history friendly models of industry evolution the computer industry the model presented in this paper is the first of a new generation of evolutionary economic models history friendly models history friendly models are formal models that aim to capture in stylized form qualitative and appreciative theories about the mechanisms and factors affecting industry evolution technological advance and institutional change put forth by empirical scholars of industrial economics technological change business organization and strategy and other social scientists in this paper we have analyzed the long term evolution of the computer industry in particular we have examined the emergence of a dominant firm in mainframes the introduction of a major innovation microprocessor the opening up of a new market segment personal computers ad the competition there between newcomers and diversified old established firms we have taken a body of verbal appreciative theorizing developed a formal representation of that theory and found that the formal version of that theory is consistent and capable of generating the stylized facts the appreciative theory purports to explain going through this analytic exercise has significantly sharpened our theoretical understanding of the key factors behind salient aspects of the evolution of the computer industry copyright 1999 by oxford university press

towards a sustainable electrification in ghana a review of renewable energy deployment policies abstract ghana has been facing perennial power rationing over the years due to fuel supply challenges the country s energy system is likely to suffer additional strain from rising energy demand fueled by population growth rapid urbanization and economic development fortunately there are enormous renewable energy resources which can provide sustainable electrification as backbone to socioeconomic development while curbing global warming ghana s energy strategy targets 100 access to electricity and 10 share of sustainable power in national generation mix by 2020 despite the existence of numerous policies and a renewable energy act current contribution of non conventional renewable energy to electricity generation is less than 1 the right mix of policies to address the unique domestic conditions and achieve its specific development goals remains insufficient this study reviews the regulatory framework financing incentives and other provisions of ghana s renewable energy act it critically examines the policy s strengths weaknesses opportunities and treats based on comparative analysis and lessons drawn from failed and successful implementation of similar policies around the world the study also assesses the impact of policy on project development it was found that the performance of ghana s renewable energy policy on grid connected electricity has been poor compared to its target the fundamental reasons for this unsatisfactory performance may be attributed to partial implementation of policies lack of market driven support schemes lack of pricing policy framework weak grid network limited access to funds and inconsistencies in renewable energy development strategies this study proposes the following countermeasures i ghana should comprehensively harmonize renewable energy regulatory and fiscal policies with domestic electricity pricing regime ii market driven support schemes should be prioritized for cost effectiveness and minimum governmental influence these reforms can help eliminate some of the major barriers to sustainable electrification in ghana while the lessons provide a learning curve for other african countries

different shades of green global oil and gas companies and renewable energy abstract the long term energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy raises critical questions about the future of oil and gas firms this study asks why some oil and gas firms are committed to renewable energy while others continue to maintain a distinct fossil fuels focus with little or no investment in renewable energy the analysis reveals that there is a wide range in the degree to which oil and gas firms have invested in renewable energy some firms have no investments and others have investments in multiple renewable energy technologies across many countries we examine a combination of country based institutional factors and firm based knowledge and experience factors that could impact oil and gas firms decisions to invest in renewable energy activity regulative and normative pressures impacted renewable energy investments as did environmental citizenship and the degree of internationalization the study s integration of country level factors with firm level experiences provides insights into how firms are dealing with the energy transition by examining areas such as sustainability and regulatory policy the paper sheds light on the ways in which scholars can tap into measures and methods that can extend traditional ib research

from hybrids to hierarchies shareholder wealth effects of joint venture partner buyouts this study examines the parent firm performance implications of joint venture jv partner buyouts which involve the conversion of a hybrid governance structure to an internal unit within the firm s hierarchy transaction cost theory as developed and applied in the international literature and market entry research is extended to the post entry investment setting to isolate sources of value creation or dissipation from the governance changes effected by jv partner buyouts the evidence complements recent research on jv longevity and its determinants copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

the effect of unemployment insurance sanctions on the transition rate from unemployment to employment sanctions or punitive benefits reductions are increasingly used as a tool to enforce compliance of unemployment insurance claimants with search requirements this article analyses sanctions using a unique administrative data set of individuals who started collecting unemployment insurance in the netherlands in 1992 after correction for selectivity in the imposition of sanctions we find that sanctions substantially raise individual re employment rates

termination outcomes of research alliances abstract we draw upon evolutionary economics and transaction cost economics to examine how alliance experience accumulation at the parent firm level and alliance features at the transaction level jointly and interactively shape the favorability of research alliances termination outcomes fifteen percent of the terminated alliances we examined were successful 34 were failures and 51 experienced an intermediate outcome in the form of contract expiration or unilateral withdrawal by a partner we find that the effect of partner specific experience on the favorability of termination outcomes is greater for non equity alliances than for equity structures affording stronger formal governance mechanisms other forms of experience such as general alliance experience or prior alliances in the same technological area as the focal agreement have no such favorable consequences for alliance termination the findings also indicate that alliance complexity adversely influences firms termination outcomes in alliances we therefore find evidence in partial support of both evolutionary and transaction cost based arguments for the explanation of termination outcomes in research alliances

the agenda for growth theory a different point of view it is argued here that the basic assumptions of neoclassical growth theory inherently limit the ability of models within that theory to cast light on economic growth as we have experienced it this holds for the new growth theory as well as the older growth theory of the 1950s and 190js it is proposed that to make real headway with understanding economic growth a growth theory needs the following elements 1 the ability to treat technological advance as an essentially disequilibrium process 2 to incorporate a theory of the firm in which firm capabilities and differences across firms are central elements and 3 to incorporate into the theory a richer body of institutions than currently are treated in standard growth theory including at the least universities copyright 1998 by oxford university press

the effects of macroeconomic stability on foreign trade an analysis for spain 1986 2000 two main factors underlie the rebirth of interest in the study of the influence of the real exchange rate on trade the reduction of its volatility and the current trend towards price stability the objective of this study is to analyse the effects of the process of nominal convergence required of the european member states for the fulfilment of monetary integration on foreign trade flows the case of spain which is especially interesting in this context is studied for the period 1986 to 2000 the results of estimating the aggregate functions of the export and import of goods shows how macroeconomic stability has altered the behaviour of trade with respect to the two basic determinants income and prices how it has caused a significant structural change in the real exchange rate and finally how it has laid the explanatory bases for transactions in the twenty first century with the single currency the euro

foreign market entry strategies and post entry growth acquisitions vs greenfield investments we examine the relationship between the foreign market entry strategy and the subsequent growth of a subsidiary we build upon the penrose theory of firm growth and on the organizational economics international management and foreign market entry strategy literatures we hypothesize that the post entry growth of acquisitions is positively associated with weak and codifiable interdependence within the multinational enterprise network whereas the post entry growth of greenfield investments is positively related to strong and complex interdependence empirical findings from a sample of japanese subsidiaries in the us lend support to our argument

international expansion of emerging market enterprises a springboard perspective in this article we present a springboard perspective to describe the internationalization of emerging market multinational corporations em mnes em mnes use international expansion as a springboard to acquire strategic resources and reduce their institutional and market constraints at home in so doing they overcome their latecomer disadvantage in the global stage via a series of aggressive risk taking measures by aggressively acquiring or buying critical assets from mature mnes to compensate for their competitive weaknesses we discuss unique traits that characterize the international expansion of em mnes and the unique motivations that steer them toward internationalization we further delineate peculiar strategies and activities undertaken by these firms in pursuit of international expansion as well as internal and external forces that might compel or facilitate their propulsion into the global scene we finally explain the risks and remedies associated with this international springboarding strategy and highlight major issues meriting further investigation

know how and asset complementarity and dynamic capability accumulation the case of r d dynamic capabilities enable firms to create new products and processes and respond to changing market conditions this empirical investigation of dynamic r d capabilities deals with the role of complementary know how and other assets in the context of changing conditions in the u s petroleum industry during the 1970s and early 1980s the analysis suggests that in response to rising oil prices firms with larger amounts of complementary technological knowledge and physical assets also undertook larger amounts of r d on coal conversion a synthetic fuels process 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

customer power strategic investment and the failure of leading firms why might firms be regarded as astutely managed at one point yet subsequently lose their positions of industry leadership when faced with technological change we present a model grounded in a study of the world disk drive industry that charts the process through which the demands of a firm s customers shape the allocation of resources in technological innovation a model that links theories of resource dependence and resource allocation we show that established firms led the industry in developing technologies of every sort even radical ones whenever the technologies addressed existing customers needs the same firms failed to develop simpler technologies that initially were only useful in emerging markets because impetus coalesces behind and resources are allocated to programs targeting powerful customers projects targeted at technologies for which no customers yet exist languish for lack of impetus and resources because the rate of technical progress can exceed the performance demanded in a market technologies which initially can only be used in emerging markets later can invade mainstream ones carrying entrant firms to victory over established companies

firms corporate social responsibility behavior an integration of institutional and profit maximization approaches understanding firms behavior across countries a key concern in the international business literature requires the joint consideration of both institutional influences and firms profit maximization goals in the corporate social responsibility csr area however researchers have utilized theories that take into account only one or the other institutional theory which explains csr as legitimacy seeking activities in line with national level institutions or economic based approaches that consider csr effects only in terms of firm profitability while an institutional argument implies convergence in csr behavior among firms in similar institutional contexts profit maximization logic treats csr as a firm specific behavior we integrate these perspectives by demonstrating the moderating effects of firms economic motivations for seeking legitimacy on the relationship between institutional environment and csr responsiveness we argue that variations in firms economic visibility and economic vulnerability can bring about differences in their need for societal goodwill and in turn their legitimacy seeking findings on a database of apparel firms employee related csr across 23 countries support this overall argument the integration of such fundamentally different theoretical perspectives allows us to contribute new theoretical insights to international business on the influence of national institutions on firms behavior

subsidized temporary jobs lock in and stepping stone effects this article evaluates the effectiveness of subsidized temporary jobs as stepping stones to regular employment we study a french program that allows job seekers to work part time while remaining registered with the unemployment agency in this program insured individuals concurrently receive part of their unemployment benefits and wage income using administrative data we find that subsidized temporary jobs have both a significant lock in effect and a significant positive post treatment impact on the hazard rate to employment since individuals facing a high implicit tax rate have incentives to self select into better part time jobs we also find that a higher tax rate leads to a weaker lock in effect and a stronger post treatment effect simulations suggest that the lock in effect first dominates but that the overall effect eventually becomes positive they also point to ways of improving the effectiveness of the policy

the impact of active labour market programmes on the duration of unemployment in switzerland this article evaluates the effects of swiss active labour market programmes on the job chances of unemployed workers the main innovation is a comparison of two important dynamic evaluation estimators the matching estimator and the timing of events estimator we find that both estimators generate different treatment effects according to the matching estimator temporary subsidised jobs shorten unemployment duration whereas training programmes and employment programmes do not in contrast the timing of events estimator suggests that none of the swiss active labour market programmes shortens unemployment duration the aim of the present article is to study the impact of active labour market policies almps on the duration of unemployment in switzerland the new swiss almps reflect the increasing consensus among policy makers that actively assisting the unemployed in job search is preferable to simply providing them with passive income support the danger is so the argument goes that reliance on passive income support may reduce work incentives and job search activities and therefore increase the risk of long term unemployment almps are seen by many as the key to minimise these risks the question how participation in almp measures affects labour market histories of individuals has been the subject of substantial debate the main problem is that labour market outcomes for participants may be systematically different from non participants

does atypical work help the jobless evidence from a caeas cps cohort analysis atypical employment such as temporary on call and contract work has been found disproportionately to attract the jobless but there is no consensus in the literature as to the labour market consequences of such job choice by unemployed individuals using data from the current population survey we investigate the implications of the initial job finding strategies pursued by the jobless for their short and medium term employment stability at first sight it appears that taking an offer of regular employment provides the greatest degree of employment continuity for the jobless however closer inspection indicates that the jobless who take up atypical employment are not only more likely to be employed 1 month and 1 year later than those who continue to search but also to enjoy employment continuity that is not less favourable than that offered by regular open ended employment

the advantage chain antecedents to rents from internal corporate ventures abstract in this article we argue that the resource based perspective on strategy offers a useful basis for understanding the contributions to the firm of corporate ventures the heart of the resource based view of the firm lies in arguments set forth by penrose and by nelson and winter penrose 1959 argued that differential mechanisms for resource combination and utilization result in heterogeneity among firms even among firms with similar factor endowments nelson and winter 1982 argued that behavior in particular behavior with respect to the utilization of firm resources becomes routinized over time people are often unable to describe or reconstruct well honed repetitive routines with ease van de ven 1986 consequently no two firms are likely to develop identical routines and it is often difficult for one firm to copy routines originated in another the idea that resources may be combined in routinized but relatively idiosyncratic ways suggests that firms will develop enduring differences in resource profiles and consequently in strategic potentialities over time consider the benefits a corporate venture can offer entering new markets making a new product developing a new technology or reconfiguring internal processes all require changes to existing resource configurations and routines these changes can allow the firm to discover ways of combining its resources and to the extent that the new combinations incorporate difficult to imitate routines it will take some time before that combination can be matched by competitors in other words venturing is one mechanism through which a firm gains superior insight about and access to firm specific resources with future rent potential value so a substantive and desirable outcome of venturing is the generation of valuable new resource combinations specific to the firm which it alone may exploit the article presents a model of those conditions that are necessary antecedents to streams of ricardian rent from the venture five such conditions are proposed all of which must be met if the firm is to derive rents from its venturing activities the first antecedent to securing rent streams from venturing is the emergence of causal understanding of the drivers of the venture s performance new causal understanding creates insight into new opportunity areas next team proficiency is essential to translate causal understanding into coordinated delivery of the product or service to the market new competences emerge as a result of evolving causal understanding and team proficiency which allow the organization to achieve new purposes from these new competences there may then develop distinctive competences that will differentiate the firm from competing organizations these distinctive competences may then become competitive advantages if they can be deployed in delivering product or service attributes that are preferred by the market to the offerings of competitors and competitors cannot readily duplicate them rents can only ensue when these inimitable competitive advantages allow a firm to achieve either distinctive efficiency in the firm or distinctive value for the customers the final section of the article offers ways in which this framework could be used first for research purposes and secondly by venture management

partial unemployment insurance benefits and the transition rate to regular work abstract in finland unemployed workers who are looking for a full time job but take up a part time or very short full time job may qualify for partial unemployment benefits in exchange for partial benefits these applicants must continue their search of regular full time work this study analyzes the implications of working on partial benefits for subsequent transitions to regular employment the timing of events approach is applied to distinguish between causal and selectivity effects associated with the receipt of partial benefits the results suggest that partial unemployment associated with short full time jobs facilitates transitions to regular employment also part time working on partial benefits may help men but not women in finding a regular job afterwards

racing to the bottom and racing to the top the crucial role of firm characteristics in foreign direct investment choices this study builds on the pollution haven and induced innovation arguments as explanations for firm behavior with regard to international environmental management and argues both need to be integrated this implies that foreign direct investment is capable of facilitating a race to the bottom and a race to the top simultaneously using novel and detailed data we test whether environmental capabilities and weaknesses and other characteristics affect us firms foreign direct investment choices in chinese provinces with more or less stringent environmental regulation this enables a more detailed analysis by allowing country regulation to vary spatially and over time our study finds that heterogeneity in capabilities and firm size jointly determine foreign direct investment and in doing so shows the simultaneity of a race to the bottom and to the top specifically firms with environmental capabilities invest in more stringently regulated regions and firms with weaknesses are less likely to target such regions these diverging effects are both moderated by firm size which further amplifies each of them our findings underscore the need to integrate pollution haven and induced innovation arguments in a joint analysis they furthermore show the relevance of methodological choices when testing hypotheses integrating the above arguments empirically

evolutionary theorizing in economics modern economic analysis oriented toward understanding the workings of economies that make extensive use of markets came into existence with three guiding questions all central in adam smith s 1776 1937 the wealth of nations one question concerned order without any central authority guiding and commanding action how is economic activity coordinated the second question was the challenge of explaining the prevailing constellation of prices inputs and outputs what explains the price of labor and the rent of land the third question addressed the processes of economic progress or development smith and other early economists clearly were impressed by the inventiveness the energy and the growing productivity generated by the evolving market economy how to understand its dynamics the first two questions have defined continuing central concerns of the discipline of economics since they first were posed over two centuries ago when not posed in the context of an economy that is understood as in the process of developing they seem to pull the focus of theorizing toward equilibrium conditions the third question concerned with the processes driving economic progress pulls the theorizing toward an evolutionary orientation the question of economic development has waxed and waned in centrality to the discipline as has the importance of evolutionary theorizing during the first several decades of the twentieth century evolutionary thinking and language was widespread in economics but as one contrasts the economic

building institutions based on information disclosure lessons from gri s sustainability reporting abstract global reporting initiative gri is the best known framework for voluntary reporting of environmental and social performance by business worldwide using extensive empirical data including interviews and documentary analysis we examine gri s organizational field and conclude that since its modest beginnings in 1999 gri has been by several measures a successful institutionalization project but the institutional logic of this new entity as an instrument for corporate sustainability management leaves out one of the central elements of the initial vision for gri as a mobilizing agent for many societal actors this emergent logic reflects gri s dominant constituency large global companies and financial institutions and international business management consultancies and not the less active civil society organizations and organized labor we attribute these developments to factors such as building gri within the existing institutional structures the highly inclusive multistakeholder process and the underdeveloped base of information users from the institutional theory perspective this case shows how the process of institutionalization is deeply affected by initial strategies of the founders and how it reproduces existing power relations from the governance perspective this case leads us to question the power of commodified information to mobilize civil society and to strengthen governance based on partnerships

a historical review of promotion strategies for electricity from renewable energy sources in eu countries abstract the core objective of this paper is to elaborate on historically implemented promotion strategies of renewable energy sources and the associated deployment within the european electricity market hence at a first glance the historic development of renewable energy sources in the electricity res e sector is addressed on member state and on sectoral level as well as consequently discussed according to available res e potentials and costs the specific focus of this paper are promotion strategies for res e options as they are the key driver of an efficient and effective res e deployment therefore the paper depicts the main types of different promotion schemes and their properties additionally several cases studies of different european member states show an in depth analysis of the different res e promotion schemes in this context special emphasises are put on the question of effective and efficient promotion scheme designs of different res e technologies generally conducted research led to the conclusion that technology specific financial support measures of res e performed much more effective and efficient than others did hence it is not all about the common question of feed in tariffs vs quota systems based on tradable green certificates but more about the design criteria of implemented res e support schemes

a perspective on multinational enterprises and climate change learning from an inconvenient truth this paper explores whether and how an important environmental issue such as climate change can not only give multinational enterprises the opportunity to develop green firm specific advantages fsas but also help reconfigure key fsas that are viewed as the main sources of firms profitability growth and survival we examine the nature and geography of such fsa development and develop two organizing frameworks which are subsequently applied to climate change using information from global 500 firms implications and future directions for international business research are indicated

renewable energy diffusion in asia can it happen without government support the dramatically increasing population of asia necessitates equally as dramatic increase in energy supply to meet demand rapidly increasing energy demand is a major concern for asian countries because the increase in demand is being met through the increased use of fossil fuel supply largely domestic coal and imported fuel renewable energy supply presents a lower emission pathway that could be a viable option for steering off the higher emissions path however several market economic institutional technical and socio cultural barriers hinder countries in moving from high to low emission pathway following a discussion on the rising demand for energy in asia and the prospects of partly satisfying it with renewable energy we outline the reasons for government support to tackle the barriers for widespread diffusion of grid based renewable energy additionally we also discuss workable models for strategic government intervention to support diffusion of grid based renewable energy in asia

the bumpy road of technology partnerships understanding causes and consequences of partnership mal functioning abstract research on technological partnerships has traditionally sought explanation of their high failure rates in partner characteristics and relationship features this study introduces the notion of a bumpy road in technology partnerships which refers to undesired outcomes such as partnership mal functioning and instability to the degree to which innovation activities are hampered we explain how firm level strategies can reduce the probability of a bumpy road in partnerships we also assess the impact of this bumpy road on innovative performance we find that firms that excel in diversification of external activities in terms of different types of partners perform best moreover a persistent product oriented innovation strategy geared at developing new products new markets or higher product quality will yield more stable partnership outcomes our results confirm that engagement in partnerships is beneficial for innovative performance however firms that experienced a bumpy road in their technological partnerships have to pay a price in terms of a negative effect on their innovative performance

learning from experience the development of the renewables obligation in england and wales 2002 2010 abstract the uk has enviable renewable resources both onshore wind and offshore wind wave and tidal the offshore valuation group 2010 the government has had policy mechanisms in place since 1990 to encourage these resources to be developed the current mechanism the renewables obligation ro was specifically designed to emphasise competition and therefore to fit in with the uk s overall strategic approach to energy policy however as yet it has not delivered the capacity that it was designed to do and as a result the uk faces a difficult challenge in attempting to meet european wide renewable energy targets for 2020 as well as longer term decarbonisation targets this paper explores some of the major reasons why the ro has performed so poorly to date and considers the prospects for improvement up to 2020 it concludes that the strategic emphasis on competition in the support mechanisms has played a key role in limiting renewables development but that the mechanism has changed significantly since it was introduced however these changes together with proposals for electricity market reform still do not address important elements of risk in comparison with a standard feed in tariff

towards a renaissance in international business research big questions grand challenges and the future of ib scholarship in this article we review critiques of international business ib research with a focus on whether ib scholarship tackles big questions we identify three major areas where ib scholars have addressed important global phenomena but find that they have had little influence outside of ib and only limited effects on business or government policy we propose a redirection of ib research towards grand challenges in global business and the use of interdisciplinary research methods multilevel approaches and phenomena driven perspectives to address those questions we argue that ib can play a more constructive and vital role by tackling expansive topics at the business societal interface

can energy price regulations smooth price fluctuations evidence from china s coal sector abstract due to the dominance of coal in china s energy mix coal prices have always been a challenging part of pricing reform the recent frequent government interventions raise the key research questions what is the actual impact of price policies on coal price fluctuations and how can forward looking pricing policies be made by proposing a novel classification of coal pricing policies and introducing an expectation and forward looking coefficient the paper examines the relationship between coal price fluctuations and pricing policies using the generalized method of moments gmm method it shows that the lagging coal price and coal demand play a positive role in regulating coal prices while coal supply and marketization have significantly negative effects on coal price fluctuations the heterogeneous impacts of price policies are due to differences in market players expectations policy instruments and the methods of policy release in addition china s coal pricing policy portfolio from 2013 to 2016 exerted synergy effects on the restraint of coal price fluctuations as the forward looking coefficient was considerably low the government s intervention behaviors were obviously biased towards ex post facto responses the paper suggests short run and long run policies to advance marketization of coal prices amid the energy transition

environmental regulation and the export dynamics of energy technologies abstract the pollution haven hypothesis affirms that an open market regime will encourage the flow of low technology polluting industries toward developing countries because of potential comparative advantages related to low environmental standards in contrast the hypothesis suggested by porter and van der linde claims that innovating firms operate in a dynamic competitive situation which allows global diffusion of environmental friendly technologies environmental regulation may represent a relevant mechanism through which technological change is induced in this way countries that are subject to more stringent environmental regulations may become net exporters of environmental technologies this paper provides new evidence on the evolution of export flows of environmental technologies across different countries for the energy sector advanced economies particularly the european union have increasingly focused on the role of energy policies as tools for sustaining the development path the kyoto protocol commitments together with growing import dependence on energy products have brought attention to the analysis of innovation processes in this specific sector the analysis uses a gravity model in order to test the determinants and the transmission channels through which environmental technologies for renewable energies and energy efficiency are exported to advanced and developing countries our results are consistent with the porter and van der linde hypothesis where environmental regulation represents a significant source of comparative advantages what strongly emerges is that the stringency of environmental regulation supplemented by the strength of the national innovation system is a crucial driver of export performance in the field of energy technologies

welfare to temporary work implications for labor market outcomes we explore the effects of temporary help employment on welfare recipients subsequent employment and welfare dynamics we find that any employment in temporary help services or other sectors yields substantial benefits compared to no employment although welfare recipients who go to work for temporary help service firms have lower initial wages than those with jobs in other sectors they experience faster subsequent wage growth two years later they are no less likely to be employed their wages are close to those of other workers and they are only slightly more likely to remain on welfare

human capital in multinational enterprises does strategic alignment matter this research proposes a strategic human capital alignment framework to examine whether the alignment between subsidiary strategy i e export oriented vs local market oriented strategy and human capital i e parent firm vs local specific human capital is positively related to subsidiary performance in multinational enterprises mnes we further explore two important exogenous i e foreign exchange rate change and endogenous i e mne international experience boundary conditions since they may adjust the positive effect of strategic human capital alignment on performance the analysis based on 5604 subsidiary observations of 423 mnes from 1990 to 2012 confirms the positive synergic effect of aligning subsidiary strategy and human capital and shows the moderating effects of foreign exchange rate change and mne international experience by presenting the importance of subsidiary strategy global staffing alignment and the roles of external economic environments and internal organizational capabilities as boundary conditions the strategic human capital alignment framework suggests that what makes human capital valuable for the firm is its alignment with strategic orientation thus managers should carefully deploy the appropriate type of human capital to fulfill the requisite organizational strategy and take into account changing external and internal contextual conditions in applying the framework

multilevel models in international business research multiple level or mixed linear modeling mlm can simultaneously test hypotheses at several levels of analysis usually two or three or control for confounding effects at one level while testing hypotheses at others advances in multi level modeling allow increased precision in quantitative international business ib research and open up new methodological and conceptual possibilities however they create new challenges and they are still not frequently used in ib research in this editorial we outline some key methodological issues for the uses of mlm in ib including criteria sample size and measure equivalence issues we then examine promising directions for future multilevel ib research considering comparative opportunities at nation multiple nation cluster and within nation region levels including large multilevel databases we also consider its promise for mne research about semi globalization interorganizational effects across nations clusters within nations and teams and subsidiaries within mnes

organizational learning about new international markets exploring the internal transfer of local market knowledge this study examines the transfer of local market knowledge within the diversified firm as its divisions expand into a new host country within the u s based corporations in our sample both the nature of local market knowledge itself and differences in organizational structures significantly influence the extent of internal knowledge transfer among divisions the results suggest that as firms expand into new international markets their organizational learning processes differ significantly

unemployment insurance rules joblessness and part time work developed and under general conditions an increase in the disregard is shown to increase both the part time and overall re employment hazards data from the current population survey s displaced worker supplements are used to test these predictions estimates from a competing risks model with correlated risks and time varying coefficients shows that increasing the disregard significantly increases the conditional probability of part time re employment during the first three months of joblessness

divestment of foreign production operations this study investigates some determinants fo the divestment of foreign manufacturing operations by norwegian companies to date very few studies have taken a closer look at what might influence whether foreign subsidiaries are divested or not although foreign direct investment in principle represent long term commitments to foreign manufacturing operations divestments are in fact quite common this study shows that more than half of a sample of foreig subsidiaries woned by norwegian companies in 1982 wee divested within a period of ten years the empirical findings indicate that foreign divestment is inversely related to economic growth in the host country and that the propensity to divest is significantly higher for subsidiaries that had been acquired than for greenfield establishments also related horizontal subsidiaries are less likely to be divested than unrelated non horizontal subsidiaries

the composition of u s east asia trade and changing comparative advantage abstract this paper examines the composition of trade between the united states and eight asian pacific economies from 1962 to 1992 analysis of the time series pattern of individual commodities at the sitc four digit level reveals economically significant changes in the pattern of trade reflecting changing comparative advantage based on changing factor proportions technology transfer and product cycles the composition of the eight bilateral trade relationships shows both increasing specialization over time and a sequence from japan to the four tigers korea taiwan singapore and hong kong and then to the remaining three east asian economies malaysia indonesia and thailand

factor endowments and the international location of production econometric evidence for the oecd 1970 1985 abstract this paper uses data on manufacturing output and factor endowments for 20 oecd countries from 1970 to 1985 to examine the production side of the factor proportions model under well known conditions there will be a linear rybczynski relationship between sectoral outputs and factor endowments across countries this proposition is investigated using the kalman filter and maximum likelihood techniques to estimate time varying parameter models the results indicate that capital and unskilled labor are sources of comparative advantage for most industries while skilled labor is a source of comparative disadvantage residual analysis shows that the neoclassical model has poor explanatory power

technological regimes and schumpeterian patterns of innovation this paper proposes that the specific pattern of innovative activities in an industry can be explained as the outcome of different technological learning regimes a technological regime is defined by the particular combination of technological opportunities appropriability of innovations cumulativeness of technical advances and properties of the knowledge base building upon the distinction between schumpeter mark i and schumpeter mark ii industries this paper provides empirical estimates of the relationships between indicators of the schumpeterian patterns of innovation concentration of innovative activities stability in the hierarchy of innovators and importance of new innovators and indicators of the variables defining technological regimes

innovation diversity and diffusion a self organisation model a number of features of innovation diffusion are identified appropriability diversity expectations selection learning and spillover externalities a dynamic model is formul ated to embed the diffusion question into a more general framework of disequilibrium competition the model incorporates distinct vintage structures reflecting a change in technological trajectory learning by using a nd expectations driven investment rules of thumb simulation studies reveal robust quasi logistic curves but a complicated pattern of net market share gains and losses uncertainty regarding the rationality of early or late adoption it is argued ensures that the requisite behavioral variety is present to generate these diffusion patterns copyright 1988 by royal economic society

modeling the dynamics of strategic fit a normative approach to strategic change this study develops and tests a dynamic perspective on strategic fit drawing from contingency and resource based arguments in the strategy and organizational theory literatures we propose a distinctive analytical approach to identify environmental and organizational contingencies that should predict changes in a firm s strategy and the performance implications of such changes we test our model using extensive longitudinal data from over 4000 u s savings and loan institutions during a period when many s ls considered changing strategic direction the findings support our model of dynamic strategic fit specifically we find that 1 the timing direction and magnitude of strategic changes can be logically predicted based on differences in specific environmental forces and organizational resources and 2 organizations that deviated from our model s prediction of dynamic strategic fit i e changed more or changed less than our model prescribed experienced negative performance consequences we conclude by discussing the implications of our approach and findings for future research on strategic fit and strategic change copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

innovation and internationalisation processes of firms with new to the world technologies while there has been considerable research into the internationalisation of high technology firms it mostly assumes that these firms are pursuing global opportunities for technologies which are ready to be sold this assumption does not hold for firms with new to the world technologies still under development we investigate the internationalisation patterns of such firms by means of a qualitative case study our findings show the internationalisation patterns of the case firms to be uneven and discontinuous in nature we attribute these patterns to the dialectical tensions which decision makers confront between expanding internationally and developing their technologies the nature and duration of the uncertainty inherent to bringing new to the world technologies to global markets explains why tensions between innovation and internationalisation dominated rather than synergies in these conditions of fundamental uncertainty the case firms were unable to benefit from the positive self reinforcing learning mechanism that underlies both the uppsala internationalisation process model and the accelerated early and rapid internationalisation postulate instead the dialectical process model which we develop recognises the socio technical nature of technology the impact of fundamental uncertainty and the need to account for nonlinearity and interdependencies in the internationalisation process

the trap of continual ownership change in international equity joint ventures this article examines how multiple ownership changes unfold in international equity joint venture iejv evolution and how such repeated changes impact short term performance and long term survival by theorizing a new concept the trap of continual change in the iejv context we challenge the adaptive viewpoint assumed in alliance dynamics research we propose that partners sometimes respond to an initial dissatisfaction with the venture result with a dysfunctional repetition of rearranging the ownership control structure this continual change locks the organization into bad choices and sends it into a downward spiral acknowledging the mixed motive nature of inter partner relationships we incorporate cooperative versus competitive dynamics manifested in shared control arrangements we propose that shared ownership control lends stability to the iejv until the initial iejv agreement is renegotiated this stability is a result of the cooperative forces of mutual interdependence and mutual forbearance between the partners however when the power balance breaks down the potential for inter partner conflict increases when the ownership control structure of the iejv is restructured especially multiple times shared control arrangements become increasingly unstable as behavioral cultural and managerial differences are amplified

reduction in the long term unemployment of the elderly a success story from finland in finland the elderly unemployed are allowed to collect unemployment benefits up to the age of 60 when they can retire via a particular unemployment pension in 1997 the eligibility age of persons benefiting from this scheme was raised from 53 to 55 we consider changes in the risk of unemployment unemployment durations and the exit states before and after the reform in the duration analysis a flexible treatment design is adopted by allowing for quantile treatment effects we apply three different non and semiparametric methods which all produce robust and coherent results since the reform the group aged 53 54 has had a lower risk of unemployment shorter unemployment durations and higher exit rates to employment and it is no longer distinguishable from the group aged 50 52 we estimate the amount of unemployment benefits saved due to the reform

organizational learning and diversification employing concepts of lateral and longitudinal learning we examined the dissolution of 462 expansions of dutch firms both acquisitions and new ventures we interpreted the endurance of an expansi

the effect of specificity of experience on a firm s perceived importance of institutional knowledge in an ongoing business we study how three types of firm experience ranging from the specific to the general influence the perceived importance of institutional knowledge in the ongoing business of internationalising firms based on a sample of 101 small to medium sized firms the three types of firm experiences are international country and ongoing business the results show that firm experience within the ongoing business and the experience from multiple past business deals in various countries develop institutional knowledge whereas experience from multiple past business deals in a specific country does not the theoretical contribution of this paper is that it establishes a link between different kinds of experience and managerial cognition in terms of institutional knowledge in addition it emphasises that firms develop institutional knowledge from multiple diverse country experiences and experience in the specific ongoing business rather than experiences at the level of the country

measuring the degree of internationalization of a firm a comment sullivan s 1994 suggestion that an index measure of the internationalization construct is superior to single variable measures is critiqued on psychometric content validity criterion validity reliability and utilitarian grounds we argue that internationalization is more complex than envisioned by this index and suggest that further refinement of the construct is necessary before constructing indices

a contribution to a multidimensional analysis of trade competition international trade grew substantially throughout the last decades and international relations became more important for the economic performance of the countries simultaneously new poles emerged in the international arena leading to growing competition for higher market shares therefore trade competition is a critical dimension of analysis for applied international trade studies we propose a conceptual framework for measuring this phenomenon by combining some critical previous contributions to build a multidimensional and more comprehensive concept which defines trade competition as a function of the degree of both structural similarity and total exports overlap moreover structural similarity should take into account three elements sectoral shares similarity inter sectoral similarity evaluating how different the distinct sectors are and intra sectoral similarity proximity in terms of quality ranges exported several measures are proposed to empirically capture the concept suggested finally we present an example including the exports of the three largest european economies to 122 destination markets in order to illustrate the application of the concept and the measures suggested this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

optimisation and evolution winter s critique of friedman revisited milton friedman s 1953 article remains an often quoted defense of the maximization hypothesis but sidney winter s 1964 critique of friedman is less well known this paper examines critically both the natural selection argument invoked by friedman and others and the main elements of winter s critique in the light of recent development in evolutionary theory winter attempted to identify the circumstances in which the selection of maximizers could occur and these are elaborated critically finally winter s critique is extended by considering the very meaning of rational or maximizing behavior it is argued that the answer to this is neither obvious nor straightforward in an evolutionary context copyright 1994 by oxford university press

why is south korea s renewable energy policy failing a qualitative evaluation abstract this study explores the causes of the south korean government s failure to successfully deploy its renewable energy policy despite the south korean government s ongoing efforts since 2002 to promote the deployment of renewable energy the established deployment target has not been met and the share of renewable energy supply in total primary energy supply is poor compared to peer countries with a similar level of economic development therefore we attempt to find the causes of this policy failure using qualitative evaluation methods through the analyses conducted using focused interviews and secondary data we found that the domination of the fossil fuel and nuclear power industry s interests inconsistent policy shifts policy design that lacks sufficient support schemes poorly coordinated government activities and unsystemic and untimely monitoring and feedback have led to the failure of renewable energy deployment policies in south korea to overcome these problems we suggest that the south korean government should set more ambitious policy goals establish a new independent organization that focuses on energy policy issues use a varied policy mix and secure political support from diverse policy actors

a note on the transnational solution and the transaction cost theory of multinational strategic management this article assesses the extent to which the results of bartlett and ghoshal s 1989 work can be incorporated in what has now become one of the core explanations of multinational strategic management i e the transaction cost based theory of international production we demonstrate that the transaction cost approach fully incorporates the empirical findings of bartlett and ghoshal s work to do so requires that we make a new distinction between location bound and non location bound firm specific advantages in addition three possible uses of country specific advantages by multinational enterprises need to be identified while the transnational solution as proposed by bartlett and ghoshal is not itself a new theory of multinational strategic management it is compatible with the transaction cost based model of multinational strategic management

the evolution of new industries and the determinants of market structure several empirical regularities concerning firm growth rates and industry firm size distributions have been developed by studying primarily mature industries the primary purpose of this article is to bring together and extend empirical regularities on the evolution of new industries and to use these regularities to gain further insight into the forces governing industry evolution to explain these regularities a model is constructed which emphasizes how factors governing the early evolution of industries may shape their market structure at maturity it stresses how chance events and exogenous factors that influence the number of potential entrants to the industry the growth rate of incumbents and the ease of imitation of industry leaders will influence the ultimate number and size distribution of firms in the industry

a microeconometric evaluation of the active labour market policy in switzerland in the second part of the 1990 s switzerland conducted an ambitious active labour market policy almp encompassing a wide variety of programmes we evaluate the effects of these programmes on the individual employment probability of potential participants our econometric analysis uses unusually informative data origi nating from administrative unemployment and social security records we apply a matching es timator adapted for the case of multiple programmes we find substantial positive effects for one particular programme that is a unique feature of the swiss almp it consists of a wage subsidy for temporary jobs in the regular labour market that would otherwise not be taken up by the unemployed we also find large negative effects for traditional employment programmes oper ated in sheltered labour markets for training courses the results are mixed doi 10 1111 1468 0297 00072 download internet appendix pdf 2 590 kb

overconfidence and excess entry an experimental approach psychological studies show that most people are overconfident about their own relative abilities and unreasonably optimistic about their futures e g shelly e taylor and j d brown 1988 neil d weinstein 1980 when assessing their position in a distribution of peers on almost any positive trait like driving ability ola svenson 1981 income prospects or longevity a vast majority of people say they are above the average although of course only half can be if the trait is symmetrically distributed this paper explores whether optimistic biases could plausibly and predictably influence economic behavior in one particular setting entry into competitive games or markets many empirical studies show that most new businesses fail within a few years for example using plant level data from the u s census of manufacturers spanning 1963 1982 timothy dunne et al 1988 estimated that 61 5 percent of all entrants exited within five years and 79 6 percent exited within 10 years most of these exits are failures see also dunne et al 1989a 1989b d shapiro and r s khemani 1987

mitigating risk in international mergers and acquisitions the role of contingent payouts previous internationalization studies have focused on the entry modes employed by multinational firms but have not considered the contractual heterogeneity that underlies each mode it is important to examine these contractual details as the firm may be able to obtain some of the benefits typically associated with one entry mode while selecting another in the case of international mergers and acquisitions m as a key contractual variable is whether the parties agree to a performance contingent payout structure which can mitigate the risk of adverse selection in this paper we examine the antecedents of contingent payouts in the form of earnouts and stock payments the results indicate that firms lacking international and domestic acquisition experience turn to contingent payouts when purchasing targets in high tech and service industries firms tend to avoid contingent payouts in host countries with problems with investor protection and legal enforceability

yes we really do need more entry mode studies a commentary on shaver in a recent commentary published in this journal shaver raises the provocative question of whether we need more entry mode studies after assessing the reasons for shaver s doubts and further developing his broad research suggestions we conclude that this question should be answered affirmatively we derive three important questions for future entry mode research 1 what determines the evolution of operations resulting from suboptimal mode choices 2 what causes the replication of past mode choices 3 how is the entry decision process structured focusing on these questions should assure a bright future for entry mode research

state renewable energy electricity policies an empirical evaluation of effectiveness over the past decade state governments have emerged as us energy policy leaders across the country states are adopting policy instruments aimed at carbon mitigation and renewable energy deployment one of the most prevalent and innovative policy instruments is a renewable portfolio standard rps which seeks to increase the share of renewable energy electrification in the electricity market this analysis evaluates the effectiveness of state energy programs with an empirical investigation of the linkage between state rps policy implementation and the percentage of renewable energy electricity generation across states we use a variant of a standard fixed effects model referred to as a fixed effects vector decomposition with state level data from 1998 to 2006 results indicate that rps implementation is not a significant predictor of the percentage of renewable energy generation out of the total generation mix yet for each additional year that a state has an rps policy they are found to increase the total amount of renewable energy generation these findings reveal a potentially significant shortcoming of rps policies political institutions natural resource endowments deregulation gross state product per capita electricity use per person electricity price and the presence of regional rps policies are also found to be significantly related to renewable energy deployment

the impact of policy consistency on technological competitiveness a study on oecd countries abstract this study investigates the impact of policy consistency on technological competitiveness using patent citation analysis policy support plays a key role in promoting firms investment in research and development r d activities especially in emerging sectors policy consistency increases technological competitiveness since it encourages firms to invest in r d activities although previous studies argue policy design and characteristics few deal with policy consistency and they lack a quantitative measure of policy consistency and explanation of its effects therefore this study proposes the quantitative indexes for policy consistency and potential technological competitiveness the indexes are applied to the case of renewable energy sector since energy sector is highly dependent on the government policy and thus needs high policy consistency the result shows that renewable energy technology development is affected by policy and the higher the policy consistency especially in emerging sectors it also shows that countries of high policy consistency tend to achieve higher technological competitiveness and thus are likely to secure higher technological competitiveness in the future the findings of this study can be used in designing policy for sustainable technological competitiveness and will be a corner stone for researches on assessing policy consistency

drivers and inhibitors of renewable energy a qualitative and quantitative study of the caribbean abstract we explore the factors that affect the development of renewable energy in the caribbean the caribbean region can serve as a laboratory in studying the institutional issues relating to energy development due to the differences in political jurisdictions over a short distance based on 12 case studies and 75 in depth interviews with a variety of stakeholders we identified five factors that appear to be critical for the development of renewable energy in the caribbean entrepreneurship attitudes the role of local champions the electric utility influence informal institutions and the influence of international agencies we built a multiple regression model to test these relationships through a survey of 34 political jurisdictions in the caribbean the statistical analysis we conducted suggests that informal institutions have a significant impact on the extent of renewable energy development while the incumbent electricity utilities influence may impede the development of renewable energy based on these findings we provide recommendations on how best to make use of these factors identified in order to develop effective energy policies throughout the caribbean

the impact of joint venture status on the longevity of japanese stakes in u s manufacturing affiliates a number of well known studies report that between one third and two thirds of international joint ventures eventually break up while many generalizations explanations and prescriptions have been based on these statistics their meaning is unclear first all foreign affiliates are subject to normal business risk and to the risk that they will be divested by parents for strategic or financial reasons are these risks higher for joint ventures than for wholly owned subsidiaries second joint ventures may be shorter lived not because of their joint venture status but because affiliates which are joint ventured have other characteristics that make them more likely to exit to know whether joint ventures are shorter lived one must control for the other factors that affect the longevity of affiliates whether wholly owned or joint ventured third many joint ventures contracts contain clauses that allow partners to sell their stakes to one another at specific intervals because they make exit easier joint ventures should have shorter lives but these shorter lives should only be due to sell offs not to liquidations it is therefore important to see whether the supposedly higher termination rate of joint ventures stakes is due to a higher rate of selloffs or to a higher rate of liquidations in this paper we 1 compare the longevity of stakes in joint ventures versus those in wholly owned subsidiaries 2 while controlling for other factors that affect the longevity of such stakes and 3 while distinguishing between two types of exit those through sale and those through liquidation while past authors have addressed these three issues in piecemeal fashion we believe we are the first to address them simultaneously we analyze the factors that affect the longevity of 355 japanese stakes in u s manufacturing affiliates controlling for all the factors that affect exit rates we find that japanese parents are more likely to terminate their stakes in u s joint ventures than in wholly owned subsidiaries this higher termination rate of joint venture stakes is explained by a higher probability of selling them but not of liquidating them most of the other factors that have been found significant in explaining gross divestment of foreign affiliates do in fact only affect exits through sales but not exits through liquidations hence it is true that joint ventures have shorter lives but dangerous to interpret this finding as necessarily meaning that they are more likely to fail

punitive sanctions and the transition rate from welfare to work in the netherlands the average exit rate out of welfare is dramatically low most welfare recipients have to comply with guidelines on job search effort that are imposed by the welfare agency if they do not then a sanction in the form of a temporary benefit reduction can be imposed this article investigates the effect of such sanctions on the transition rate from welfare to work using a unique set of rich register data on welfare recipients we find that the imposition of sanctions substantially increases the individual transition rate from welfare to work

changing trade patterns in major oecd countries disaggregated trade data are used to examine changing trade patterns for five developed economic regions the usa the european union australia canada and japan this study covers the 1980 1997 time period during which international trade for most goods faced less border protection changing trade patterns are found for the usa japan and the eu while persistent trade patterns are observed for australia and canada classifying goods into four groups trade patterns found in manufactured goods were the most dynamic and trade in bulk agricultural goods the most persistent

economic distance and the survival of foreign direct investments taking a theoretical perspective contrasting resource exploitation with resource exploration we argue that foreign direct investments fdis hazard rates are lower in countries that are either m

a perspective on regional and global strategies of multinational enterprises multinational enterprises mnes are the key drivers of globalization as they foster increased economic interdependence among national markets the ultimate test to assess whether these mnes are global themselves is their actual penetration level of markets across the globe especially in the broad triad markets of nafta the european union and asia yet data on the activities of the 500 largest mnes reveal that very few are successful globally for 320 of the 380 firms for which geographic sales data are available an average of 80 3 of total sales are in their home region of the triad this means that many of the world s largest firms are not global but regionally based in terms of breadth and depth of market coverage globalization in terms of a balanced geographic distribution of sales across the triad thus reflects a special and rather unusual outcome of doing international business ib the regional concentration of sales has important implications for various strands of mainstream ib research as well as for the broader managerial debate on the design of optimal strategies and governance structures for mnes journal of international business studies 2004 35 3 18 doi 10 1057 palgrave jibs 8400073

assessing economic activities an example from central business districts the central business district cbd is a dynamic part of the city that changes drastically over time and responds to forces and demands for activities from within and from other countries however it is extremely difficult to quantify the various propositions put forward for measuring economic activities in the cbd due to the paucity of statistical data planning intervention thus becomes extremely difficult as other forces beyond the control or knowledge of the planner play crucial roles in determining what activities will locate in the cbd and where they will locate this study attempts to explore a view of how to measure and assess central business district economic activities for planning purposes it follows a critical discussion of the nature of the cbd by pointing to empirical studies including examples from the new york metropolitan region and the city of london moreover it discusses indicators could be used to measure and assess economic activities in the cbd by highlighting planning purpos

instabilities of strategic alliances an internal tensions perspective the instabilities of strategic alliances have been examined in the literature through a number of theoretical approaches alliance instabilities refer to major changes or dissolutions of alliances that are unplanned from the perspective of one or more partners although the literature identifies certain characteristics of strategic alliances that may lead to their unplanned dissolution the extent of our understanding of this subject appears to be fragmented and incomplete in this article we propose a comprehensive framework for adequately understanding alliance instabilities based on the notion of internal tensions we suggest that strategic alliances are sites in which conflicting forces develop and which can be viewed as being constituted by three key pairs of competing forces namely cooperation versus competition rigidity versus flexibility and short term versus long term orientation this tensions framework helps us in explaining the intrinsic vulnerability of alliances in terms of a wide range of internal contradictions and enables us to examine in an integrated manner the incidence dynamics and eventual dissipation of the inherent instabilities we discuss the interrelationships among the different internal tensions and their impacts on different types of strategic alliances we also examine the termination of alliances through mergers acquisitions and dissolution finally we suggest ways to empirically test the various ideas and propositions developed here and indicate directions for further research

corporate environmental citizenship variation in developing countries an institutional framework this study focuses on why some companies in developing countries go beyond environmental regulations when implementing their corporate environmental social responsibilities or citizenship behavior drawing mainly upon the new institutional theory this study develops a conceptual framework to explain three institutional factors companies market orientations industrial characteristics and corporate identities accordingly we suggest that companies from developing countries that are oriented to markets in developed countries operate in highly concentrated industries and have missionary identities adopt corporate environmental citizenship behavior by going beyond environmental regulations the study also discusses the theoretical policy and managerial implications of the conceptual framework

the effect of benefit sanctions on the duration of unemployment this paper investigates the effectiveness of unemployment benefit sanctions in reducing unemployment duration swiss data on benefit sanctions allow us to separate the effect of a warning that a person is not complying with eligibility requirements from the effect of the actual enforcement of a benefit sanction moreover public employment services are given substantial leeway in setting the monitoring intensity results indicate that both warning and enforcement have a positive effect on the exit rate out of unemployment and that increasing the monitoring intensity reduces the duration of unemployment of the nonsanctioned jel j64 j65 j68

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

globalization and the environment determinants of firm self regulation in china critics assert that globalization is detrimental to the environment because it encourages location of polluting industries in countries with low environmental regulations we suggest that globalization might also have positive environmental effects because global ties increase self regulation pressures on firms in low regulation countries using survey data from firms in china we find that multinational ownership multinational customers and exports to developed countries increase self regulation of environmental performance

the threat effect of active labour market programmes in this paper we estimate the threat effect of active labour market programmes almps for a sample of unemployed men in denmark threat effects of such programmes capture the impacts of a system of almps prior to actual participation rational economic agents make search decisions based on the expected discounted value of unemployment and the perceived risk of future participation in programmes may affect job search behaviour early in the unemployment spell we find a strong and significant threat effect which is shown to reduce average unemployment duration by two and a half weeks

speed of the internationalization process the role of diversity and depth in experiential learning by analyzing internationalization as a dynamic process we attempt to explain the speed of international operations in terms of learning acquired in the course of past international activities we consider that the speed of the internationalization process depends on the type of experiential learning that results from decisions implicit in the internationalization process choice of location and modes of operation firms develop two types of learning activities with respect to the selection of foreign markets and modes of operation diversity and depth of accumulated international activities we propose that depth of international activities has an inverted u shaped impact on the speed of the internationalization process while diversity of international activities has a u shaped influence on the speed of internationalization process the results of our longitudinal study of 889 firms over 23 years 1986 2008 suggest that diversity of international activities promotes long term learning by exposing the firm to richer experiences although such learning only takes place over time depth of international activities may accelerate the internationalization process in the short term but it eventually restrains its potential for development in the long term our research highlights the short term vs long term consequences of different types of decisions related to the internationalization process

organizational capabilities and the economic history of the industrial enterprise in my book scale and scope 1990 i focused on the history of the modern industrial firm from the 1880s when such firms first appeared through world war ii i did so by comparing the fortunes of more than 600 enterprises the 200 largest industrial firms at three points in time world war i 1929 and world war ii in each of the three major industrial economies those of the united states britain and germany in this paper i first describe the similarities in the historical beginnings and continuing evolution of these enterprises and then outline my explanation for these similarities next i relate my explanation of these empirical regularities to four major economic theories relating to the firm the neoclassical the principal agent the transaction cost and the evolutionary finally i suggest the value of the transactions cost and evolutionary theories to historians and economists who are attempting to explain the beginnings and growth of modern industrial enterprises

what differences in the cultural backgrounds of partners are detrimental for international joint ventures an international joint venture implies that a firm has to cooperate with a partner with a different cultural background in this study hypotheses about which differences in national culture are most disruptive for international joint ventures were developed and tested using hofstede s five dimensions the study focused on how these dimensions affect the survival of international joint ventures as well as their incidence relative to wholly owned subsidiaries the hypotheses were tested on longitudinal data about 828 foreign entries of twenty five dutch multinational in seventy two countries between 1966 and 1994 the database which spans almost three decades was also used to provide new evidence on a key assumption of hofstede s work that cultural values are stable over time

some empirical support for the heckscher ohlin model of production this paper develops empirically feasible tests of the production side of the heckscher ohlin model of international trade in the case where factor prices are not equal between countries to allow for factor price differences across industries within each country three variants of the model are considered tests of these variants are implemented for canada and the united states results are favourable to all three variants especially the variant that allows imperfect factor mobility within each country thus the paper finds some support for the heckscher ohlin model of production support empirique pour le modele de production heckscher ohlin ce memoire developpe des tests empiriques realisables de l aspect production du modele heckscher ohlin de com merce international dans l hypothese que les prix des facteurs de production ne sont pas egaux entre pays on considere trois variantes du modele permettant des diff6rences entre les facteurs de production a l interieur de chaque pays des tests de ces variantes sont calibres pour le canada et les etats unis les resultats supportent les trois variantes mais specialement celle qui postule une mobilite imparfaite des facteurs de production a l interieur de chaque pays donc le memoire donne un support empirique au modele de production heckscher ohlin

learning dynamics in research alliances a panel data analysis the aim of this paper is to empirically test the determinants of research joint ventures rjvs group dynamics we develop a model based on learning and transaction cost theories which represent the benefits and costs of rjv participation respectively according to our framework firms at each period in time weigh the benefits against the costs of being an rjv member rjv dynamics can then be interpreted as a consequence of this evolving trade off over time we look at entry turbulence and exit in rjvs that have been set up under the us national cooperative research act which allows for certain antitrust exemptions in order to stimulate firms to co operate in r d accounting for unobserved project characteristics and controlling for inter rjv interactions and industry effects the tobit panel regressions show the importance of group and time features for an rjvs evolution we further identify an average rjvs long term equilibrium size and assess its determining factors ours is a first attempt to produce robust stylized facts about co operational short and long term dynamics a neglected dimension in research co operations but an important element in understanding how collaborative learning works

the dubious role of institutions in international business a road forward our commentary returns to the conundrum of how institutions matter in international business ib by revisiting the 2018 jibs decade award article by jackson and deeg 2008 on comparing capitalisms we first synthesize their main insights around institutional diversity and track its significant impact within ib and other management fields we then suggest three main takeaways that could move jackson and deeg s agenda further in terms of developing a more nuanced approach to institutions in ib we close with suggestions for future research and urge ib scholars to be more cautious when drawing on different strands of institutions theory

voluntary disclosure and investment in environmental technology abstract i examine the role of voluntary disclosure programs in creating market incentives for competing firms to invest in environmentally cleaner technology in an industry subject to environmental regulation such as emission taxes such programs may allow firms to credibly disclose their progress in achieving compliance cost reduction through investments in internal rd the outcome of the investment is private information i show that the ex ante incentive to invest is always higher in the presence of the voluntary disclosure program than without it in particular the opportunity to credibly disclose progress in cost reduction allows a successful firm to convey its true position of competitive advantage to the rival firm and realize higher market share and profit thus voluntary disclosure programs increase the efficacy of traditional forms of environmental regulation in creating incentives for green technological change even when buyers have no preference for greener technology i show that such programs generally increase social welfare

what s in a p reassessing best practices for conducting and reporting hypothesis testing research social science research has recently been subject to considerable criticism regarding the validity and power of empirical tests published in leading journals and business scholarship is no exception transparency and replicability of empirical findings are essential to build a cumulative body of scholarly knowledge yet current practices are under increased scrutiny to achieve these objectives jibs is therefore discussing and revising its editorial practices to enhance the validity of empirical research in this editorial we reflect on best practices with respect to conducting reporting and discussing the results of quantitative hypothesis testing research and we develop guidelines for authors to enhance the rigor of their empirical work this will not only help readers to assess empirical evidence comprehensively but also enable subsequent research to build a cumulative body of empirical knowledge

learning to compete in a transition economy experience environment and performance does organizational learning as measured by experience in a host country affect international expansion performance if so does such a relationship between experience and performance hold over time how do the environmental forces in the host country affect such a relationship focusing on organizational learning by multinational enterprises mnes operating in a transition economy this study answers these three critical questions by exploring the relationships among experience environment and performance at the subsidiary level based on a recent survey of 108 mne subunits operating in china we find that the intensity and diversity of host country experience is an important predictor of subunit performance while the positive effect of the intensity of experience on performance diminishes over time the impact of the diversity of experience on performance remains unchanged moreover for mnes experiencing greater environmental dynamism complexity and hostility there is a stronger positive relationship between experience and performance