the litigious plaintiff hypothesis case selection and resolution the process through which cases are selected for litigation cannot be ignored because it yields a set of lawsuits and plaintiffs that is far from a random selection either of potential claims or of potential claimants we present a theoretical framework for understanding the operation of this suit selection process and its relationship to the underlying distribution of potential claims and claimants the model has implications for the trial rate and the plaintiff win rate at trial our empirical analysis using data on over 200 000 federal civil litigations yields results that are strongly consistent with the theory

country of origin effects on product evaluations this article reviews the literature regarding the effect of country of origin on buyer evaluations of products the issue is important for countries especially resource poor developing countries that need to increase manufactured exports and for firms that source products in countries different from where sold marketing inferences are drawn and implications for future research are developed

multinationality and firm performance the moderating role of r d and marketing capabilities researchers in international business have long been interested in understanding the relationship between the multinationality of a firm and its market performance this article contributes to this research stream by incorporating firm heterogeneity in examining the multinationality performance relationship the findings based on a time series cross sectional analysis of firms from 12 different industries over a seven year period indicate that the impact of multinationality on both financial and operational performance is moderated by firm s r d and marketing capabilities

assessing the impact of country of origin on product evaluations a new methodological perspective a new methodological approach for examining the impact of country of origin on product evaluations is proposed it takes the form of a multiattribute attitudinal model analyzed by means of a system

experiential knowledge and cost in the internationalization process using a behavioral approach this study identifies and delineates components of experiential knowledge in the internationalization process three hypotheses are developed and tested they center ar

the role of patent rights in mergers consolidation in plant biotechnology few micro level empirical papers have addressed the impact of the patent system on industry structure using firm level patent data for public and private firms in plant biotechnology we develop a measure of patent enforceability duration models show that patent statistics are a useful predictor of the timing of merger activity we find that patent enforceability is an important factor influencing the likelihood of mergers mergers in plant biotechnology may be partially motivated by the enforcement of patent rights when firms have overlapping technologies some of the merger activity may be explained by attempts to avoid mutually blocking technology as exemplified in the case of roundup ready corn

a theory of international new ventures a decade of research oviatt and mcdougall s jibs article identified and defined international new ventures invs and their prominent role in the global marketplace the article spurred worldwide interest in invs by raising questions about the validity and efficacy of existing theory especially about the uppsala process model of internationalization the article also laid an important theoretical foundation for research into international entrepreneurship ie where younger and wellestablished companies use their entrepreneurial activities to create value as they internationalize their operations this paper reviews oviatt and mcdougall s original propositions highlighting their important contributions to the field the paper also highlights the progress made in research using oviatt and mcdougall s framework the major debates that persist about the nature and role of invs the source of their competitive advantages and the key issues to be explored in future research

bargaining with asymmetric information an empirical study of plea negotiations this paper empirically investigates how sentences to be assigned at trial impact plea bargaining the analysis is based on the model of bargaining with asymmetric information by bebchuk 1984 i provide conditions for the nonparametric identification of the model propose a consistent nonparametric estimator and implement it using data on criminal cases from north carolina employing the estimated model i evaluate how different sentencing reforms affect the outcome of criminal cases my results indicate that lower mandatory minimum sentences could greatly reduce the total amount of incarceration time assigned by the courts but may increase conviction rates in contrast the broader use of non incarceration sentences for less serious crimes reduces the number of incarceration convictions but has a very small effect over the total assigned incarceration time i also consider the effects of a ban on plea bargains depending on the case characteristics over 20 percent of the defendants who currently receive incarceration sentences would be acquitted if plea bargains were forbidden

distinction between intermediate and finished products in intra firm trade abstract although intra firm trade has been viewed as associated with vertical integration which exploits opportunities for exchange between inherently dissimilar economies it is more common between developed countries where horizontal integration is expected to dominate using unique data from 1974 to 1990 on swedish firms application of a tobit model explains variations in majority owned manufacturing affiliates internal imports of intermediate and finished goods on the basis of firms international organization of production effects which are unobservable in aggregate figures show up only when finished and intermediate goods are separated

country of origin effects for uni national and bi national products this study examines the effects of country of origin and brand name cues on consumer evaluations of uni national and bi national products and estimates the perceived values of such cues from personal interviews with a regional quota sample of household residents the study found the salience of country of origin in product evaluations under within subject experimental design finally managerial implications are discussed in regards to international branding and sourcing strategies

a three stage theory of international expansion the link between multinationality and performance in the service sector it is generally assumed that the performance of a firm improves with greater multinationality yet recent empirical studies have shown both a u shaped relationship which suggests an initially negative effect of international expansion on performance before the positive returns of international expansion are realized and an inverted u shaped relationship which suggests that international expansion beyond an optimal level is again detrimental to performance and results in a negative slope this paper proposes a new unified three stage theory of international expansion that incorporates both concepts in a sigmoid hypothesis it then tests this on data from 11 service industries highlighting the difference between knowledge based and capital intensive service sectors

the eclectic paradigm of international production a restatement and some possible extensions this article reviews some of the criticisms directed towards the eclectic paradigm of international production over the past decade and restates its main tenets the second part of the article considers a number of possible extensions of the paradigm and concludes by asserting that it remains a robust general framework for explaining and analysing not only the economic rationale of economic production but many organisational and impact issues in relation to mne activity as well

the role of product specific factors in intra firm trade of u s manufacturing multinational corporations this study examines the role of major product specific factors in the product patterns of intra firm trade of u s manufacturing mncs using pooled time series 1982 86 cross sectional nineteen products regression analysis this study finds that the technology intensity of a product has a strong positive effect on the propensity of the product to intra firm trade in contrast the economies of scale level appears to have a constraining effect on the propensity finally the vertical integration intensity and the international production intensity are found to have no significant bearings on the propensity

the causes of bargaining failure evidence from major league baseball abstract final offer arbitration in major league baseball provides an ideal setting for examining the empirical regularities that are associated with bargaining failure since final offers salaries and player statistics which provide the fundamental facts for the case are all readily available using data for players eligible for arbitration for 1990 93 we conduct a wide variety of empirical tests regarding the relationship between aggressive offers and arbitration outcomes we find that aggressive offers by players trigger arbitration and that more aggressive offers are associated with inferior financial outcomes in arbitration overall clubs appear to outperform players in arbitration unexpectedly high or low offers are less common for players who have previously been through arbitration which suggests that learning occurs our results are inconsistent with simple one sided asymmetric information models of arbitration the results are more consistent with an optimism model or a model in which so

internationalization and performance degree duration and scale of operations we assess the theoretical underpinnings and associated empirical findings of the three stage sigmoid curve relationship between degree of internationalization doi and performance by re examining the results reported in one of the prominent studies in the literature we further conduct our own analyses of 23 474 observations of 2 620 us manufacturing firms over the period 1976 2008 and account for self selection of firms into different degrees of internationalization by using a generalized propensity score estimator both sets of results show that the relationship between doi and performance conforms to a mostly negative sigmoid curve and does not support the three stage theorization further examination reveals that two major conceptual and empirical shortcomings underlie the disparity between the theoretical predictions of the three stage model and these empirical findings first whereas theory relies overwhelmingly on enhanced scale of operations as a causal mechanism through which internationalization contributes to performance empirical studies preclude proper identification of scale related benefits second theory and empirics tend to confuse temporary difficulties experienced upon entry into international markets with examining the benefits realizable at different levels of doi regardless of the firm s short term difficulties in realizing those benefits our empirical results show that correcting for each of these shortcomings contributes to diminishing the theory empirics gap

internationalising in small incremental or larger steps we argue that companies may enter foreign environments either incrementally as suggested by long established theory or by taking larger steps that may result in lower initial performance but through learning and experience lead to increased performance in future expansions this idea is corroborated by the experience of dutch companies entering into central and eastern europe we also find that expansion steps may be too large thereby limiting the exploration of foreign environments our study suggests that sequential internationalisation strategies do still matter and that companies have to balance exploitation and exploration in internationalisation

customer evaluation of products in a global market marketing scholars interest in the influence of source countries on product evaluations has intensified during the past twenty five years as this research tradition has evolved the literature has gradually gained more depth and sophistication nevertheless research in this area lacks a common conceptual framework furthermore research priorities with regard to the role of this area of inquiry within the broader field of consumer behavior marketing and general business decisions have not been made clear this article rationalizes the buying decision processes within the context of source country influences and offers a conceptual framework for further development in addition it links country level considerations to firm level decisionmaking thus providing a foundation for meaningful managerial decisions

the selection hypothesis and the relationship between trial and plaintiff victory this paper develops implications of the selection hypothesis of priest and klein for the relationship between trial rates and plaintiff win rates i find strong evidence for the selection hypothesis in estimated relationships between trial rates and plaintiff win rates at trial across case types and judges i then structurally estimate the model on judge data yielding estimates of the model s major parameters the decision standard the degree of stake asymmetry and the uncertainty parameter for each of three major case types contracts property rights and torts

the impact of information and communication technology adoption on multinational firm boundary decisions this article evaluates the effect of adopting internet enabled information and communication technology ict adoption on the decision to reorganize production across national borders foreign boundary decision by multinational enterprises mnes using a transaction cost framework we argue that ict adoption influences foreign boundary decisions by lowering coordination costs both internally and externally for the firm we propose that the heterogeneity in the technology s characteristics namely complexity and the production processes degree of codifiability moderate this influence using a difference in differences methodology and exploiting the richness of confidential us census bureau microdata we find that overall ict adoption is positively associated with greater likelihood of in house production as measured by increases in intra firm trade shares furthermore we find that more complex forms of ict are associated with larger increases in intra firm trade shares finally our results indicate that mnes in industries in which production specifications are more easily codified in an electronic format are less likely to engage in intra firm relative to arm s length trade following ict adoption

the dynamics of the liability of foreignness a global study of survival in financial services we study the impact of foreignness on survival in interbank currency trading worldwide over the period 1974 93 in particular we develop hypotheses on the behavior of the liability of foreignness over time and on the consequences of evolving sources of firm level competitive advantage on this liability we test these hypotheses on the population of 2667 market making trading rooms located in 47 countries worldwide that either existed in 1974 or entered the industry between 1974 and 1993 the results show that there is a liability of foreignness and that it changes over time further strategic and organizational factors such as the adoption of technology by these firms and their mode of internal control significantly influenced survival as did location related factors such as the intensity of local and foreign competition 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

international corporate diversification market valuation and size adjusted evidence errunza and senbet es 7 analyze the effects of international operations on the market value of the firm both at theoretical and empirical levels the theoretical model which is largely heuristic exploits the costly supply adjustment of multinational firms mncs in providing international portfolio diversification services to investors who face differential cost barriers to direct holdings of assets across national boundaries mncs compete as financial intermediaries to undo the barriers so that in equilibrium profits are driven out mncs and pure domestic firms sell at an equivalent risk adjusted return however costly financial intermediation and the associated relative efficiency leads to a positive valuation effect for mncs relative to purely domestic firms further the equilibrium analysis implies that demand side investor barriers to international capital flows alone are inconsequential to the valuation of mncs in their pure financial role but that the interaction with the supply side costs are necessary to produce a valuation effect at the corporate level es subject the theory to an empirical analysis in a value based approach by employing a variant of tobin s 17 qratio the analysis controlling for industrial market power suggests that the relationship between the excess valuation and the degree of international involvement doi has magnified over periods characterized by severe u s government controls vis a vis the more recent periods in this paper we formalize the theoretical argument by viewing indirect portfolio diversification by mncs as a means of completing the international capital market we employ a paradigm in the unanimity literature and formally characterize the equilibrium in which there is a rationale for mnc financial intermediation we then perform an expanded empirical study by employing generalized least squares and maximum likelihood procedures since the positive relationship between excess valuation and doi as suggested in es 7 might be attributed to the so called small firm or size and the p e effects the test methodology controls for such effects also the traditional literature has relied upon foreign sales percentage as a proxy for doi in view of the well recognized limitations of this proxy we employ four different measures of international

effects of consumer preferences for foreign sourced products when deciding on overseas production locations the manager must take into account not only resource and cost benefits but the effect that country of origin may have on consumer evaluations an experiment conducted by a telephone survey procedure examined country of origin perceptions of twelve countries and eight products using both perceived quality and choice measures as hypothesized preferences were found to be more product specific for industrialized than less developed countries in addition hypotheses that performance risk and brand moderate the effects of country were upheld under most conditions

export and reverse investment strategic implications for newly industrialized countries multinational companies in a newly industrialized countries face a dilemma of whether and when they should engage in u s manufacturing this study investigates consumer evaluations of product quality and purchase intent of two electronic products currently imported into the u s from a company in a newly industrialized country and one electronic product currently not manufactured by the same company the results suggest that reverse investment in the u s may be a viable strategic alternative for companies in newly industrialized country traditionally engaged only in export activities if they pay careful attention to price and retail distribution in the u s

multinationality and performance among british manufacturing companies over the period 1972 84 profitability among 304 large british manufacturing companies was positively related to their degree of multinationality moreover increases in overseas production were strongly associated with increases in sales and profitability the profitability of multinational growth over the whole period was independent of its destination supporting the view that the primary source of the superior performance of multinationals was competitive advantage rather than the higher rate of profit in the industries of other countries

from the editors endogeneity in international business research this essay builds on the exposition by thomas et al and focuses on analyzing cause and effect in international business research we attempt to explain how endogeneity problems occur and why they are so prevalent in international business research in a non technical fashion we then discuss the importance of explicitly identifying how the chosen research design best approximates a randomized controlled experiment finally we provide some guidelines on achieving this goal and emphasize the practices that seem most relevant to jibs reviewers in evaluating high quality international business research

sourcing strategies of european and japanese multinationals a comparison based on a typology of sourcing strategies this study identifies various sourcing patterns adopted by european and japanese multinational manufacturing firms in serving the u s market the study has found that the product s market performance is not at all related to its life cycle stage in world trade or to production location but is positively related to the internal components sourcing and negatively related to the product adaptation the findings strongly support levitt s call for a global product

causes of the difficulties in internationalization we study the causes of the difficulties faced by firms when they internationalize in search of new markets we build on the resource based theory to argue that the difficulties in internationalization can be separated into three main sets based on their relationship to advantage loss of advantage provided by resources transferred abroad creation of a disadvantage by resources transferred abroad and lack of complementary resources required to operate abroad in each set we further distinguish difficulties that are specific to a firm from those that are common to a set of firms we argue that only a few of the resulting types of difficulties of internationalization are exclusive to the cross border expansion and propose solutions that address the root cause of each type

trial and settlement a study of high low agreements this paper presents the first systematic theoretical and empirical study of high low agreements in civil litigation a high low agreement is a private contract that if signed by litigants before the conclusion of a trial constrains the future damages payment to lie between a minimum and a maximum amount whereas the existing literature describes litigation as a choice between trial and settlement our examination of high low agreements a relatively new phenomenon in civil litigation introduces partial or incomplete settlements in our theoretical model trial is both costly and risky when litigants have divergent subjective beliefs and are mutually optimistic about their trial prospects cases may fail to settle in these cases high low agreements can be in the litigants mutual interest because they limit the risk of outlier damages awards while still allowing for an optimal degree of speculation using unique insurance claims data from a national insurance company we describe the features of these agreements and empirically investigate the factors that may influence whether litigants discuss or enter into high low agreements our empirical findings are consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model we also explore extensions and alternative explanations for high low agreements including their use to mitigate excessive offsetting trial expenditures

mnes as border crossing multi location enterprises the role of discontinuities in geographic space spurred by the classic work of dunning mne location has become the focus of a growing body of research in the field in this paper we argue that international business ib research examining the spatial dimension has serious weaknesses stemming from its traditional assumption of the country as the location unit of analysis while border crossing remains the key research context of ib placing it within a general spatial framework that recognizes both international and subnational spatial heterogeneity opens up vast new vistas for research analyzing mnes as border crossing multi location enterprises allows the researcher to distinguish between discrete border effects and continuous distance effects and undertake a more fine grained analysis of location within such analysis national borders may appear as qualitative discontinuities in space that is points at which spatial heterogeneity changes abruptly however subnational spatial heterogeneity is often the characteristic that drives firm strategy as mnes decide to locate in particular agglomerations and not at random locations within a country the complex firms that ib scholars study typically include multiple units within the same country so that a complete analysis requires considering both subnational distance effects as well as international border effects

court politics the political economy of tort awards abstract we investigate the forces that explain why trial awards differ across the united states in 23 states judges are elected and in 10 they are elected via partisan elections elections have two important effects first defendants are often out of state nonvoters while plaintiffs are typically in state voters we predict therefore that elected judges will redistribute wealth from out of state businesses to in state plaintiffs second the realities of campaign financing require judges to seek and accept campaign funding from trial lawyers who uniformly are interested in larger awards we hypothesize that these two forces cause awards to be larger in states where the judiciary is elected rather than appointed we also hypothesize that the demand for redistribution will increase as poverty increases and thus that awards will be larger in states with greater poverty using a sample of over 7 000 cases across 48 of the 50 states we find significant evidence in support of these hypotheses

multinational companies and international trade the impact of intrafirm shipment on u s foreign trade 1977 1982 this paper presents new data on the trading activities of multinational companies estimates of intrafirm shipments are developed for 1977 and 1982 from trade data contained in the u s government benchmark surveys of direct foreign investment the paper shows that intrafirm shipments comprised a significant share of u s international trade and contributed to the deficit pressure on the u s trade balance

experiential knowledge and costs in the internationalization process using a behavioral approach this study identifies and delineates components of experiential knowledge in the internationalization process three hypotheses are developed and tested they center around the lack of knowledge in the areas of foreign business foreign institutions and firm internationalization as well as the effect that this lack of knowledge has on managers perceived cost in the internationalization process with the help of a lisrel based structural model the three hypotheses are tested on a sample of 362 service firms the analysis shows that lack of internationalization knowledge has a strong impact on the lack of both business and institutionalization but there is no direct effect of lack of internationalization knowledge on perceived cost of internationalization

explaining the formation of international new ventures the limits of theories from international business research abstract international new ventures invs represent a growing and important type of start up an inv is defined as a business organization that from inception seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries oviatt and mcdougall 1994 their increasing prevalence and important role in international competition indicates a need for greater understanding of these new ventures oviatt and mcdougall 1994 logitech as described in a case study by alahuhta 1990 is a vivid example of an inv its founders were from two different countries and had a global vision for the company from its inception the venture which produces peripheral devices for personal computers established headquarters in both switzerland and the u s manufacturing and r d were split between the u s and switzerland and then quickly spread to taiwan and ireland the venture s first commercial contract was with a japanese company using 24 case studies of invs we found that their formation process is not explained by existing theories from the field of international business specifically neither monopolistic advantage theory product cycle theory stage theory of internationalization oligopolistic reaction theory nor internalization theory can explain the formation process of invs these theories fail because they assume that firms become international long after they have been formed and they therefore highlight large mature firms they also focus too much on the firm level and largely ignore the individual and small group level of analysis i e the entrepreneur and his or her network of business alliances we propose that an explanation for the formation process of invs must answer three questions 1 who are the founders of invs 2 why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries and 3 what form do their international business activities take who are the founders of invs we argue that founders of invs are individuals who see opportunities from establishing ventures that operate across national borders they are alert to the possibilities of combining resources from different national markets because of the competencies networks knowledge and background that they have developed from their earlier activities following the logic of the resource based view of the firm we argue that the possession of these competencies is not matched by other entrepreneurs only the entrepreneur possessing these competencies is able to combine a particular set of resources across national borders and form a given inv why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries the founders of invs recognize they must create international business competencies from the time of venture formation otherwise the venture may become path dependent on the development of domestic competencies and the entrepreneur will find it difficult to change strategic direction when international expansion eventually becomes necessary as the founder of one inv explained the advantage of starting internationally is that you establish an international spirit from the very beginning mamis 1989 38 what form do their international business activities take founders of invs prefer to use hybrid structures i e strategic alliances and networks for their international activities as a way to overcome the usual poverty of resources at the time of start up this study has important implications for the practice of management in financing decisions relating to invs venture capitalists and other venture financiers should look for entrepreneurs who have a global vision international business competence and an established international network when entrepreneurs start invs they should create hybrid structures to preserve scarce resources finally given the path dependence of competence development founders of new ventures should consider whether establishing a domestic new venture with plans to later internationalize will be as successful a strategy as establishing a new venture that is international from inception

a cross cultural study of made in concepts cross cultural studies of the perceptions of countries of origin by industrial users have been few but they are important because of their managerial implications for multinational firms this study uses data obtained from american and french directors of purchasing of major industrial firms concerning their perceptions of 5 major made in concepts after the data were corrected for response bias results show both how the respondents perceive the made in concepts and the differences between the american and french perceptions

consumer animosity in the global value chain the effect of international production shifts on willingness to purchase hybrid products the escalation of international offshoring and outsourcing in recent years has resulted in a proliferation of hybrid products for the typical multinational enterprise with multiple country affiliations for branding design manufacture assembly and parts sourcing however little has been written regarding the impact of consumer animosity on such hybrid activities or the role of universal values in a hybrid production animosity model in this paper we extend the consumer animosity literature to a firm s global integration activities for hybrid products we posit that consumers willingness to purchase wtp a complex hybrid product is negatively affected by partial production shifts to an animosity evoking country and that self reported animosity toward the country predicts lower wtp above and beyond consumer ethnocentrism and perceived product quality in addition we hypothesize a negative relationship between conservation values and wtp hybrid foreign products and a positive relationship between openness values and wtp hybrid foreign products a study of 319 us consumers revealed consistent support for these hypotheses with the exception of the conservation values wtp relationship practical implications and future research directions are discussed

estimating a bargaining model with asymmetric information evidence from medical malpractice disputes this article uses a unique data set on medical malpractice disputes in florida to estimate the parameters of a bargaining game with asymmetric information the main findings of the article suggest that the bargaining game can replicate most of the qualitative and quantitative features of the data the article also simulates alternative policy regimes to quantify the effects of possible tort reforms such as imposing limits on contingency fees and caps on jury awards

the born global firm an entrepreneurial and capabilities perspective on early and rapid internationalization our 2004 journal of international business studies article innovation organizational capabilities and the born global firm provided a framework for the phenomenon of early and rapid internationalization among young entrepreneurial firms this work can be characterized as an integration of marketing entrepreneurial and capability based thinking around exporting positioned as the born global exporter the article also reported findings from a national study of start up firms that expanded abroad early in their evolution in the present commentary we reflect on the contributions of the 2004 article review the scholarship on the topic over the past decade and offer suggestions for future inquiry while the incidence of early internationalization by firms was a novel concept two decades ago today such firms are found in abundance in many countries yet many unresolved research questions remain including the crucial topic of what happens to born global firms as they grow and mature over time similarly the issue of why some firms internationalize early others late in their evolution and still others choose to remain local is a fundamental question for international business scholarship

international diversification and firm performance the s curve hypothesis a proposed theoretical framework for the study of multinationality and performance includes both benefits and costs of geographic expansion over different phases of internationalization data on 1 489 japanese firms over 12 years show a consistent horizontal x s shaped x relationship between multinationality and performance further firms investing more heavily in intangible assets such as technology and advertising achieved greater profitability gains from growth in foreign direct investment our framework and findings highlight complexity and temporal dynamics

country image and consumer based brand equity relationships and implications for international marketing this paper examines the relationships between consumers country level and product level images of a country and the equity they associate with a brand from that country using canonical correlation analysis results from mallintercept surveys conducted in an australian state capital city indicated that the consumer based equity of a brand was significantly associated with both the macro and micro images of the country of origin of the brand the relationship between these two sets of constructs was found to be positive as well as product category specific furthermore each consumer based brand equity dimension contributed differently to the relationship according to the product category while the contribution of both country image dimensions macro and micro was also product category specific results also showed that cars as a product category are more sensitive to country image than televisions these findings have direct and important implications for international marketers

the relationship between offshore sourcing and innovativeness of u s multinational firms an empirical investigation in increasingly complex global competition u s multinational firms have stepped up imports under items 806 30 and 807 00 of the tariff schedules of the united states as a part of offshore sourcing of components and finished products to serve the u s market