reacting to rankings evidence from america s best hospitals rankings and report cards have become a popular way of providing information in a variety of domains i estimate the response to rankings in the hospital market and find that hospitals that improve their rank are able to attract significantly more patients the average hospital in my sample experiences a 5 change in non emergency medicare patient volume from year to year due to rank changes these findings have implications regarding the competitiveness of hospital markets and the effect that the dissemination of quality information in hospital markets can have on individual choice

peer conformity attention and heterogeneous implementation of practices in mnes how do subsidiaries respond to normative demands from both their headquarters and local external constituents we propose that subsidiaries pay varying levels of attention to demands depending on their peers norm conforming behavior resulting in heterogeneous practice implementation we study the implementation of 25 practices associated with three corporate social responsibility csr issues in 101 worldwide subsidiaries of a multinational enterprise mne consistent with the idea that attention is limited and therefore selective we find that external peers conformity to the csr norm directs subsidiaries attention toward the csr related demands of external constituents at the expense of the demands from the headquarters however internal peers conformity increases attention to both external and headquarters demands related to csr as higher attention levels result in higher practice implementation internal and external peers conformity drives the heterogeneity of practice implementation in the mne our results suggest the need to rethink the influence of peers conformity on subsidiaries implementation of practices as it not only triggers mimicry based on legitimacy but also and simultaneously a more strategic response based on internal and external competitive threats and attention allocation

rural electricity access in india in retrospect a critical rumination abstract despite the large scale efforts towards electrification in india since the time of independence approximately 45 million households still continue to be without electricity access this paper critically analyses the evolution of the process of rural electrification in india the factors that potentially determine the household electricity access and juxtaposed that with the policies adopted over three distinct time periods the pre independence period the period of state ownership and the post reforms period the paper then builds on the key insights that could be drawn from the evolution in retrospect and attempts to highlight key historical challenges that the electricity sector has been constantly grappling with the paper observes that during the early period of five year plans electricity was mainly used for productive input in agro industries and for irrigation household access was only given priority when it was started to be considered as a basic input in the 1980s with the enactment of the electricity act in 2003 the importance of electricity as an infrastructure for changing the rural landscape was felt based on the insights gained from the critical analysis of process of rural electrification in retrospect the paper provides specific inputs for policy making for rural electrification in india

health plan choice using a unique panel dataset of health plan choices and personal characteristics of employees at a single firm this paper provides estimates of price elasticities for health insurance plans in a managed competition setting estimated price elasticities are larger in absolute value than most previous estimates and the magnitude of the price elasticity suggests that there is a place for price competition in this market we also find evidence of transition costs in switching health plans for older and less healthy employees such differential responses to price may contribute to adverse selection in this market

legitimacy and multi level institutional environments implications for foreign subsidiary ownership structure in this study we examine from an institutional perspective the legitimacy rationale behind the choice of subsidiary ownership structure among multinational corporations mncs we suggest that when under a strong pressure to conform at the host country and local industry levels of their institutional environment mncs are likely to take a lower ownership stake in exchange for external legitimacy in the host country or local industry that their foreign subsidiaries are entering we also suggest that mncs are likely to take a higher ownership stake in response to strong internal pressure to sustain their internal legitimacy at the corporate level of their institutional environment we also propose that mncs are more likely to exchange ownership for legitimacy in local industries than in host countries and in local markets with a high level of political instability than in those with a low level of political instability these propositions are generally supported by our analysis of 4451 subsidiaries established by 898 japanese mncs that operated in 39 countries across 52 industries two digit sic between 1988 and 1999

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

mne institutional advantage how subunits shape transpose and evade host country institutions scholars increasingly emphasize the impact of institutions on multinational enterprises mnes but the opposite relationship has attracted less research that is mne agency in relation to institutions based on a comparative case study of six mnes from the united states and sweden this paper remedies this it explores and explicates mne subunits strategic responses to host country institutional constraints and opportunities in five different regions a new institutional approach is adopted which allows for an investigation of mne subunit agency in relation to normative and cognitive institutions as well as regulative ones this fine grained analysis reveals not only what kinds of responses mne subunits invoke but why and how they are able to respond we identify four strategic responses by which subunits shape transpose and evade institutions in the pursuit of competitive advantage innovation arbitrage circumvention and adaptation these responses are driven by three key enablers multinationality foreignness and institutional ambiguity that serve to enhance and heighten three mechanisms reflexivity role expectations and resources by linking the enablers and the mechanisms to specific types of strategic responses in a framework and typology the paper not only contributes to emerging research on the interplay between mnes institutions and strategy but to strategy practice

the effect of report cards on consumer choice in the health insurance market we test the effect of report cards on consumer choice in the hmo market federal employees were provided with report cards on a limited basis in 1995 and then on a widespread basis in 1996 exploiting this natural experiment we find that subjective measures of quality and coverage influence plan choices after controlling for plan premiums expected out of pocket expenses and service coverages the effect is stronger within a small sample of new hires compared to a larger sample of existing federal employees we also find evidence that report cards increase the price elasticity of demand for health insurance

information and subsidies complements or substitutes abstract does providing information about a product influence the impact of price subsidies on purchases this question is particularly relevant for health products in developing countries where both informational campaigns and price subsidies are common policy instruments we conduct a field experiment in zambia and find that providing information about a new version of a product significantly increases the impact of price subsidies on take up taken alone the information manipulation has no significant impact on demand while the price subsidy substantially increases demand however the evaluation of either intervention in isolation fails to capture the significant complementarity between the two

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

phasing the operation mode of foreign subsidiaries reaping the benefits of multinationality through internal capital markets the lifetime of foreign equity partnerships is often limited research suggests that mncs abandon their local partners when the need for sharing ownership in foreign subsidiaries has diminished this study shows that mncs may abandon their local equity partners to reap the benefits of multinationality as mncs gain a competitive advantage from leveraging resources across borders they will initially benefit from sharing ownership with a local firm to embed their foreign subsidiaries in the local environment and access local resources more effectively later they will benefit from taking over the local partner s equity share to better embed their subsidiaries in the parent organization and transfer locally accessed resources to the mnc s other locations moderated mediation regressions provide evidence of such practice in the context of cross border transfers of capital resources this strategy seems to work as a corollary of our model panel regressions suggest that sharing ownership with local firms in a host country with a capital resource advantage is associated with appropriating more capital resources from the local debt market while abandoning these partner firms later is associated with transferring more capital resources from this host country via internal capital markets to other parts of the mnc

towards more realistic conceptualisations of foreign operation modes we address a long standing discrepancy between theory and practice regarding how firms choose use and modify their modes of operation in foreign markets theory typically treats foreign operation modes as choices between well specified discrete alternatives observation of business practice reveals a messier reality we commonly observe mode packages within mode adjustments and mode role changes yet by and large these aspects of international business development have been relatively ignored in the literature and in theoretical and empirical research we propose richer and more realistic conceptualisations of foreign operation modes and look at their implications for theory and practice

price elasticity and adverse selection in the demand for supplementary health insurance probit regression estimates show the effects of the price of insurance anticipated medical expenditures and other factors on reported decisions about purchasing hypothetically offered supplementary insurance policies the demand estimates can characterize how much supplemental insurance would be purchased under different tax policies affecting health insurance purchases although eliminating the current tax subsidy to insurance is shown to decrease demand the results indicate a substantial demand for supplementary insurance even in the absence of present tax incentives however our results on adverse selection raise concerns about the potential stability of supplemental insurance markets

pricing and welfare in health plan choice premiums in health insurance markets frequently do not reflect individual differences in costs either because consumers have private information or because prices are not risk rated this creates inefficiencies when consumers self select into plans we develop a simple econometric model to study this problem and estimate it using data on small employers we find a welfare loss of 2 11 percent of coverage costs compared to what is feasible with risk rating only about one quarter of this is due to inefficiently chosen uniform contribution levels we also investigate the reclassification risk created by risk rating individual incremental premiums finding only a modest welfare cost

election cycles and electricity provision evidence from a quasi experiment with indian special elections abstract we present evidence from india showing that state governments induce electoral cycles in electricity service provision our data and research strategy allow us to build on models of political business cycles and targeted distribution in two important ways first we demonstrate that by manipulating the flow of critical inputs into economic activity like electricity elected leaders can influence economic outcomes even in contexts where they have constrained fiscal capacity second we identify the effect of elections on electricity provision by focusing on special elections held for exogenous reasons our results show that state governments induce substantive increases in electricity service to constituencies that hold special elections manipulation of the power supply is stronger in contested constituencies and during special elections held in states where the government commands only a small majority overall we find no evidence of positive welfare effects from the electoral manipulation of electricity supply

resource dependency and institutional theory perspectives on direct and indirect export choices this article develops and tests resource dependency and institutional theory arguments to explain two choices facing sme owner managers 1 the decision whether to export or not and 2 if the firm exports the choice between a direct to customers abroad and an indirect using another firm as intermediary export mode binomial logistic regressions on our sample of 871 dutch smes suggest that institutional theory perspectives owner managers perception of the increased international presence of their domestic competitors customers and suppliers and perceptions of increased use of foreign suppliers explain the decision to export while resource dependency theory arguments owner managers perception of the favorability of access to knowledge and technology of production costs and of access to capital in the home market guide the choice between direct and indirect export modes

beyond entry mode choice explaining the conversion of joint ventures into wholly owned subsidiaries in the people s republic of china while there is a vast amount of research on firms choice of ownership form when entering a foreign market little attention has been paid to changes in ownership forms of operation abroad after initial entry using transaction cost economics and institutional theory we identify a number of factors that may help to explain the likelihood of foreign firms converting their joint venture with a local firm into a wholly owned subsidiary we formulate a number of hypotheses and test them against data collected through a questionnaire survey of managers representing foreign subsidiaries in the people s republic of china prc that are run either as international joint ventures ijvs or as wholly owned foreign subsidiaries wfoes that have recently been converted from ijvs into a wfoe the paper contributes to research by showing that transaction cost based thinking is useful for explaining not only the initial choice of ownership mode when entering a new market but also the potential subsequent changes of this ownership mode by combining transaction cost theory with arguments from institutional theory the study identifies a number of factors that contribute to explaining post entry changes of foreign firms ownership forms in the prc and provides empirical evidence of this phenomenon

control modes in international service operations the propensity to franchise what determines a service firm s organizational choice between equity based control and franchising this question which has elicited some theoretical answers and a few empirical tests in a domestic setting has never been addressed in an international context before this study explains the mode of control chosen in terms of a theoretical framework which borrows from agency theory and transaction cost analysis the propensity to franchise internationally was found to be directly related to i monitoring costs associated with geographical and cultural distance between the principal franchisor and its foreign agents franchisees ii the principal s international experience and iii the degree of host countries contextual uncertainty but inversely related to the service firm level of brand name asset specificity

sustainable model for financial viability of decentralized biomass gasifier based power projects this paper made a modest attempt for designing a sustainable model for financial viability of biomass gasifier power projects for enhancing electricity access in india and other developing countries for long term sustainability of distributed generation projects in remote rural areas viability from both project implementing agency pia and the end users need to be ensured the minimum required prices of electricity from both pia and end user perspective have been estimated while for pia the cost recovery is the key for viability the affordability to pay the electricity cost is crucial for the end users analysis carried out in this paper on the basis of data obtained from operational projects implemented in india reveal that it is essential to operate the system at a higher capacity utilization factor while this can be achieved though creating convergence with locally relevant economic activity it is also observed that micro enterprises cannot pay beyond a certain price of electricity to keep it sustainable this paper sets forth a case for developing a regulatory mechanism to extend the tariff fixation for the projects and providing cross subsidies to ensure long term sustainability of off grid project

global strategy and multinationals entry mode choice this paper makes a case directed towards establishing the importance of global strategic considerations in choosing multinationals entry mode specifically it is our contention that beyond the environmental and transaction specific factors well established in the literature to affect the entry mode decision we should also consider the strategic relationship a multinational envisages between its operations across borders in reaching this decision after incorporating various global strategic variables into an eclectic framework of the factors influencing the entry mode choice this paper tests both the validity of the overall framework and the importance of each entry mode determinant in differ entiating among entry modes this is done based on ninety six multinational managers responses to a survey questionnaire concerning their entry mode decision experiences the results suggest that an express incorporation of global strategic variables into an analysis of the entry mode decision is warranted

the impact of corruption on entry strategy evidence from telecommunication projects in emerging economies with globalization and the growth in emerging economies multinational enterprises mnes now frequently confront challenges associated with corrupt governments already a growing body of research has demonstrated that corruption significantly reduces a countrys aggregate inflows of foreign direct investment through its effects on firm performance we move the analysis of corruption from aggregate financial flows toward managerial theory and practice by examining how firms adjust their strategy for entering foreign markets in corrupt environments and how different types of corruption affect firms choices building on institutional theory we predict that mnes will respond to pervasive and arbitrary corruption in a host country by selecting particular types of equity and nonequity modes of entry using data on 220 telecommunications development projects in 64 emerging economies we find that firms adapt to the pressures of corruption via short term contracting and entry into joint ventures we also find that the arbitrariness surrounding corrupt transactions has a significant impact on firms decisions in addition to the overall level of corruption in contrast to extant research we show that mnes use nonequity entry modes or partnering as an adaptive strategy to participate in markets despite the presence of corruption

employees willingness to adopt a foreign functional language in multilingual organizations the role of linguistic identity language holds a central role in sustainable international expansion for multinationals the choice of the functional language can facilitate or hinder communication between headquarters and subsidiary locations in order to communicate effectively with the parent organization host country employees often have to adopt a language that is not native to the subsidiary region we take a subsidiary employee perspective in presenting an interdisciplinary theoretical model of host country employees willingness to adopt a foreign language in multinational organizations the construct of linguistic identity shaped by the linguistic landscape of the host location is introduced as an important determinant in this process specifically the foreign functional language may pose a threat to the employees existing linguistic identity willingness to adopt the foreign functional language may depend upon the extent of this perceived threat we incorporate the effects of foreign language proficiency and individuals motivation for enhancement in the theoretical model both high proficiency in a foreign language and need for social economic and career enhancements can increase individuals willingness to adopt the foreign functional language finally we develop and present implications of the linguistic identity processes for entry mode location and language strategies

an evolutionary approach to understanding international business activity the co evolution of mnes and the institutional environment this paper examines the co evolution of mne activities and institutions external and internal to the firm we develop a theoretical framework for this analysis that draws on the more recent writings of douglass north on institutions as a response to complex forms of uncertainty associated with the rise in global economic interconnectedness and of richard nelson on the co evolution of technology and institutions we link historical changes in the character of mne activities to changes in the institutional environment and highlight the scope for firm level creativity and institutional entrepreneurship that may lead to co evolution with the environment we argue that the main drivers for institutional entrepreneurship are now found in the increasing autonomy of mne subsidiaries thus mne agency derives from more decentralized forms of experimentation in international corporate networks which competence creating nodes of new initiatives can co evolve with local institutions unlike most other streams of related literature our approach connects patterns of institutional change in wider business systems with more micro processes of variety generation and experimentation within and across individual firms this form of co evolutionary analysis is increasingly important to understanding the interrelationships between mne activities and public policy

mode of international entry an isomorphism perspective the determination of entry modes is examined using an institutional theory framework two sources of isomorphic pressures affect a strategic business unit s sbu entry mode choice 1 host country institutional environment and 2 internal institutional environment the parent organization sbus were hypothesized to adopt similar organizational forms structures policies and practices thus becoming isomorphic based on felt pressures to conform to behavioral norms within the environments the results indicated that sbus using wholly owned entry modes demonstrated high levels of internal parent isomorphism those using exporting joint ventures or licensing agreements demonstrated external isomorphism and those using multiple or mixed entry mode demonstrated low levels of isomorphic pressures

state ownership effect on firms fdi ownership decisions under institutional pressure a study of chinese outward investing firms this study investigates the effect of state ownership on chinese firms foreign direct investment fdi ownership decisions it adopts a political perspective to extend the application of institutional theory in international business research specifically it examines firms heterogeneous responses to external institutional processes during foreign market entry while taking into consideration the political affiliation of firms with the external institutions we argue that state ownership creates the political affiliation of a firm with its home country government which increases the firm s resource dependence on home country institutions while at the same time influencing its image as perceived by host country institutional constituents such resource dependence and political perception increase firms tendency to conform to rather than resist isomorphic institutional pressures we tested our hypotheses using primary data for 132 fdi entries made by chinese firms during 2000 2006 and we found that the effects of home regulatory host regulatory and host normative pressures on a firm to choose a joint ownership structure were stronger when the share of equity held by state entities in the firm was high

does price framing affect the consumer price sensitivity of health plan choice this paper provides field evidence on how price framing affects consumers decision to switch health plans in 2009 german federal regulation required insurers to express premium differences between standardized health plans in absolute euro values relative to a federal reference price rather than in percentage point payroll tax differences representative individual level panel data and aggregated health plan level panel data on the universe of health plans show that the reform strongly increased enrollees willingness to switch plans with demand elasticities increasing fourfold the salience of premium differences and the default premium are obviously key driving forces in the decision to switch insurers

high level politically connected firms corruption and analyst forecast accuracy around the world the international business ib literature has widely recognized political forces as major factors that complicate the strategic decisions of multinational enterprises mnes analyses by financial intermediaries can help to reduce the risk of information asymmetry caused by such factors using firm level data from 17 jurisdictions between 1997 and 2001 this study investigates the association between a firm s high level political connections and earnings forecasts made by financial analysts an important group of financial intermediaries we find that after controlling for other determinants of forecast accuracy analysts experience greater difficulty in predicting the earnings of firms with political connections than those of firms with no such connections however in jurisdictions in which corruption level is relatively high earnings forecast accuracy is influenced more by a firm s political connections our findings contribute to the ib literature by demonstrating that political connections exacerbate the information asymmetry between investors and managers and also that anti corruption measures can curb the adverse effect of political connections on the corporate information environment these findings bear the practical implication that mnes must consider political issues when making resource allocation decisions

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

interdependent behavior in foreign direct investment the multi level effects of prior entry and prior exit on foreign market entry this paper examines the interdependent foreign market entry decisions of multinational corporations mncs based on the argument that legitimacy and competition are two important forces in foreign market entry decisions we hypothesize that an mnc s market entry decisions are influenced by its own prior entry and prior exit decisions and those of other mncs we examine this general proposition at four levels of analysis the host country global industry an industry that spans host countries local industry an industry that is separately defined within each host country and parent firm level our analysis of a panel data of over 4000 market entry decisions that were made by japanese mncs shows that an mnc s market entry decision has a stronger inverted u shaped relationship with the prior entry and exit decisions of other mncs at the local industry level than the prior entry and exit decisions of other mncs at the host country and global industry levels we also find that both the prior entry and prior exit decisions of an mnc have a marginal influence on its own subsequent market entry decisions at the parent firm level

choosing an appropriate alliance governance mode the role of institutional cultural and geographical distance in international research development r d collaborations we identify a variety of r d alliance modes in a knowledge intensive industry e g pharmaceuticals and classify them into four ordered categories which go beyond the traditional binary equity vs non equity alliance classification this enriches our understanding of alliance governance structures and broadens the application of alliance modes in what is today a more complicated international r d collaboration setting we then explore national industry and firm factors that determine the selection of an appropriate r d alliance governance mode using a sample of 237 international alliance deals the likelihood of using a more integrated alliance governance mode decreases as the difference or distance between nations of the partner firms increases in terms of human capital and cultural distance on the other hand a greater geographic and institutional difference is positively associated with the selection of more integrated alliance governance modes furthermore firms in the research stage are more likely to use a more integrated governance mode as opposed to firms in the development stage these findings advance research on alliance governance structure they reveal the factors affecting the r d alliance governance mode choice

how do corporate governance model differences affect foreign direct investment in emerging economies this study examines the impact of national corporate governance models on inward foreign direct investment fdi in emerging economies we consider three potential mechanisms and conduct an empirical test of how family ownership and control in large group affiliated firms in taiwan affect joint venture investment from us and japanese firms during the period 1988 1998 results support the neo institutional perspective of fdi developed in this study the home country corporate governance models are likely to shape foreign firms choice of local partners

quality disclosure and certification theory and practice this essay reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on quality disclosure and certification after comparing quality disclosure with other quality assurance mechanisms and describing a brief history of quality disclosure we address two sets of theoretical issues first why don t sellers voluntarily disclose through a process of unraveling and given the lack of unraveling is it desirable to mandate seller disclosure second when we rely on certifiers to act as the intermediary of quality disclosure do certifiers necessarily report unbiased and accurate information we further review empirical evidence on these issues with a particular focus on healthcare education and finance the empirical review covers quality measurement the effect of third party disclosure on consumer choice and seller behavior as well as the economics of certifiers jel d18 k32 l15 m31

estimating housing consumption adjustments from panel data abstract although time series analysis of panel data has generally not been used in the study of housing demand longitudinal analysis provides the opportunity to increase our understanding of housing adjustments over time in particular time series analysis of housing choice using panel data permits appropriate use of both time series and cross sectional variation in housing prices provides the opportunity to separate age and cohort effects and facilitates integration of mobility analysis with housing choice analysis in this paper a longitudinal discrete choice model of the choice of housing tenure and size is presented and estimated using panel data this conditional fixed effects multinomial logit model developed by g chamberlain is computationally convenient and successfully accounts for time invariant differences among households while household specific unobserved characteristics can be readily accounted for in a linear model this is not the case for a quantitative choice model the use of a model of the type employed here thus provides a crucial link between time series analysis and a discrete choice setting estimation of this model yields results with respect to age and price that differ from results obtained from individual and pooled cross sections this provides support for the plausible proposition that housing choices are intertemporally correlated and more importantly emphasizes the importance of accounting for this correlation to estimate consistently the parameters of housing choice models

the role of expatriates in the management of interdependence complexity and risk in multinational corporations a multilevel analysis of environmental country and organizational affiliate factors is used to explain the differential utilization rates of u s nationals in overseas professional positions of a major u s bank with 84 branches in 43 countries the research suggests that to the extent that the affiliates of a multinational corporation operate in environments with differing levels of political risk cultural distance and competition and have operations with different levels of complexity and interdependence a single staffing policy may be inappropriate

sme internationalization modes in the german biotechnology industry the influence of imitation network position and international experience in this article we reveal how network enabled imitation processes impact young small and medium sized enterprises smes internationalization and how a firm s network position as well as its experiential knowledge moderate imitative behavior in internationalization modes building on institutional network and organizational learning theory we suggest that firms imitate the internationalization modes of their peers in their network moreover we argue that a firm s imitation propensity depends on two important boundary conditions network position and past experience applying a longitudinal event history analysis to analyze the complete population of 977 german biotechnology firms between 1996 and 2012 largely supports our hypotheses our findings reveal that firms imitate the internationalization modes of their peers in a precise manner this implies that the imitation of others can initially serve as a presumably convenient low risk shortcut to a planned or experience driven internationalization process furthermore our results confirm that this imitation process is channeled through formal network relations and that central network positions that are associated with superior information access enhanced legitimacy and status may promote deviating behavior acknowledging the interplay of different learning sources our findings additionally show that initial internationalization mode choices of smes can have a lasting effect on subsequent internationalization behavior overall our study contributes to a more nuanced view of imitative behavior of internationalizing smes and its boundary conditions and highlights future research opportunities that exist for considering imitation and its implications in international business research

getting to global an evolutionary perspective of brand expansion in international markets the globalization of brands is an evolutionary process that is determined by environmental and firm level factors including a brand s position in the firm s global brand architecture a framework is developed incorporating aspects of environmental uncertainty mimetic behavior and experiential learning as they relate to the globalization of brands global brand architecture is introduced as an important strategic consideration of a brand s position and stage of internationalization the hypotheses are tested within the context of the global automotive industry employing an event history analysis with time varying covariates the results reveal complex effects with respect to the role of market attractiveness experiential learning and mimetic behavior in globalization patterns overall this study suggests that firms can accelerate the process of creating global brands if they enter the three major continents in the early stages of international expansion

tax policy and the demand for health insurance estimates of the price and income elasticities of demand for health insurance are derived from econometric estimates of the parameters of a discrete choice model of health insurance demand using data from a survey of plan choices among a sample of federal government employees the estimated income elasticity 0 01 is similar to most previous estimates the estimated price elasticity 0 16 is in absolute value much less than the earlier previous estimates and somewhat less than the more recent previous estimates possible causes of these differences in price elasticity estimates are discussed

the mnc as an agent of change for host country institutions fdi and corruption most empirical research examines how the institutional environment of corruption shapes the behavior of multinational corporations mncs in this study we would like to highlight the other side of the picture how the presence of mncs may shape the institutional environment of corruption over time we propose three avenues through which the mncs may have an impact on its host institutions regulatory pressure effect demonstration effect and professionalization effect based on extensive data on foreign direct investment and corruption for a large sample of countries over the last 30 years the empirical results are generally consistent with our hypothesis such findings provide a glimmer of hope for the future of the host country where corruption is prevalent

paying for health insurance the trade off between competition and adverse selection we use data on health plan choices by employees of harvard university to compare the benefits of insurance competition with the costs of adverse selection moving to a voucher type system induced significant adverse selection with a welfare loss of 2 to 4 percent of baseline spending but increased competition reduced harvard s premiums by 5 to 8 percent the premium reductions came from insurer profits so while harvard was better off the net effect for society was only the adverse selection loss adverse selection can be minimized by adjusting voucher amounts for individual risk we discuss how such a system would work governments are increasingly turning to market forces as a way to limit the cost of social insurance traditionally social insurance programs were operated as nonmarket goods governments mandated participation in a central program collected revenues to finance the program and ran the insurance system there was no role for competition among suppliers in providing the basic benefit as the costs of social insurance have increased however the centralized model of social insurance is coming under increasing strain in the united states for example recent proposals have called for replacing the medicare program with a health care voucher for the elderly aaron and reischauer 1995 cutler 1996 the voucher would guarantee people a basic insurance plan but the plans would be privately run competition among plans would generate plan premiums and enrollments similarly longstanding proposals for social security reform have called for replacing the current system with a system of individual accounts where people would make saving investment and annuitization decisions on their own advisory council on social security 1996 feldstein 1996 the trend is not just domestic in the united kingdom the national health service has moved to encourage more competition in recent years with the establishment of hospital trusts that bid for patients and partially fixed payments to physicians

the regional dimension of mnes foreign subsidiary localization this paper examines the regional effect of mnes foreign subsidiary localization we hypothesize that the number of subsequent foreign subsidiaries in a country is in part determined by a firm s prior foreign subsidiary activity at the regional level we test our hypotheses using data on 1076 japanese mnes that created 3466 foreign subsidiaries 1837 wholly owned fdis and 1629 joint ventures over the period 1996 2001 we use a multilevel negative binomial approach with three levels of analysis localization decisions in a country 49 countries in a region six regions and at the headquarters level in this way we test the regional effects controlling for country and corporate dimensions we also run separate models to differentiate wholly owned and joint venture localization decisions our results strongly support the semi globalization perspective in that the regional level effects are significant and different from the country level effects for all foreign subsidiaries for wholly owned subsidiaries and for jointly owned subsidiaries japanese mnes adopt a regional perspective that complements their decisions at the country and firm levels they seek regional agglomeration benefits and make arbitrage decisions between countries in the same region

price and the health plan choices of retirees abstract this study analyzes health plan choices of retirees in an employer sponsored health benefits program that resembles premium support models proposed for medicare in this program out of pocket premiums depend on when an individual retired and his or her years of service as of that date since this price variation is exogenous to unobserved plan attributes and retiree characteristics it is possible to obtain unbiased premium elasticity estimates the results indicate a significantly negative effect of premiums the implied elasticities are at the low end of the range found in previous studies on active employees

the elasticity of demand for health maintenance organizations this paper analyzes a national sample of firms where employees faced a choice between a health maintenance organization hmo and a conventional insurer such as blue cross a regression analysis is specified as a partial adjustment model and a logit functional form the long run price elasticity of demand for hmos is estimated to be 0 6 to the extent that employers pass on increases in the total premium the price elasticities facing insurers are higher furthermore the demand for hmos is a negative function of the copayment charged by the hmo for an office visit

institutional cultural and transaction cost influences on entry mode choice and performance in this study we examine foreign market entry mode choice and firm performance for a sample of european union firms examining both financial and non financial performance measures we attempt to determine if firms that select their entry mode based on transaction cost institutional context and cultural context variables perform better than firms that make other mode choices we found that mode choice did matter firms whose mode choice could be predicted by the extended transaction cost model performed significantly better on both financial and non financial measures than did firms whose mode choice could not be predicted by the extended transaction cost model implications for future research are discussed

modes of foreign entry a transaction cost analysis and propositions a frontier issue in international marketing is the appropriate choice of entry mode in foreign markets the objective of this paper is to offer a transaction cost framework for investigating the entry mode decision this framework provides 1 a theoretical basis for systematically interrelating the literature into propositions 2 propositions about interactions which resolve the apparently contradictory arguments advanced to date specifically the paper illustrates the feasibility of clustering 17 entry modes into the degree of control the mode provides the entrant proposes that the most appropriate i e most efficient entry mode is a function of the tradeoff between control and the cost of resource commitment advances testable propositions delimiting the circumstances under which each mode maximizes long term efficiency