north south standards harmonization and international trade recent years have seen a surge in economic integration agreements eias and the development of non tariff measures ntms as a consequence a growing number of eias include provisions on ntms however little attention has been given in the literature to the effects of ntm liberalization in the context of eias in this paper we focus on provisions for technical regulations and analyze whether the north south harmonization of technical barriers affects international trade using a gravity equation it tests whether as a result of the deep integration associated with standards provisions included in the eia the southern partners trade expands with the north but at the expense of their trade with non bloc southern partners empirical results provide strong support for this conjecture moreover harmonization on the basis of regional standards negatively impacts the exports of developing countries to the north

best of both worlds how embeddedness fit in the host unit and the headquarters improve repatriate knowledge transfer knowledge transfer within multinational enterprises is a source of competitive advantage however we know little about repatriates role in reverse knowledge transfer upon their return to headquarters hq using an organizational embeddedness perspective we conceptualized how embeddedness fit individuals perceived match between their knowledge and skills and the job requirements during the expatriation assignment and upon repatriation predicts repatriate knowledge transfer to test the hypotheses we collected multi wave survey data from 129 repatriates and their supervisors and developed a repatriate knowledge transfer scale the results show that perceived organizational support from hq positively influences embeddedness fit both in the host unit during expatriation and in the hq upon repatriation further embeddedness fit in the hq upon repatriation has a direct effect while embeddedness fit in the host unit during expatriation has an indirect effect on repatriate knowledge transfer via increased communication frequency with the former host unit in addition we found that knowledge transfer is particularly pronounced for repatriates with both high levels of embeddedness fit in the hq upon repatriation and frequent communication with colleagues in their former host unit our results highlight the critical importance of helping expatriates increase their perceived embeddedness fit for reverse knowledge transfer to occur

a causal model of linkages among environmental dimensions macro organizational characteristics and performance an integrative model of relationships among environmental dimensions diversification strategy firm size structural divisionalization and economic performance was developed and tested using environmental and organizational data from 110 large manufacturing firms the results suggested that among those organizations 1 higher levels of environmental instability were associated with lower levels of divisionalization and diversification 2 strategy followed structure and 3 size did not mediate the strategy structure relationship furthermore both environmental instability and diversification were positively related to market determined performance and instability was negatively related to operating performance the results provided support for portions of each of three models the external control strategic management and inertial models

the impact of regulations on agricultural trade evidence from the sps and tbt agreements according to world trade organization rules countries may adopt regulations under the agreements on sanitary and phyto sanitary sps and technical barriers to trade tbt we analyze the structure of these measures in agricultural trade the inventory approach suggests that european countries have among the lowest coverage ratios of all oecd countries using a gravity equation we also estimate their stringency our results suggest that they significantly reduce developing countries exports to oecd countries but do not affect trade between oecd members furthermore european imports are more negatively influenced by sps and tbts than imports of other oecd countries

the importance of international business to the strategic agenda of u s ceos the growth of international business ib and concerns about the relevance of ib research indicate the need for managerial input on the topic a survey of 108 u s ceos reveals that ib issues are an important part of their strategic agenda four types of ib issues are identified which reveal that american ceos appear to be taking a proactive stance regarding the international arena the ceos were also found to hold diverse perceptions of ib issues the implications of these findings are discussed

a quantitative reassessment of the purchasing power parity hypothesis evidence from norway and the united kingdom summary annual data from norway and the united kingdom from 1874 to 1971 are used to reassess the empirical performance of the purchasing power parity ppp doctrine the simple version of the ppp relationship is supported by the data only if different short run dynamics during a floating rate period 1914 1928 is allowed for two sets of factors were found to be important in amending the simple ppp model these were short run cyclical variables affecting the adjustment towards the ppp equilibrium relationship and long run structural factors such as productivity and terms of trade within this expanded model the proportionality between the exchange rate and relative price levels could not be rejected

managing international interdependence ceo characteristics in a resource based framework this study s basic argument is that the level of a firm s international interdependence influences the pattern of ceo characteristics ideal for enabling a ceo to contribute to firm performance in

beyond the wto an anatomy of eu and us preferential trade agreements it is often alleged that ptas involving the ec and the us include a significant number of obligations in areas not currently covered by the wto agreement such as investment protection competition policy labour standards and environmental protection the primary purpose of this study is to highlight the extent to which these claims are true the study divides the contents of all ptas involving the ec and the us currently notified to the wto into 14 wto and 38 wto x areas where wto provisions come under the current mandate of the wto and wto x provisions deal with issues lying outside the current wto mandate as a second step the legal enforceability of each obligation is evaluated and judged on the extent to which the text specifies clear obligations among the findings are i ec agreements contain almost four times as many instances of wto x provisions as do us agreements ii but ec agreements evidence a very significant amount of legal inflation i e non legally enforceable provisions in the wto x category and us agreements actually contain more enforceable wto x provisions than do the ec agreements iii us agreements tend to emphasise regulatory areas more compared to ec agreements 2010 blackwell publishing ltd

ceo international experience effects on strategic change and firm performance despite the growing importance of ceos international experience ie we have yet to gain sufficient insights into its conceptualization and effect on firm outcomes based on prior research and work experience models we suggest a new framework for measuring ie including three components length of time number of countries and cultural distance along with their interactions drawing upon social and cognitive learning theories we explore the impact of ceos ie on two outcomes strategic change and firm performance we argue that ie components affect the two outcomes by enhancing executives international knowledge and general competencies while international knowledge may affect firm performance directly general competencies may affect firm performance both directly and indirectly through strategic change using a sample of 387 new ceos we found that time abroad had a positive effect on strategic change and firm performance while number of countries and cultural distance positively moderated these relationships additionally we also found that these components affected firm performance both directly and mediated through strategic change our findings have important theoretical implications for the conceptualization and impact of ceos ie and practical implications for executive development and promotion

international experience in the executive suite the path to prosperity attention is increasingly focused on the potential individual career and firm level benefits of international experience for upper level executives this research examines the relationships between ceo international experience ceo tenure firm internationalization succession events and corporate financial performance results indicate a significant interactive effect between ceo tenure and outside succession on ceo international experience in addition to a relationship with ceo international experience there are two additional interactive effects in the examination of corporate financial performance 1 ceo international experience and the degree of firm internationalization and 2 ceo international experience and ceo succession these interactive effects are evident in accounting and market indicators of corporate financial performance copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

the political economy of nontariff barriers a cross national analysis nontariff barriers to trade are most pervasive when deteriorating macroeconomic conditions give rise to demands for protection by pressure groups when countries are sufficiently large to give policymakers incentives to impose protection and when domestic institutions enhance the ability of public officials to act on these incentives statistical results based on a sample of advanced industrial countries during the 1980s support the argument that the incidence of nontariff barriers tends to be greatest when the preferences of pressure groups and policymakers converge more attention should be devoted to the interaction between societal and statist factors in cross national studies of trade policy

measuring the degree of internationalization of a firm in spite of both positivistic and instrumental research the reliability of measuring the degree of internationalization of a firm remains speculative we collected data on nine attributes of seventy four american manufacturing mncs alpha factor and frequency analyses revealed a linear combination of five variables with a reliability coefficient of 79 as a measure of the degree of internationalization of a firm we discuss the statistical and conceptual properties of the scale and their implications for content and construct validity

non tariff measures specific trade concerns and tariff reduction this paper studies the determinants of the recent proliferation of specific trade concerns raised at the wto on non tariff trade measures ntms with a focus on sanitary and phytosanitary sps and technical barriers to trade tbts even though ntms are imposed de jure to protect consumers from unhealthy products they increase trade costs de facto so when tariff protection lowers ntms become effective barriers to trade and the exporting countries can complain at the dedicated committee at the wto stcs therefore we study whether stcs are raised by exporting countries as a consequence of tariff reductions in importing countries that is when non tariff measures become barriers to trade using a recent database on stcs over the period 1996 2010 we find empirical evidence that sps and tbt concerns are raised by exporting country as a consequence of importer s tariff cut

why do international assignees stay an organizational embeddedness perspective we apply an organizational embeddedness perspective to examine international assignees retention with the organization specifically we hypothesize that assignees social ties within and their perceived fit with the host unit positively relate to two sacrifices on leaving the organization their firm specific learning during the assignment and their perceived career prospects in the organization perceived career prospects are expected to predict subsequent retention moderated by firm specific learning these hypotheses are tested using a sample of 143 inpatriates in 10 german multinationals with retention measured 2 and 4 years later we show that inpatriates trusting ties with hq staff and their fit with the hq positively relate to their firm specific learning and their perceived career prospects and that the latter predicts their retention 2 and 4 years later perceived career prospects mediate the direct relationship between inpatriates fit with the hq and inpatriate retention and the indirect relationship between inpatriates trusting ties with hq staff and their retention furthermore inpatriates firm specific learning mitigates the effect of perceived career prospects on retention decisions 2 years later we contribute to the organizational embeddedness careers and international business literatures by explaining when and how facets of organizational embeddedness relate to assignee retention

qualified immigrants success exploring the motivation to migrate and to integrate high quality employees with international experience bring valuable advantages to internationally operating organizations the growing number and importance of immigrants and particularly qualified university educated immigrants deserves more attention from international business practitioners and scholars the market for highly qualified people within mncs is increasingly becoming international and ever more of them have migrated to a new country to advance their career such employees can be a source of competitive advantage for international firms we use qualitative research with qualified immigrants qis in france to argue that the success of qis depends in large part on their motivation to integrate into their host country which is largely explained by their motivation to migrate from the qualitative data we derive four different types of qualified migrant and suggest that the type will determine the success of the immigrant within and outside the organization the relationship between the motivation to migrate and the motivation to integrate is moderated by met expectations and organizational integration policies such that the effects of these in turn vary with type recognition of the types of qi and the moderating factors will be valuable for practitioners as well as opening up research avenues for scholars

trade standards and poverty evidence from senegal summary in the debate on trade and poverty it is argued that standards act as trade barriers and cause marginalization of the poor this paper quantifies income and poverty effects of high standards trade and integrates labor market effects by using company and household survey data from the vegetable export chain in senegal we find that exports grew sharply despite increasing standards contributing importantly to rural incomes and poverty reduction tightening standards induced a shift from smallholder contract farming to integrated estate production altering the mechanism through which poor households benefit through labor markets instead of product markets

when yankee comes home factors related to expatriate and spouse repatriation adjustment this study examined anticipatory and in country individual job organizational and non work variables and their relationship with work interaction and general repatriation adjustment for u s managers the study also examined anticipatory and in country individual and non work variables and their relationship with interaction and general repatriation adjustment for the spouses of the managers who were married age total time overseas social status and housing conditions were generally related to all facets of repatriation adjustment for both expatriates and spouses practical and research implications are explored

the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary measures on market entry and trade flows in an attempt to disentangle the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary sps measures on trade patterns we estimate a heckman selection model on the hs4 disaggregated level of trade we find that aggregated sps measures constitute barriers to agricultural and food trade consistently to all exporters but conditional on market entry trade flows are positively affected by sps measures additionally we find that sps measures related to conformity assessment hamper market entry and trade flows while sps measures related to product characteristics pose an entry barrier but increase bilateral trade flows conditional on meeting the standard

revisiting repatriation concerns organizational support versus career and contextual influences this paper reviews and integrates two perspectives on repatriate retention a traditional one which suggests that the main determinant of repatriate retention is the availability of repatriation support programs and an emerging one which focuses on individual career activism in a changing employment context results of a study of 133 expatriates from 14 mncs indicate that both views contribute to our understanding of repatriate retention building on the results of our study we put forward a framework to guide future research

repatriation of corporate executives an empirical study the effective management of corporate executives returning from foreign assignments has received little attention from academic researchers this study is based on questionnaires completed by members of the american society of personnel administration international aspi the focus of the study was directed at problems that occurred in repatriating executives programs used by corporations to repatriate returning executives and examines why programs have not been instituted by multinational corporations

the political economy of non tariff measures over the last decades non tari measures ntms have seen an important upsurge how ever little research has focused on the political economy of non tariff protection and the existing studies are mainly based on a single country or a specific type of measures this paper seeks to fill the gap by empirically evaluating the determinants of ntms in several countries both developed and developing overall results show certain protectionist purposes behind the adoption of ntms this conclusion is reinforced for restrictive measures i e subject to trade concerns but does not hold for non restrictive measures suggesting the legitimate goal of several ntms furthermore transnational lobbying defined as the influence exerted by national business groups during the ministerial conferences the highest authority of the world trade organization wto increases the probability of adopting ntms in both developed and developing countries

modelling the impact of non tariff measures on supply chains in asean this paper explores the impact of reducing non tariff measures ntms in major asean countries new econometric estimates of the impact of different types of ntms are used in a global supply chain model to separately model the effects on intermediate products and those sold to final consumers we also distinguish between whether the ntm cost burden is directed at exporters or importers this paper makes important advances in modelling the heterogeneity of ntms offering much richer policy analysis of the impact of ntms on supply chains in the asia pacific region than has previously been possible we illustrate the benefits both to the major asean countries and to their trading partners from the partial liberalisation by asean countries of their most trade distorting types of ntms such liberalisation increases the gdp and welfare of all countries with the effect particularly pronounced for the major asean countries themselves especially vietnam and the philippines as trade in plant products and animal products is particularly affected by ntms these sectors show the largest expansion of trade

static deviations from purchasing power parity abstract the paper examines the real effects of monetary policy in a small open economy in full stock flow equilibrium in the presence of government debt an increase in the money supply generally produces deviations from purchasing power parity money creation through foreign exchange purchases results in an overvaluation of the domestic currency while its short run effects favor the export industries its long run effects are thus in favor of the domestic sector the same is true for open market purchases but the overvaluation is probably smaller in this case

international knowledge brokerage and returnees entrepreneurial decisions based on the knowledge brokerage literature and the international entrepreneurship literature we investigate whether returnees international knowledge transfer affects their entrepreneurial decisions and the extent to which this relationship is contingent on perceived supportive policies for returnee entrepreneurship and returnees difficulties with cross cultural readjustment in their home countries analyzing first hand survey data we find a positive relationship between international knowledge transfer and returnees decisions to become entrepreneurs this positive relationship is strengthened by the perception of the home country s supportive policies for returnee entrepreneurship but is weakened by returnees perceived difficulties in readjusting to the local norms and culture in their home countries

cultural diversity and the performance of multinational firms we test the hypothesis that culturally related international diversification will have a positive impact on firm performance and that the opposite will be true for culturally unrelated globalization cultural diversity for fortune 500 firms was used to predict performance over a ten year period 1985 1994 controlling for several organizational and industry characteristics regression tests using nine indicators of cultural diversity revealed no significant cultural effects alternate interpretations are offered