home country supportiveness unfavorableness and outward foreign direct investment from china what drives the outward foreign direct investments ofdis by emerging market firms emfs drawing on a strategy tripod framework this article proposes a theoretical model to predict ofdi by emfs from china specifically we use institution and industry based views to examine two facets of home country environment namely the supportiveness from home government and unfavorableness from home industry as important determinants of ofdi and compare the relative strength of these effects further we use the resource based view to argue that the effect of the home country environment is contingent on the international experience portfolios of emfs

oil and natural gas prospects in south america can the petroleum industry pave the way for renewables in brazil abstract a large share of brazil s current investments is concentrated in the development of petroleum resources in new frontiers perspectives for large offshore pre salt fields are particularly good however challenges are also huge on one hand pre salt resources development will draw vast amounts of economic and human resources and pose significant macroeconomic risks on the other hand the petroleum industry can generate multiplicative effects into the country s economy and even more importantly generate rents that can be diverted towards the promotion of renewable energy sources this paper simulates the rent generation of brazil s petroleum development up to 2030 according to the country s current fiscal regime projections of petroleum supply and a probability analysis of brent price evolution and assesses how these economic resources if properly allocated can pave the way for an increased use of renewables in brazil findings show that an ambitious energy innovation program based on a target oriented agency plus a program for solar development would cost less than half the minimum average annual petroleum rent free for investing in renewables between 2013 and 2030 the remaining budget could improve the security of ethanol fuel supply by avoiding the negative impacts of sugar prices spikes on brazil s ethanol production

a direct mechanism characterization of sequential bargaining with one sided incomplete information we characterize the sequential equilibria of a class of infinite horizon bargaining games with one sided incomplete information when the seller the uninformed party makes all the offers we prove a folk theorem every incentive compatible individually rational direct bargaining mechanism is implementable by sequential equilibria introducing buyer counteroffers eliminates outcomes which are unfavorable to that party as the proportion of buyer offers increases the set of implementable mechanisms shrinks continuously when the proportion reaches one only the single outcome most favorable to the buyer remains thus depending on the offer structure sequentiality may or may not impose restrictions beyond static incentive compatibility

building international business theory a grounded theory approach the field of international business ib is in need of more theory development as such the main focus of our manuscript was to provide guidance on how to build ib specific theory using grounded theory gt moreover we contribute to future theory development by identifying areas within ib where gt can be applied and the type of research issues that can be addressed using this methodology finally we make a noteworthy contribution by discussing some of gt s caveats and limitations particularly those relevant to ib this effort is intended to spur further interest in the development of ib theory

interpreting societal culture value dimensions societal cultural value dimension scholarship can both learn from and inform the family of interrelated approaches to culture research in ib that appear in recent commentaries it can exchange insights about societal values and meaning systems with neo institutional and institutional logics research it can also exchange insights with dual processing cognition theories that are used to understand individuals in an international context by treating societal culture values and institutional characteristics as essential to interpreting personal values and attitudes rather than merging them integrating culture related specialties by exchanging insights can promote the further development of research in each of these societal and individual level fields

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 cross cultural research imperative the need to balance cross national and intra national diversity this paper provides a brief overview of the evolution of comparative management theories paradigms and highlights the contribution of the cross vergence construct despite progress most studies of work values across countries continue to suffer from two primary limitations the first is the fallacious assumption of cultural homogeneity with nations given the growing diversity of the workforce within country intra national variations can often be as significant as cross national differences the second is the fallacious assumption of cultural stability over time since cultures evolve albeit slowly it is important to take these changes over time into consideration and be aware of the paradoxes inherent within any given society hence the paper calls for the need to balance cross national and intra national diversity in order to truly understand cross cultural phenomena and thus further improve the quality of cross cultural research

subsidiary absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer within multinational corporations the paper reviews extant literature on subsidiary absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer within multinational corporations mncs and proposes an agenda for future research on the relationship between these two constructs it suggests that motivation should be viewed as a moderating factor between subsidiary absorptive capacity and mnc knowledge transfer and that future research should make a clear distinction between the choices of mnc headquarters and those of subsidiaries regarding knowledge transfer the paper proposes that a more comprehensive multi level framework and dynamic model of the determinants of subsidiary absorptive capacity and mnc knowledge transfer be developed in future studies

towards a more balanced treatment of culture in international business studies the need for positive cross cultural scholarship the results of a content analysis of 1141 articles published in the journal of international business studies over a 24 year time period 1989 2012 reveal that a pervasive tendency exists in the international business ib literature towards emphasizing the adverse outcomes associated with cultural differences more than the positive effects we argue that this imbalance is not an accurate reflection of the reality of cross cultural contact in ib and that it has hindered our understanding of the processes and conditions that help organizations leverage the benefits of cultural differences in a wide range of contexts we offer several explanations for the predominance of the negative over the positive in theory and research on culture in ib and using a positive organizational scholarship lens couched in the context of march s 1991 exploration vs exploitation organizational learning framework highlight a complementary perspective namely the idea that cultural differences can be an asset not just a liability in a range of ib contexts we conclude by offering an integrative framework within which both positive and negative effects of cultural differences can be understood and provide a road map for future research on culture in ib

beyond hofstede and globe improving the quality of cross cultural research journal of international business studies 2010 41 1259 1274 doi 10 1057 jibs 2010 41 overview of 41 8 hofstede and globe in cross cultural research while hofstede s work was not the first systematic study on crossnational cultures his seminal book culture s consequences international differences in work related values 1980 succeeded in putting cross cultural analysis at the forefront of international business ib research in a later paper he boldly asserted that the business of international business is culture 1994 1 despite the criticisms that have been voiced against his work see mcsweeney 2002 oyserman coon kemmelmeier 2002 hofstede s influence on the fields of ib and management is undeniable according to harzing s publish or perish citation index as of june 2010 there were over 54 000 citations to his work this is a remarkable record that attests to first the growing popularity of cross cultural research in light of continued internationalization of the world economy and second hofstede s personal impact on scholarly research this jibs issue brings together 10 articles on culture and ib all of which were submitted to the editorial team led by jibs editorin chief lorraine eden while the articles were independently submitted through the regular double blind reviewing process the decision to join them in one collection creates in effect a special issue on culture in international business research which the jibs editors hope will be widely read and cited by ib scholars in general terms the papers in this collection fall into one of two categories 1 articles and commentaries about conceptual and methodological issues associated with hofstede s oeuvre vs the global leadership and organizational behavior effectiveness globe project s cultural dimensions and 2 articles and perspectives that use culture and or cultural dimensions as well as the operational measurement thereof to explain differences in behavior and practices across countries the common feature of all these scholarly pieces is that they challenge particular assumptions often made too easily in conventional cross cultural research the first paper in this collection is a perspective written by franke and richey that cautions against questionable generalizations from small numbers of countries in international business research using statistical analysis to support their assertion franke and richey argue that in order to draw credible generalizations in ib a minimum of 7 10 countries must be used this is an important message researchers should never formulate strong conclusions about the impact of cultural dimensions on journal of international business studies 2010 41 1259 1274 2010 academy of international business all rights reserved 0047 2506

foundations of dynamic monopoly and the coase conjecture subgame perfect equilibria are characterized for a market in which the seller quotes a price each period assume zero costs positive interest rate continuum of buyers and some technical conditions if buyers valuations are positive then equilibrium is unique buyers strategies are stationary and the price sequence is determinant along the equilibrium path but possibly randomized elsewhere otherwise a continuum of stationary equilibria can exist but at most one with analytic strategies coase s conjecture is verified for stationary strategies reducing the period length drives all prices to zero or the least valuation connections to bargaining models are described journal qf economic literature classification

servitization in mergers and acquisitions manufacturing firms venturing from emerging markets into advanced economies abstract we investigate servitization by manufacturing firms that have ventured from emerging markets into advanced economies through mergers and acquisitions m a the study seeks to answer two questions a what is the relationship between m as and servitization in the case of manufacturing firms and b what are the factors influencing the configuration of servitization strategies and their implementation the study provides a nuanced and contextualized understanding of servitization in m as existing research on servitization has paid insufficient attention to collaborative partnerships there is a need to examine the role of servitization in the context of collaborative partnerships our empirical setting consists of chinese manufacturing firms acquisitions in germany using qualitative research methods we reveal a typology of servitization strategies adding utilizing and reconfiguring that underpin the combined influences of different levels of services of both acquirer and target firms in the m a we identify integration mode and absorptive capacity as factors influencing service capability development our findings contribute to the literature on alternative approaches to servitization by firms from emerging markets venturing into advanced economies we discuss the theoretical and managerial implications and suggest future research directions for servitization in collaborative partnerships in general and in m a in particular

the transition from decentralized to network based mnc structures an evolutionary perspective this paper investigates and models the transition process within established multinational corporations mncs in moving from decentralized toward network based structures whereas there has been substantial research on various mnc models there has been little longitudinal research on the movement toward projected network based models this paper develops an evolutionary perspective of this transition distinguishing adjustments altering how the mnc defines its global strategy where it locates key resources and how it structures and manages operations it argues that rather then being a planned process each phase represents a viable strategic response to then existing challenges and opportunities the paper also argues that the focus of the process shifts over time initially focusing on building organizational linkages and adjusting the quantity and nature of resources within dispersed units and later shifting toward reallocating resources and roles across units

reputational bargaining with minimal knowledge of rationality two players announce bargaining postures to which they may become committed and then bargain over the division of a surplus the share of the surplus that a player can guarantee herself under first order knowledge of rationality is determined as a function of her probability of becoming committed as is the bargaining posture that she must announce in order to guarantee herself this much this maxmin share of the surplus is large relative to the probability of becoming committed e g it equals 30 if the commitment probability is 1 in 10 and equals 13 if the commitment probability is 1 in 1000 and the corresponding bargaining posture simply demands this share plus compensation for any delay in reaching agreement

monotonicity and rationalizability in a large first price auction this paper proves that the monotonicity of bidding strategies together with the rationality of bidders implies that the winning bid in a first price auction converges to the competitive equilibrium price as the number of bidders increases wilson 1977 instead of analysing the symmetric nash equilibrium we examine rationalizable strategies bernheim 1984 pearce 1984 among the set of monotonic bidding strategies to prove that any monotonic rationalizable bidding strategy must be within a small neighbourhood of the truthful valuation of the object conditioned on the signal received by the bidder we obtain an information aggregation result similar to that of wilson 1977 while dispensing with almost all symmetric assumptions and using a milder solution concept than the nash equilibrium in particular if every bidder is ex ante identical then any rationalizable bidding strategy must be within a small neighbourhood of the symmetric nash equilibrium in a symmetric first price auction the symmetry of outcomes is implied rather than assumed copyright 2005 wiley blackwell

uncovering the complex relationships between political risk and mne firm legitimacy insights from libya using the before after natural experiment occasioned by the arab spring in libya we explore how market and non market activity affect foreign firm legitimacy in times of political turmoil although all mnes in libya had to cultivate strong ties to qadhafi to succeed during his 40 years of rule we found that those that also invested in social benefit projects and in social ties with families with few ties to the qadhafi family earned a broad based legitimacy that helped them survive qadhafi s overthrow our findings contribute to the political risk and political behavior literature the notion that the pursuit of firm legitimacy in general and especially in the eyes of social sector actors is an effective hedge against political risk more theoretically our findings support the addition of a social sector based path to firm legitimacy in the host country that complements and may at times substitute for the government based path to foreign firm legitimacy practically our findings suggest that mnes facing severe political risk can improve their prospects for survival by investing in relationships with influential social groups and by offering goods or services that are perceived as socially valuable

the tortuous evolution of the role of culture in ib research what we know what we don t know and where we are headed this paper takes stock of the literature on culture in international business by looking back in terms of evaluating what we know and what we do not know and looking forward by identifying emerging trends and outlining avenues for future research unresolved issues gaps and limitations include 1 narrow conceptualization of culture and fragmented approach to the study of culture 2 failure to adopt a multilevel approach and insufficient attention to level of analysis 3 insufficient attention to context and process 4 failure to adopt a more dynamic view of culture 5 tendency to equate country with culture and failure to explore other national differentiators and 6 western centric approach to the study of culture suggestions on redressing the unresolved issues include 1 broadening the definition of culture and transcending the values based approach to include schemas norms and memes 2 paying more attention to process context by exploring the situation dependent and dynamic nature of culture and 3 entertaining alternative research designs methods such as emic approaches qualitative methods experimental designs neuroscience based methods and replication studies while these may represent a major departure from methodologies popular in our field their use can hopefully help us overcome the fragmented discipline based approach which has contributed to the persistent problems that have plagued the study of culture in ib in the past

emerging themes in international business research this study is motivated by two research questions 1 which recent contributions have been driving the research agenda in international business 2 which emerging themes in the literature are likely to set the stage for future work to examine these questions the study examined scholarly work in international business over the time period 1996 2006 in six leading international business journals journal of international business studies management international review journal of world business international marketing review journal of international marketing and international business review next a delphi study of the most prolific authors in these journals over the same time period was conducted to delineate a future research agenda in international business addressing these two research questions provides us with a more complete understanding of the progress made to date in international business research and provides a glimpse of the future

the effects of within country linguistic and religious diversity on foreign acquisitions this article explores how within country diversity of both language and religion influences the ownership structure of foreign acquisitions commentators have acknowledged the potential importance of within country diversity but to date this issue has received minimal empirical attention we propose that diversity plays two distinct roles namely diversity within the host country may be an additional source of behavioral uncertainty and information asymmetry over and above the effects arising from cross national differences moreover diversity within the home country may increase the cognitive complexity of the decision makers moderating the firm s response to the distance and diversity of the host country results based on foreign acquisitions across 67 acquirer and 69 target countries confirm both of these roles while the main focus of this article is on the role that within country diversity plays in international business decisions it also makes contributions in terms of expanding the range of dimensions of distance investigated in the cross border acquisition literature in highlighting a potentially positive role that diversity might play in such acquisitions and in providing a potential explanation for asymmetries in distance that is differences in cognitive complexity

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

rationalizable strategic behavior the notion of equilibrium proposed by nash 19 has come to play a dominant role in economic applications of noncooperative games while analyses of nash equilibria have unquestionably contributed to our understanding of economic behavior it would be unreasonably optimistic to maintain that nash solved the problem of noncooperative strategic choice there is a small literature beginning with ellsberg 6 and a much larger oral tradition which argues that nash behavior is neither a necessary consequence of rationality nor a reasonable empirical proposition in this paper i take the view that although there may be various reasons why an agent might select a nash strategy the notion of an equilibrium has little intrinsic appeal within a strategic context when an agent reaches a decision in ignorance of the strategies adopted by other players rationality consists of making a choice which is justifiable by an internally consistent system of beliefs rather than one which is optimal post hoc this point of view is not original indeed most serious justifications of the nash hypothesis embrace such an approach arguing that agents will expect the game to yield a nash outcome and consequently will choose their equilibrium strategies nevertheless when we think in terms of maximizing utility subject to expectations rather than realizations it becomes clear that the nash hypothesis far from being a consequence of rationality arises from certain restrictions on agents expectations which may or may not be plausible depending upon the game being played we are then quite naturally led to ask are there any restrictions of individuals expectations and hence choices which are required by rationality alone rather than by subjective plausibility this paper is concerned with defining justifying characterizing and refining a criterion for rational strategic choice which i label rationalizability

rationalizable strategic behavior and the problem of perfection this paper explores the fundamental problem of what can be inferred about the outcome of a noncooperative game from the rationality of the players and from the information they possess the answer is summarized in a solution concept called rationalizability strategy profiles that are rationalizable are not always nash equilibria conversely the information in an extensive form game often allows certain unreasonable nash equilibria to be excluded from the set of rationalizable profiles a stronger form of rationalizability is appropriate if players are known to be not merely rational but also cautious what constitutes rational behavior in a noncooperative strategic situation this paper explores the issue in the context of a wide class of finite noncooperative games in extensive form the traditional answer relies heavily upon the idea of nash equilibrium nash 17 the position developed here however is that as a criterion for judging a profile of strategies to be reasonable choices for players in a game the nash equilibrium property is neither necessary nor sufficient some nash equilibria are intuitively unreasonable and not all reasonable strategy profiles are nash equilibria the fact that a nash equilibrium can be intuitively unattractive is well known the equilibrium may be imperfect introduced into the literature by selten 20 the idea of imperfect equilibria has prompted game theorists to search for a narrower definition of equilibrium while this research some of which will be discussed here has been extremely instructive it remains inconclusive theorists often agree about what should happen in particular games but to capture this intuition in a general solution concept has proved to be very difficult if this paper is successful it should make some progress in that direction the other side of the coin has received less scrutiny can all non nash profiles really be excluded on logical grounds i believe not the standard justifications for considering only nash profiles are circular in nature or make gratuitous assumptions about players decision criteria or beliefs the following discussion of these points is extremely brief due to space constraints more detailed arguments may be found in pearce 18

alternating offer bargaining with two sided incomplete information i study alternating offer bargaining games with two sided incomplete information about the players discount rates for both perfect bayesian equilibrium and a rationalizability style notion i characterize the set of expected payoffs which may arise in the game i also construct bounds on agreements that may be made the set of expected payoffs is easy to compute and incorporate into applied models my main result is a full characterization of the set of perfect bayesian equilibrium payoffs for games in which the distribution over the players discount rates is of wide support yet is in a weak sense close to a point mass distribution i prove a lopsided convergence result each player cannot gain from a slight chance that she is a strong type but the player can suffer greatly if there is a slight chance that she is a weak type

the value of big data in servitization abstract servitization has become a pervasive business strategy among manufacturers enabling them to undergird their competitive advantage however it has at least one weakness while it is used worldwide also in economies with lower production costs services in manufacturing are slowly becoming commoditized and will become a necessary though not sufficient condition for reaching an above average competitive advantage consequently in this article we propose a new basis for competitive advantage for manufacturing enterprises called a big data strategy in servitization we scrutinize how manufacturers can exploit the opportunity arising from combined big data and servitization therefore the concept of a big data strategy framework in servitization is proposed the findings are benchmarked against established frameworks in the big data and servitization literature its impact on competitive advantage is assessed through three theoretical perspectives that increase the validity of the results the main finding is that through the proposed strategy new revenue streams can be created while opening the possibility to decrease prices for product services through the proposed strategy manufacturers can differentiate themselves from the ones that are already servitizing this article introduces the possibility of influencing the most important of the five vs in big data value in addition to the other four vs volume variety velocity and verification as in regards to servitization the article adds a third layer of added value information beside the two existing ones product and service the results have strategic implications for managers

storytelling the internationalization of the multinational enterprise internationalization deals with expansion across space and time researchers have framed internationalization as market growth and expansion through foreign direct investment fdi we use narrative theory to frame a bigger richer picture using mikhail bakhtin s typology of nine space time conceptions and directed observations of mcdonald s corporation we show how multinational enterprises mnes create narratives of internationalization to mitigate the risks of fdi competing space time conceptions in consumers authors and societies stories interact with managerial narratives to affect international product and task environments we increase awareness of mnes storytelling by offering a typology of stakeholders stories across space and time

from the editors how to write articles that are relevant to practice although the journal of international business studies is not a practice oriented journal thinking deeper about the practical relevance of our articles can only help enrich them and help decision makers implement better decisions however while many academic articles in social sciences go to great lengths to explain their theoretical and empirical impact in many cases their explanation of practical relevance is a paragraph in the conclusion section with a few cursory ideas that appear to be an afterthought rather than an integral part of the article here we provide suggestions for crafting a practical implications section that is relevant for decision makers

from the editors advancing interdisciplinary research in the field of international business prospects issues and challenges doi 1 0 1 057 jibs 2009 4 1 two decades ago jibs published john dunning s presidential address at the aib annual meeting in san diego in which he made a passionate plea for a more interdisciplinary approach to international business ib studies based on a careful analysis of the major economic social political and institutional changes taking place at the time dunning 1989 411 observed

deviations dynamics and equilibrium refinements existing equilibrium refinements rule out nash equilibria susceptible to deviations we propose a framework for considering not only equilibria impervious to deviations but also equilibria likely to recur in the long run because they are repeatedly deviated to we explore which equilibria are recurrent with respect to the deviations underlying some existing signaling refinements we show that the set of recurrent equilibria based on cho and kreps s 1987 intuitive criterion is equivalent to their solution concept but that applying our framework to existing cheap talk refinements make those solution concepts more realistic and guarantee existence where their current formulations do not journal of economic literatureclassification numbers b49 c72 c73

perspective absorbing the concept of absorptive capacity how to realize its potential in the organization field the purpose of this perspective paper is to advance understanding of absorptive capacity its underlying dimensions its multilevel antecedents its impact on firm performance and the contextual factors that affect absorptive capacity twenty years after the cohen and levinthal 1990 paper the field is characterized by a wide array of theoretical perspectives and a wealth of empirical evidence in this paper we first review these underlying theories and empirical studies of absorptive capacity given the size and diversity of the absorptive capacity literature we subsequently map the existing terrain of research through a bibliometric analysis the resulting bibliometric cartography shows the major discrepancies in the organization field namely that 1 most attention so far has been focused on the tangible outcomes of absorptive capacity 2 organizational design and individual level antecedents have been relatively neglected in the absorptive capacity literature and 3 the emergence of absorptive capacity from the actions and interactions of individual organizational and interorganizational antecedents remains unclear building on the bibliometric analysis we develop an integrative model that identifies the multilevel antecedents process dimensions and outcomes of absorptive capacity as well as the contextual factors that affect absorptive capacity we argue that realizing the potential of the absorptive capacity concept requires more research that shows how micro antecedents and macro antecedents influence future outcomes such as competitive advantage innovation and firm performance in particular we identify conceptual gaps that may guide future research to fully exploit the absorptive capacity concept in the organization field and to explore future fruitful extensions of the concept

forecasting activity levels in the uk continental shelf the role of perceptions the explicit treatment of the role of perceptions in modelling forecasts is uncommon with respect to future activity levels in the uk continental shelf using the flexibility of add factors in econometric forecasts this article demonstrates that in addition to price variations forecasts are sensitive to perceptions about future resource discovery and recovery rates a medium sized multivariate system reflecting the feedback structure of the petroleum supply process was formulated estimated and used to forecast activity levels

balancing subsidiary influence in the federative mnc a business network view the contest for intra organisational power in the multinational corporation mnc has gradually become a prominent issue on the research agenda as long as 25 years ago hedlund 1980 investigated the strategic roles of subsidiaries in mncs and doz and prahalad 1981 raised the issue of how difficult it is for headquarters to remain in control of its subsidiaries and to influence their strategies over time since then several researchers have suggested that mncs can be considered to be dispersed structures of power in which the top management s authority does not necessarily result in hierarchical power being the ultimate control mechanism hedlund 1986 forsgren 1989 ghoshal and bartlett 1990 doz and prahalad 1993 ferner and edwards 1995 kristensen and zeitlin 2001 morgan and whitley 2003 birkinshaw and hood 1998 examined the evolution of capabilities at the subsidiary level and recognised that in most corporations there is an internal competition for charter that implies a process of change in subsidiary roles birkinshaw and hood 1998 782 case research has also indicated that changes in the charters of divisions or subsidiaries in mncs constitute a strong feature of horizontal or vertical competition in the corporate marketplace galunic and eisenhardt 1996 birkinshaw and fry 1998 the tension between the headquarters and overseas laboratories caused by the laboratories desire for autonomy and influence is an example of such a competition asaka wa 2001

servitisation and value co production in the uk music industry an empirical study of consumer attitudes abstract since the rise of music on the internet the record industry has reported falling total sales revenues this has occurred at a time when technology has radically increased choice availability and the opportunity for the consumer to purchase music to date pay per unit music sales channels have been more successful than music subscription services as the music industry has moved from a product to a service business model does the loss of sales indicate they have not taken their customers with them this paper provides a description of different music consumer attitudes an independent variable in this research based upon quantitative analysis of more than 5000 valid survey responses consumer purchasing behaviour and music discovery methods are treated as dependant variables an empirical study using structural equations model was carried out to test the relationship between consumer groups and purchasing preference in relation to tangible products and intangible service purchases moreover consumer typology and propensity to actively engage with music communities was analysed and thus their willingness to co produce value was explored the most important findings were first all consumers view pay per unit positively and second a group of consumers representing just under half the sample was identified that would engage with a monthly subscription music service and could co produce solutions in this channel

a retrospective on mnc knowledge transfer subsidiary absorptive capacity and hrm in this retrospective we revisit the goals of the original paper and we review the studies that have used our paper to discuss the concept and the development of absorptive capacity we also propose directions for future research stressing the need to develop thorough theoretical and empirical models of absorptive capacity as a multi level and dynamic construct that is contingent on the context in which it is embedded

a problem of incentive compatibility in the north sea petroleum industry abstract the principal agent relationship between the governments of the uk and norway and the multinational oil companies active in the north sea petroleum industry is to some extent different from a typical principal agent interaction for almost three decades the major criterion for allowing a company to take part in the activity was its previous and planned contribution to the domestic economy by means of applying the highest possible domestic inputs this study applies mathematical modeling to show that the authorities had the opportunity to offer an incentive scheme to persuade the oil companies to involve domestic suppliers at the governments preferred level unlike a typical government regulatory framework which aims to increase efficiency in terms of price and or quality the incentive compatible scheme discussed in this paper could in certain circumstances generate inefficiency in the daily operation of the oil and gas fields

the impact of language barriers on trust formation in multinational teams this study systematically investigates how language barriers influence trust formation in multinational teams mnts on the basis of 90 interviews with team members team leaders and senior managers in 15 mnts in 3 german automotive corporations the authors show how mnt members cognitive and emotional reactions to language barriers influence their perceived trustworthiness and intention to trust which in turn affect trust formation the authors contribute to diversity research by distinguishing the exclusively negative language effects from the more ambivalent effects of other diversity dimensions their findings also illustrate how surface level language diversity may create perceptions of deep level diversity furthermore their study advances mnt research by revealing the specific influences of language barriers on team trust an important mediator between team inputs and performance outcomes it thereby encourages the examination of other team processes through a language lens finally their study suggests that multilingual settings necessitate a reexamination and modification of the seminal trust theories by mayer davis and schoorman and by mcallister in terms of practical implications the authors outline how mnt leaders can manage their subordinates problematic reactions to language barriers and how mnt members can enhance their perceived trustworthiness in multilingual settings

a reputation refinement without equilibrium the economic literature concerning agents reputations has grown steadily since the seminal work of kreps milgrom roberts and wilson 2 early work focused on how incomplete information leads to equilibria that are vastly different but more intuitive than those possible in the complete information game recently however game theorists have been studying how incomplete information might refine the set of equilibria 3 one important class of games is that in which a single long run agent plays a simultaneous move stage game with a sequence of opponents each of whom plays only once yet observes all previous play fudenberg and levine 1989 study the reputation of the long run player in this type of game they argue that the most reasonable equilibrium is the one which the long run player most prefers their intuition is sustained when one perturbs the game with the stackelberg strategy fudenberg and levine show that in the perturbed game the equilibrium payoffs of the long run player are bounded below by a number that converges to the stackelberg payoff

from a distance and generalizable to up close and grounded reclaiming a place for qualitative methods in international business research journal of international business studies 2011 42 573 581 doi 10 1057 jibs 2011 19 it is exhilarating to write the introduction to this special issue as it presents an important opportunity for qualitative research to reclaim its position as an integral part of international business ib research the field of ib was founded on a rich qualitative research legacy e g bartlett 1979 crozier 1965 fayerweather 1969 johanson vahlne 1977 kindleberger 1956 prahalad 1975 wilkins 1970 1974 over time however such methods have been progressively marginalized in our field as quantitative methods have become the norm this shift in emphasis has mirrored the broader trend toward more positivistic empirical methods in the social sciences the field of ib is multidisciplinary in scope and interdisciplinary in content and methodology statement of jibs editorial policy however as our respective home disciplines came under growing pressure to solidify their legitimacy as scientific endeavors that merit scholarly attention it is not surprising that we began to take on the norms propagated within our own academic communities that typically equated quantitative data with hard science while there are clear merits associated with quantitative methods the multi cultural multi dimensional and dynamic nature of the field of ib lends itself to a broad range of research methodologies qualitative methods being one of them in order to understand the complexities of emergent and evolving phenomena scattered over distance and the differentiated contexts typical to many topics under investigation in ib it is often inappropriate to engage in large scale cross sectional studies or reductionist methods in the absence of well developed theory rather thick description exploratory research and comparative case analysis that focus on inductive theory building and hypotheses generation may be more suitable

reputation and equilibrium selection in games with a patient player a single long run player plays a simultaneous move stage game against a sequence of opponents who play only once but observe all previous play let the stackelberg strategy be the pure strategy to which the long run player would most like to commit himself if there is positive prior probability that the long run player will always play the stackelberg strategy then his payoff in any nash equilibrium exceeds a bound that converges to the stackelberg payoff as his discount factor approaches one when the stage game is not simultaneous move this result must be modified to account for the possibility that distinct strategies of the long run player are observationally equivalent

stationarity rationalizability and bargaining strategies for the seller and the buyer which are weakly stationary we demonstrate that any initial offer from the seller induced by a strategy rationalized by a weakly stationary acceptance rule for the buyer must entail the coase property our result does not presume the selection of a particular equilibrium and follows directly from the weak stationarity assumption of the buyer s acceptance rule and the rational behaviour of the players

source or storer ib s performance in a knowledge network the absence of systematic assessment of ib s performance as a reference discipline prolongs questioning of the contribution that ib scholarship makes to other business fields put simply do ib journals export more ideas to allied disciplines than they import from them difficulty in evaluating the merits of let alone the need for solutions offered to boost interdisciplinary relevance slows validation of the ontological principles and epistemic standards of ib research this paper begins to fill this gap it establishes a knowledge network composed of 39 high impact journals that represent the domains of management marketing finance economics operations it accounting human resources organizational behavior and ib we collected citation exchanges among these 39 journals from 2000 through 2007 a log multiplicative model evaluated multiple dimensions of association to determine the sources and storers of knowledge within the network the network from pathfinder analysis was used to determine each journal s contribution to network entropy these analyses indicate that ib journals functioned as storers not sources of ideas within the sampled knowledge network over the studied period the results help interpret opposing proposals to fortify ib studies highlight the tradeoff between exploitation and exploration in knowledge development and dissemination and elaborate jibs s boundary spanning performance within the sampled network

accessing vs sourcing knowledge a comparative study of r d internationalization between emerging and advanced economy firms research and development r d internationalization is on the rise for advanced economy multinationals amnes as well as emerging economy multinationals emnes we study emne r d internationalization by comparing it to that by amnes in the context of an emerging knowledge intensive industry we find that these two are fundamentally different processes while the internationalization of amnes r d activities can largely be explained in terms of the twin strategies of competence exploitation and competence creation emne r d internationalization is rooted in the firms overall catch up strategy to get on par with industry leaders an in depth comparison of knowledge flows reveals that within amnes headquarters often serves the primary source of knowledge for r d subsidiaries in contrast within emnes headquarters accesses knowledge from r d subsidiaries in advanced economies for innovation catch up within this dichotomy the innovative capabilities of emne headquarters develop more slowly and with greater difficulty than those of amne subsidiaries

changing ib scholarship via rhetoric or bloody knuckles a case study in the boundary conditions for persuasion papers challenging institutionalized fields to change are rare and those not extinguished by neglect are rarer shenkar understands his target audience those in that target community of ib scholars studying cultural distance s cd associations with foreign direct investment fdi might read this paper as relatively radical culture scholars sometimes interpret the discussion of cultural friction cf as competing with even slighting by omission their corpus of work on contact and interaction both readings are false and forced comparison with two later papers reveals retrospective bias at work it further reveals cf as a metaphor not theory it is not a research agenda assigned to the field even if it becomes a personal project for the author rhetorical theory is the basis to compare the reasoning of appeals and emotion the discussion considers whether academic change agents might consider more use of emotion bringing shenkar into focus enriches our appreciation for its impressive craftsmanship as well as its scholarship i discuss implications for impact as a concept currently stuck with looking for citation over substance and offer suggestions for reviewers and editors to lower the barriers for impact

conceptualizing and measuring culture in international business and management from challenges to potential solutions understanding the influence of culture on business operations has been one of the most enduring components of international business ib and international management im theorizing and empirical investigation while several critiques and debates questioned the significant progress made in this domain the special issue we introduce here is meant to demonstrate that further advancement on how we conceptualize and measure culture is not only needed but also possible we provide an overview of past and current approaches in the measurement of culture in ib im and the challenges associated with these approaches and emphasize the important yet insufficiently acknowledged link between the theoretical conceptualization of culture and its measurement we then introduce the four articles included in the special issue and highlight how they break away from the addiction to approaches that have been very useful in getting where we are today but that might not always be useful in advancing knowledge beyond what we already know last but not the least we offer our own perspective on promising directions in conceptually and methodologically rethinking the study of culture in ib and im

a multistage model of bargaining this paper presents a simple multistage model of bargaining wherein a seller makes an offer that can be either accepted or refused if rejected the process continues how the seller s ability to make commitments affects bargaining outcomes is analysed by comparing the commitment equilibria to those arising when commitment is impossible the effects of increasing uncertainty about preferences and varying the length of the bargaining horizon are analysed the ways in which the bargaining environment can be changed to improve outcomes are discussed

language policies and practices in wholly owned foreign subsidiaries a recontextualization perspective this study adopts a recontextualization perspective on language policies and practices in wholly owned foreign subsidiaries drawing on a field study of 101 subsidiaries in japan we develop a contingency model that distinguishes between four different types of recontextualization with characteristic language policies and practices developing locally adaptive developing globally integrated established locally adaptive and established globally integrated our analysis shows how each of these four types is accompanied by specific problems and challenges in particular it elucidates five important aspects of language implementation 1 the emergence of language praxis from the interplay of headquarters strategies and local responses 2 the hybridization of language practices 3 the central role of key actors such as subsidiary presidents in recontextualization 4 the pervasive power implications of language policies and practices and 5 the multifaceted implications for strategic human resource management by so doing our analysis opens up new avenues for context specific and practice oriented studies of language in multinational companies

price cost and exploration sensitivities of prospective activity levels in the ukcs an application of the monte carlo technique abstract building on previous work this paper develops a probabilistic economic model using the monte carlo technique to project activity levels in the uk continental shelf the modelling emphasises the importance of oil and gas prices the investor s hurdle rate of return changing prospectivity and the exploration effort activity in the medium term is found to be highly sensitive to oil and gas prices development costs and exploration effort field investment may fall very substantially and the oil production decline rate could be fast from 2000 to sustain higher activity levels further technological advances and their widespread adoption are essential

cultural differences and capability transfer in cross border acquisitions the mediating roles of capability complementarity absorptive capacity and social integration this paper presents an integrative model of the impact of cultural differences on capability transfer in cross border acquisitions we propose that cultural differences affect the post acquisition capability transfer through their impact on social integration potential absorptive capacity and capability complementarity two dynamic variables the use of social integration mechanisms and the degree of operational integration of the acquired unit are proposed to moderate the effects of cultural differences on social integration and potential absorptive capacity the implications for acquisition research and practice are discussed

services and the business models of product firms an empirical analysis of the software industry some product firms increasingly rely on service revenues as part of their business models one possible explanation is that they turn to services to generate additional profits when their product industries mature and product revenues and profits decline we explore this assumption by examining the role of services in the financial performance of firms in the prepackaged software products industry standard industrial classification code 7372 from 1990 to 2006 we find a convex nonlinear relationship between a product firm s fraction of total sales coming from services and its overall operating margins as expected firms with a very high level of product sales are most profitable and rising services are associated with declining profitability we find however that additional services start to have a positive marginal effect on the firm s overall profits when services reach a majority of a product firm s sales we show that traditional industry maturity arguments cannot fully explain our data it is likely that changes in both strategy and the business environment lead product firms to place more emphasis on services this paper was accepted by christoph loch r d and product development

toward a construct of liability of origin in this paper we advance a novel concept of liability of origin to explicate the mechanisms through which location can be become either a liability or an advantage our analysis sheds light on how firms ability to compete and gain legitimacy can be derailed or enhanced by their geographical location we illustrate our theoretical analysis using multiple cases in the airline industry in africa four distinct phases that explicate how liability of origin manifests in firms legitimacy quest are indicated our work highlights how actions and inactions of rival firms can make the geographical origin of a firm geographicalness to shift from being a strategic asset to become a liability we outline a number of implications for practice and fruitful avenues for future research

when is servitization a profitable competitive strategy abstract although servitization has emerged as a new competitive strategy for manufacturers there has been little research about product level servitization we investigate the competition between two channels one separately providing both goods and services and the other providing inseparable servitized goods through a game theoretic approach two critical parameters to understand competition between the two channels will be proposed 1 service dependency a degree of dependency of physical goods upon services and 2 channel substitutability a degree of substitution between conventional channels and servitized one the study reveals that the servitization strategy is a better choice for a manufacturer selling physical goods only when the goods require a higher level of service i e high service dependency and when the competition between the two channels is more severe i e high channel substitutability in addition obtaining cost efficiency is found to be an important factor to achieve higher competitive advantage over the other channel