstract this paper begins with a review of the concepts and methods that can be used to quantify the benefits and costs of food safety regulations on the cost side where research is only beginning to emerge this paper also provides an analytical framework for measurement of the costs of statutory regulations in the form of design and performance standards this paper also discusses the use and limitations of currently available benefit and cost information for quantitative regulatory impact assessment using the assessment of the mandatory haccp and pathogen reduction regulations in the united states as an example the paper concludes with suggestions for future research on quantifying benefits and costs of food safety regulations

geographical spread of global emissions within country inequalities are large and increasing abstract in spite of the extensive literature on greenhouse gas emission inequalities at the world wide level most of the evidence so far has been based on country level data however the within country dimension matters for both the implementation and the policy formation of climate policies as a preliminary step towards a better understanding of within country inequalities this paper measures their extent for the two major greenhouse gases co2 and ch4 over the 1970 2008 period using theil index decompositions we show that within country inequalities account for the bulk of global inequality and tend to increase over the sample period in contrast with diminishing between country inequalities including differences across sectors reveals that between sector inequalities matter more than between country inequalities and between sector inequalities become the dominant source of global inequality at the end of the sample period in the co2 case finally estimated social tensions arising from the disconnection between emissions and future damages turn out to be increasing as soon as within country disparities are taken into account these orders of magnitude should be kept in mind while discussing the efficiency and fairness of alternative paths in combating global warming

determinants of the share of equity sought in cross border acquisitions the extent of ownership in foreign market entry is an important topic in the entry mode literature yet the determinants of the share of ownership sought in cross border acquisitions cbas have not received much research attention drawing on multiple theoretical explanations we develop and test hypotheses on factors influencing the share of equity sought by foreign firms in cbas findings based on a sample of cbas by us firms show that the share of equity sought is influenced by many factors including the cost of valuing local firm assets difficulty in integrating local firm managers in culturally distant countries the cost of separating desired assets from the rest of the local firm and the cost of resource commitment under exogenous uncertainty

explaining ijv survival in a transitional economy through social exchange and knowledge based perspectives in this study we combine social exchange and knowledge based perspectives to develop a general path model of ijv survival we further refine our expectations by considering the transitional economic context of our study and the somewhat unique managerial values resulting from the legacy of marxist ideology results from structural equation modeling suggest that an imbalance in the management control structure between the parents leads to parental conflict and an increased likelihood of ijv failure an imbalance in the ownership control structure however had no influence on conflict or survival in general support from the foreign parent is positively related to ijv learning and ijv survival however higher levels of technical support provided by the foreign parent to the ijv reduced the level of parental conflict whereas management support had no effect on conflict our results suggest some dilemmas for firms pursuing ijvs in transitional economies although the foreign parent often contributes critical resources to the ijv providing it with bargaining power and a high level of influence an imbalance in management control between the partners may ultimately be detrimental to ijv survival copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

weighting vectors and international inequality changes in environmental indicators an analysis of co2 per capita emissions and kaya factors abstract analyses of international inequality in environmental factors such as the well known co 2 per capita or the kaya factors that is carbon intensity energy intensity and affluence have overlooked the effect that weighting vectors of distance functions and their time variations can have on the evolution of the inequality observed thus for example increases in the relative weight of countries with low emissions tend ceteris paribus to increase the inequality even when the vector of international per capita emissions remains unchanged this effect strictly associated with share variations is assessed in this paper by means of a simple decomposition methodology this methodology allows us to ascertain what part of the time variation of the inequality is attributable to the variations in the shares and or the variations in the environmental variable analysed and in turn suggests extending the analysis to the group components of inequality shorrocks 1980 this proposition is used empirically to assess international inequalities in co 2 per capita and the kaya factors for a variety of sub periods during the 1971 2007 period and for various satisfactory inequality indices

multilateral productivity comparisons when some outputs are undesirable a nonparametric approach multilateral productivity comparisons of firms producing multiple outputs some of which are undesirable are obtained by making two modifications to the standard farrell approach to efficiency measurement the restriction that production technology satisfy strong disposability of outputs is relaxed to allow for the fact that undesirable outputs may be freely disposable and the efficiency measures are modified to allow for an asymmetric treatment of desirable and undesirable outputs performance measures that satisfy these requirements are calculated as solutions to programming problems the methodology is applied to a sample of mills producing paper and pollutants

performance and survival of joint ventures with non conventional ownership structures the international joint venture jv literature has focused on two parent jvs formed between one foreign and one local firm yet other types of jvs exist this paper identifies four distinct forms of jvs based on the jv partners nationality and equity affiliation these are i jvs that are formed between affiliated home country based firms ii jvs that are formed between unaffiliated home country based firmsl iii jvs that are formed between home country based and local firms and iv jvs that are formed between home country and third country based firms our analysis of 737 japanese jvs in asia demonstrates that the conventionally assumed form of jv represented only 30 percent of the total further each of the four jv forms significantly differed in terms of incidence performance and survival likelihood

transaction cost determinants and ownership based entry mode choice a meta analytical review entry mode choice is a critical ingredient of international entry strategies and has been voluminously examined in the field the findings however are very mixed especially with respect to transaction cost related factors in determining the ownership based entry mode choice this study conducted a meta analysis to quantitatively summarize the literature and empirically generalize more conclusive findings based on the 106 effect sizes of 38 empirical studies the meta analysis shows that the findings of the existing studies are moderated to varying degrees by both study setting factors and statistical artifacts although the combined overall effects of transaction cost based determinants are consistent with the predictions of transaction cost economics we extensively discuss the implications of meta analytical results especially moderating effects of location country of origin industry type and statistical artifacts highlight the measurement adequacy equivalence and multidimensionality of transaction cost determinants and present our suggestions to improve theoretical inquiries and empirical verifications on entry mode choice

the experience factor in foreign market entry behavior of service firms the paper examines the effect of international experience on service firms selection of foreign markets and entry modes the investigation utilizes survey date from 151 united states based service firms results on market selection suggest that as their experience increases and becomes geographically more diversified service firms tend to choose markets that are culturally less similar to their home country on entry mode choice the paper departs from traditional linear conceptualizations and hypothesizes a u shaped relationship between experience and propensity for integrated entry modes results generally support the hypothesis the paper explains these findings and describes how service firms resemble and differ from manufacturing firms in their foreign market entry behavior

why market shares matter an information based theory consider a duopoly market in which consumers have heterogeneous information about the quality differential q of the two goods when firms are ignorant about q consumers rationally believe that a firm with high market shares is likely to produce a high quality good as a result firms try to signal jam the inferences of consumers and compete for market shares beyond the level explained by short run profit maximization when firms know q multiple equilibria may exist but there is always one equilibrium in which market shares signal quality and then the market tends to be more competitive

the effect of national culture on the choice of entry mode characteristics of national cultures have frequently been claimed to influence the selection of entry modes this article investigates this claim by developing a theoretical argument for why culture should influence the choice of entry two hypotheses are derived which relate culture to entry mode choice one focusing on the cultural distance between countries the other on attitudes towards uncertainty avoidance using a multinomial logit model and controlling for other effects the hypotheses are tested by analysing data on 228 entries into the united states market by acquisition wholly owned greenfield and joint venture empirical support for the effect of national culture on entry choice is found

technology adoption in the presence of network externalities we analyze technology adoption in industries where network externalities are significant the pattern of adoption depends on whether technologies are sponsored a sponsor is an entity that has property rights to the technology and hence is willing to make investments to promote it key findings include the following 1 compatibility tends to be undersupplied by the market but excessive standardization can occur 2 in the absence of sponsors the technology superior today has a strategic advantage and is likely to dominate the market 3 when one of two rival technologies is sponsored that technology has a strategic advantage and may be adopted even if it is inferior 4 when two competing technologies both are sponsored the technology that will be superior tomorrow has a strategic advantage

price and quality in a new product monopoly in a signal extraction model of consumer behaviour higher prices signal higher quality products for a new product monopoly even without cost asymmetries across different qualities moreover higher quality products earn greater expected profits and the monopolist has an incentive to provide even transient improvements in quality finally the monopolist has a positive incentive to conduct market research about quality and produces more information than is socially optimal

duopoly information equilibrium cournot and bertrand abstract in a duopoly model where firms have private information about an uncertain linear demand it is shown that if the goods are substitutes not to share information is a dominant strategy for each firm in bertrand cournot competition if the goods are complements the result is reversed furthermore the following welfare results are obtained 1 i with substitutes in cournot competition the market outcome is never optimal with respect to information sharing but it may be optimal in bertrand competition if the products are good substitutes with complements the market outcome is always optimal 2 ii bertrand competition is more efficient than cournot competition 3 iii the private value of information to the firms is always positive but the social value of information is positive in cournot and negative in bertrand competition

an empirical comparison of soviet and american business negotiations fifty six soviet businesspeople and 160 american businesspeople participated in simulated intracultural one on one buyer seller negotiations all participants completed questionnaires after the negotiation sessions and six negotiators from each cultural group were videotaped during the interactions analysis of the questionnaire data indicated that soviet negotiators achieved higher individual profits when using a competitive approach in negotiations this result is in contrast to a more cooperative approach associated with higher profits for the american participants analysis of the videotapes suggests both similarities and differences in observed bargaining behaviors across the two cultural groups

optimal sharing of foodborne illness prevention between consumers and industry the effect of regulation and liability consumers and the food industry can both prevent foodborne illness two questions are explored what is the socially optimal level of preventative effort by each and can tort and regulatory instruments induce such behavior analysis is complicated by two aspects of food safety technology one party s effort can affect the marginal effectiveness of the other party s effort and damage functions can be nonconvex previous analysis of accidents under torts and regulation fails to consider these generalizations indeed results concerning the ability of tort and regulatory instruments to induce first best and second best behavior often contradict previous results in the literature

regional differences in china s fossil energy consumption an analysis for the period 1997 2013 abstract measuring regional differences in fossil energy consumption is the first step to the study of natural resource allocation and utilization this paper employs annual and cumulative consumption gini indexes as well as the deviation index to discuss regional differences in the per capita consumption of fossil energy and related products across 30 chinese provinces from 1997 to 2013 the results show that chinese inter provincial gini ratio of fossil energy consumption is below 0 3 in recent years and change in per capita energy consumption is the key factor behind the decline in the overall gini index unlike existing studies based only on annual flows of energy consumption this paper also focuses on cumulative energy consumption moreover decomposing annual and cumulative consumption gini coefficients by type group and incremental variation is rarely seen in other studies based on the above positive analysis the paper provides some policymaking suggestions

the cultural relativity of organizational practices and theories this paper summarizes the author s recently published findings about differences in people s work related values among 50 countries in view of these differences ethnocen tric management theories those based on the value system of one particular country have become untenable this concept is illustrated for the fields of leadership organization and motivation a key issue for organization science is the influence of national cultures on introduction management twenty or even 10 years ago the existence of a relationship be management and tween management and national cultures was far from obvious to many and it national cultures may not be obvious to everyone even now in the 1950s and 60s the dominant be lief at least in europe and the u s was that management was something univer sal there were principles of sound management which existed regardless of na tional environments if national or local practice deviated from these principles it was time to change local practice in the future the universality of sound manage ment practices would lead to societies becoming more and more alike this ap plied even to the poor countries of the third world which would become rich as well and would be managed just like the rich countries also the differences be tween management in the first and second world capitalist and socialist would disappear in fact under the surface they were thought to be a lot smaller than was officially recognized this way of thinking which dominated the 1950s and 60s is known as the convergence hypothesis during the 1970s the belief in the unavoidable convergence of management prac tices waned it was too obviously in conflict with the reality we saw around us at the same time supranational organizations like the european common market which were founded very much on the convergence belief had to recognize the stubbornness of national differences even within existing nations regional dif ferences became more rather than less accentuated the welsh the flemish the basques the bangladeshi the quebecois defended their own identity and this was difficult to reconcile with a management philosophy of convergence it slowly became clear that national and even regional cultures do matter for management the national and regional differences are not disappearing they are here to stay in fact these differences may become one of the most crucial problems for man agement in particular for the management of multinational multicultural orga nizations whether public or private

explaining the national cultural distance paradox past studies of the relationship between national cultural distance and entry mode choice have produced conflicting results some scholars find cultural distance associated with choosing wholly owned modes others find cultural distance linked to a preference for joint ventures in this paper we provide both theoretical and empirical evidence to explain the discrepant findings and thus help to resolve the national cultural distance paradox

a meta analysis of the exchange hazards interfirm governance relationship an informal institutions perspective the existing literature is ambiguous on how exchange hazards influence interfirm governance drawing on institutional theory this study revisits this relationship by examining the moderating effects of national culture by meta analyzing 167 articles involving 38 183 interfirm relationships in 35 countries we found support for the moderating effects of three facets of national culture collectivism power distance and uncertainty avoidance we discuss the implications of the findings for theory and practice

national culture transaction costs and the choice between joint venture and wholly owned subsidiary transaction cost theory posits that culture plays a limited role in the choice between jv and wos in contrast research suggests that firms preferred level of ownership in their foreign subsidiaries is influenced primarily by cultural traits this study provides additional evidence in this ongoing debate by replicating hennart s transaction cost model of entry mode choice in two different national contexts japanese firms investing in the u s and the u s firms investing in japan the results suggest that the transaction cost explanation for the ownership choice holds in the both national contexts yet the propensity to choose jv or wos significantly varied between japanese and the u s firms

price and advertising signals of product quality we present a signaling model based on ideas of phillip nelson in which both the introductory price and the level of directly uninformative advertising or other dissipative marketing expenditures are choice variables and may be used as signals for the initially unobservable quality of a newly introduced experience good repeat purchases play a crucial role in our model a second focus of the paper is on illustrating an approach to refining the set of equilibria in signalling games with multiple potential signals

systemic failure in the provision of safe food abstract many deficiencies in the capacity of a food system to deliver safe products are systemic in nature we suggest a taxonomy of four general ways in which a systemic failure might occur one relates to the connectedness or topology of the system another arises from mistrust on the part of downstream parties concerning signals on product attributes production processes and the performance of regulatory mechanisms a third arises when asymmetric information leads to low incentives for preserving food quality finally inflexibilities in adapting to different states of nature may leave the system vulnerable to failures innovations in information technology and institutional design may ameliorate many problems while appropriate trade industrial organization science and public infrastructure policies may also fortify the system

a signal jamming theory of predation we propose a new theory ofpredation based on signal jamming in our model the predator s characteristics are common knowledge while the entrant is uncertain of his own future profitability the entrant uses his current profit to decide whether to remain in the market and the predator preys to jam or interfere with this inference problem thus our model differs from those based on reputation effects in which the predator preys to signal information about himself

food safety and product liability abstract this paper focuses on the u s product liability system for food poisoning cases and makes six key points first current legal incentives to produce safer food are weak though slightly stronger in outbreak situations and in markets where foodborne illness can be more easily traced to individual firms far less than 0 01 of cases are litigated and even fewer are paid compensation second even if potential plaintiffs can overcome the high information and transaction costs necessary to file lawsuits monetary compensation provides only weak incentives to pursue litigation firms paid compensation in 56 of the 294 cases examined in this study and the median compensation was only 2 000 before legal fees third indirect incentives for firms may be important and deserve more research for example firms may be influenced by costly settlements and decisions against other firms in the same industry fourth confidential settlements health insurance and product liability insurance distort legal incentives to produce safer food fifth the ambiguity about whether microbial contamination is natural or an adulterant hinders the legal system from effectively dealing with food safety issues sixth a brief comparison of the incentives from u s and english legal systems suggests that more research is needed to understand the strengths weaknesses and relative impact of each country s legal system on the incentives to produce safer food

determinants of carbon inequality in china from static and dynamic perspectives abstract carbon inequality ci is one of the core issues concerning social welfare and economic development to overcome the disadvantages of the widely used theil economic inequality index which does not consider technical efficiency and technological change we developed static and dynamic inequality analysis tools by incorporating production theoretical decomposition analysis a logarithmic mean divisia index and a shapley sun method into the theil index decomposition model we then investigated the determinants of china s ci during the period 2003 2015 using the original and modified theil index decomposition models our key findings are 1 national ci experienced a downward trend with some fluctuations over time 2 intragroup inequality was the main driver of these changes using the original approach 3 the disparities in industrialization investment scale income population share potential carbon factor energy usage technical efficiency and co2 emission technological change accounted for the decreases in ci whereas the disparities in investment rate potential energy intensity industrial investment output share energy usage technological change and co2 emission technical efficiency contributed to increases in ci we offer some policy proposals based on our results

the influence of culture on budget control practices in the usa and japan an empirical study this article reports the results of a study that hypothesized the influence of culture on six aspects of budget control practices in the united states and japan data were collected through questionnaires from 70 manufacturing companies in the united states and 149 such companies in japan results of data analyses indicate that the individualism collectivism dimension would seem to explain why the u s companies compared to the japanese companies tend to use communication and coordination more extensively build budget slack to a greater extent and use long term performance evaluations to a lesser extent the implications of the results for further research and practice are discussed

enhancing the obsolescing bargain theory a longitudinal study of foreign ownership of u s and european multinationals this research attempts to enhance the obsolescing bargain theory for manufacturing companies by statistically testing the effects of nine explanatory variables on the static and dynamic manifestations of bargaining success with longitudinal firm level data in order to highlight those effects it develops a conceptual framework that provides a broader context in which the primary variables operate it demonstrates that the obsolescing bargain took effect in india over a fifteen year period following restrictive legislation unlike previous research this study measures the effect of benefits received by multinationals from the host government in exchange for equity dilution american companies are found to retain a smaller share of their foreign ownership over time than british and other european multinationals some explanatory variables that have previously been found to influence level of foreign ownership static bargaining success are found to be less important or have a different effect in explaining proportion of foreign ownership retained dynamic bargaining success

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

choice between non equity entry modes an organizational capability perspective many studies have examined the choice between different types of equity and non equity modes however none has focused on the choice between different types of non equity modes that service firms employ routinely this study develops a theoretical framework based on the organizational capability perspective to explain the choice between two non equity modes franchising and management service contracts while previous studies are based on the premise that foreign market entrants choose a mode equity or non equity that offers them most control given their particular circumstances the premise of this study is that foreign entrants choose a non equity mode that in addition offers effective transfer of the firm s capabilities to the host country venture

lmdi decomposition approach a guide for implementation since it was first used by researchers to analyze industrial electricity consumption in the early 1980s index decomposition analysis ida has been widely adopted in energy and emission studies lately its use as the analytical component of accounting frameworks for tracking economy wide energy efficiency trends has attracted considerable attention and interest among policy makers the last comprehensive literature review of ida was reported in 2000 which is some years back after giving an update and presenting the key trends in the last 15 years this study focuses on the implementation issues of the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi decomposition methods in view of their dominance in ida in recent years eight lmdi models are presented and their origin decomposition formulae and strengths and weaknesses are summarized guidelines on the choice among these models are provided to assist users in implementation

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

egalitarianism cultural distance and foreign direct investment a new approach this study addresses an apparent impasse in the research on organizations responses to cultural distance we posit that cross country differences in egalitarianism a cultural orientation manifested in intolerance for abuses of market and political power and support for protection of less powerful actors affect multinational firms choices of destinations for foreign direct investment fdi using historically motivated instrumental variables we observe that egalitarianism distance has a negative causal impact on fdi flows this effect is robust to a broad set of competing accounts including the effects of other cultural dimensions various features of the prevailing legal and regulatory regimes other features of the institutional environment economic development and time invariant unobserved characteristics of origin and host countries we further show that egalitarianism correlates in a conceptually compatible way with an array of organizational practices pertinent to firms interactions with nonfinancial stakeholders such that national differences in these egalitarianism related features may affect firms international expansion decisions

a tale of three countries italian spanish and swiss manufacturing operations in china in this paper the choice of joint venture versus wholly foreign owned enterprise wfoe made by italian spanish and swiss multinationals in china as shaped by the risk of dissipation of intangible assets is investigated probit estimates based on an entirely new firm level dataset constructed by the author show that wfoe is more likely to emerge when know how easily spills over namely for firms endowed with more intangible assets or belonging to high tech sectors in line with the theoretical expectations

manufacturer governance of foreign distributor relationships do relational norms enhance competitiveness in the export market research on international marketing channels accentuates the importance of relational norms and trust building activities between buyers and sellers indeed cultural and country differences may limit the use and effectiveness of traditional tools such as market incentives and authoritative control that govern the relationship between an exporting manufacturer and its foreign distributor consequently exporting manufacturers need to emphasize relationships with their foreign distributors this research finds evidence that supports both direct and indirect effects between the manufacturer s use of governance via relational norms and its competitiveness in the export market the indirect effect results from the mediating role of trust a finding that makes a key contribution to the understanding of the role of relational governance in cross border relationships

legal systems institutional environment and food safety in the aftermath of the recent food scares the united states and the united kingdom face major challenges to maintain a safe food system regulators on opposite sides of the atlantic are facing rapid product and process innovations changes in consumption behaviors expansion of international trade and discovery of new food hazards the u k and the u s demonstrate different approaches to manage safety risks this article will focus on two issues the reasons behind the differences in the american and english policy approaches to food safety and how these differences impact u s safety outcomes a comparative legal framework is provided to understand how food safety is elicited in the economy and the incentive implications of the different institutional settings these two different lenses because they differ so teach us about the fundamental sources of safety the u k s prevalent doctrine is parliamentary sovereignty and leads to a regulatory framework while the u s is based on constitutional supremacy and relies on a legal framework the source of safety under a regulatory framework is the government bureaucracy while the u s legal framework provides an important point of departure the constitutional standing of the firm and the consumer we argue that while the u k system is structured to work through a regulatory framework to enhance the supply of safety in the economy the u s system is much less directed the legal system the subject of this article plays an important role not only in discouraging breach but also in acting as a check on the discretionary authority of the regulator in the end the u s and the u k may have equally safe food systems but what differs is the fundamental source of the safety supply the practical implication is that safety in the food system emerges from several sources not just through regulation therefore direct importation of u k style regulatory approaches may not be effective within a u s constitutional setting