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

new venture survival ignorance external shocks and risk reduction strategies abstract although scholars have long recognized the increased mortality risk that new ventures face in terms of a liability of newness most of the discussion around this risk has been in terms of the contextual constraints that new ventures face and the difficulties that managers have in overcoming them this emphasis is in part a reflection of the perils of newness but also stems from the retrospective and aggregate perspective taken by researchers although the macro level perspective of new venture mortality has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of mortality risk patterns there has been little interest in identifying how venture managers can address the risks that all new organizations face we argue that in order to make progress in explaining new venture survival a theoretical model is required that uses a more micro level perspective to explain new venture failure and the flip side new venture survival in this paper we develop such a model we establish a definition of mortality risk and argue that the liability of newness is largely dependent on the degree of novelty ignorance associated with a new venture novelty is viewed in three different dimensions viz to the market to the technology of production and to management novelty to the market concerns the degree to which the customers are uncertain about the new venture novelty in production concerns the extent to which the production technology used by the new venture is similar to the technologies in which the production team has experience and knowledge novelty to management concerns the entrepreneurial team s lack of business skills industry specific information and start up experience we argue that mortality risk increases with the degree of novelty in each dimension and with the number of dimensions in which the new venture is novel we propose that the decline in mortality risk occurs as the venture s novelty in each of the three dimensions is eroded by information search and dissemination processes this allows the new firm to become an established business and explains what we term the evolutionary path of mortality novelty and risk decline monotonically after a period of adolescence as ignorance decays over time due to passive learning we also propose that there is a strategic mortality risk path that reflects the impact of positive and negative shocks shocks are exogenous events that alter the overall degree of novelty at a point in time positive shocks decrease overall novelty while negative shocks increase overall novelty and reversals endogenous actions that increase the overall novelty of the new venture at a point in time on the mortality risk of a new venture if the incidence and effects of these disruptions can be managed then venture managers may be able to mitigate the mortality risk for their venture we argue that risk reduction strategies can be employed most of which impact on one or more of the dimensions of mortality risk in order to increase the firm s chances of survival a series of risk reduction strategies are proposed and their impact on the determinants of mortality risk is considered

operating flexibility global manufacturing and the option value of a multinational network the multinational corporation is a network of activities located in different countries the value of this network derives from the opportunity to benefit from uncertainty through the coordination of subsidiaries which are geographically dispersed we model this coordination as the operating flexibility to shift production between two manufacturing plants located in different countries a stochastic dynamic programming model treats explicitly this flexibility as equivalent to owning an option the value of which is dependent upon the real exchange rate the model is extended to analyze hysteresis effects and within country growth options we show that the management of across border coordination has led to changes in the heuristic rules used for performance evaluation and transfer pricing

reconciling the advantages and liabilities of foreignness towards an identity based framework this article leverages identity theory to address the question of when and how foreignness acts as an advantage and liability for the mne subsidiary applying an organizational identity lens i delineate how subsidiaries manage their foreignness by accentuating and attenuating internal and external organizational attributes drawing on this conceptualization i theorize how an accentuated foreign identity moderates context specific advantages and liabilities in offering a more nuanced understanding of how subsidiaries actively manage their foreignness and its contextual implications an identity based framework helps to both explain and reconcile the advantages and liabilities of foreignness

the economics of smallholder organic contract farming in tropical africa summary the paper examines the revenue effects of certified organic contract farming for smallholders and of adoption of organic agricultural farming methods in a tropical african context the comparison in both cases is with farming systems that are organic by default survey data from a large organic coffee contract farming scheme in uganda are reported and analyzed using a standard ols regression and a full information maximum likelihood fiml estimate of the heckman selection model the analysis finds that controlling for a range of factors there are positive revenue effects both from participation in the scheme and more modestly from applying organic farming techniques

foreign and domestic divestment and investment decisions like or unlike the managerial literature on foreign investment and divestment is much less developed than the economic literature on foreign direct investment theory nevertheless surveyed with the purpose of better understanding foreign divestment decisions the research to date reveals some noticeable differences between investment and divestment divisions whether foreign or domestic and even more substantial differences between foreign divestment and domestic divestment decisions additional research however is clearly in order

foreign venture capitalists and the internationalization of entrepreneurial companies evidence from china we use a comprehensive database of venture capital backed companies from china to test whether and how foreign venture capitalists vcs can facilitate international initial public offerings of entrepreneurial companies foreign vcs increase the likelihood that a portfolio company will list on a foreign exchange and use a top lawyer banker or accountant when doing so the propensity to list overseas is moderated by the number of venture backers the fund s size and governance in the domestic market foreign vcs encourage foreign listings in domestic backed companies we take steps to address sample selection and endogeneity concerns overall we show that foreign vcs encourage internationalization in entrepreneurial companies

the liability of localness in innovation i analyze differences in the innovativeness of domestic firms and subsidiaries of foreign firms operating in the same country i argue that domestic firms suffer a liability of localness in innovation or a competitive disadvantage in product innovation relative to subsidiaries of foreign firms i propose that this liability of localness is driven by the relatively lower levels of multiculturalism in employees of domestic firms in comparison with subsidiaries which limit the identification transfer and integration of a large diversity of knowledge that supports product innovation i also propose that managers of domestic firms can compensate for this liability of localness in two ways by investing in the training of their employees and by exporting training modifies the mindsets and abilities of employees and enables them to become more cognitively multicultural which facilitates product innovation exporting changes employees mindsets as they become exposed to new ideas available abroad which also facilitates product innovation i test these arguments on a sample of manufacturing firms and find that although domestic firms introduce fewer new products than subsidiaries of foreign firms they introduce more new products than subsidiaries at the same level of investment in language training and of exports

food quality changes and implications evidence from the rice value chain of bangladesh summary in dhaka the share of the less expensive coarse rice is shown to be rapidly decreasing in rice markets and it thus seems that the role of rice as only a cheap staple food is being redefined the increasing demand for the more expensive varieties is seemingly associated with a more important off farm food sector in particular milling retailing and branding as well as a transformed milling industry we further find that the labor rewards for growing different rice varieties are not significantly different and that farmers do not benefit directly from consumers increased willingness to pay for rice

large scale agricultural investments and smallholder welfare a comparison of wage labor and outgrower channels in tanzania summary this article evaluates household welfare effects of large scale agricultural investments in tanzania one of the main recipients of such investments in africa specifically the article compares households participating in sugar and rice investments through outgrower schemes or as agro industry workers with non participants in terms of household income and income poverty building on primary household data it is one of the first studies to empirically analyze ex post impacts of large scale agricultural investments in africa the analysis draws on cross section survey data of 516 households collected in kilombero district a priority cluster for the southern agricultural growth corridor of tanzania sagcot the results show overall positive household welfare differences between participants of the investments and the respective counterfactual however there are large differences between arrangements and subsectors estimated effects for outgrowers are largest yet for land rich outgrowers more so than for land poor effects for agro industry workers in the sugar investment are significantly larger than for those in the rice investment though in both investments land poor workers seem to benefit hence the study results suggest potential benefits of outgrower schemes and potentials of agro industry wage employment for the land poor to escape extreme poverty yet it also stresses particularly the need to address the constraints of land poor outgrowers qualitative interviews for example pointed to growing risks for land poor outgrowers in the context of rising elite capture by larger outgrowers

the liability of foreignness in international equity investments evidence from the us stock market using foreign institutional ownership data in the us from 1990 to 2007 we examine whether foreign institutional investors face liabilities of foreignness lof in the us stock market we find that foreign institutional investors prefer low information asymmetry stocks more than domestic institutional investors do and this preference for low information asymmetry stocks is particularly strong among foreign institutional investors from countries with high lof more importantly we find that a change in foreign institutional ownership is negatively related to future returns whereas this relation does not exist for domestic institutional ownership the negative relation between the change in foreign institutional ownership and future returns is more pronounced when investors face a greater lof in the us stock market for instance when they are from countries with higher institutional distance information asymmetry unfamiliarity and cultural differences the negative effect of country specific lof factors on the return forecasting power of foreign institutional investors is more evident when they trade stocks with higher information asymmetry overall these findings suggest that foreign institutional investors face significant lof costs in the us stock market resulting in their poor ability to forecast returns

deconstructing the liability of foreignness regulatory enforcement actions against foreign banks it is widely acknowledged that foreign firms are at an institutional disadvantage relative to domestic firms operating in the local market this liability of foreignness typically manifests as inferior performance for foreign firms relative to domestic competitors although myriad studies document the liability of foreignness few demonstrate how individual host country institutions generate specific liabilities in this study we explore the regulatory liabilities that foreign firms face using a sample of 189 foreign banks operating in the united states we find that regulators initiate more enforcement actions on average against foreign banks than they do against domestic banks the effects however vary by regulation type and firm characteristics for example foreign banks are no more likely to receive risk related sanctions but far more likely to receive stakeholder related sanctions foreign banks with higher quality of human capital and more host country experience are less likely to run afoul of all regulations foreign banks with more third country experience are less likely to receive risk related sanctions but more likely to receive stakeholder related sanctions the results highlight the contingent nature of regulatory liabilities the role of information asymmetry versus regulatory bias in enforcement outcomes and the liability reducing effects of resources and capabilities

incentives and moral hazard plot level productivity of factory operated and outgrower operated sugarcane production in ethiopia we investigate the unique contractual arrangement between a large ethiopian sugar factory and its adjacent outgrower associations the only significant difference between the sugarcane production on the factory operated sugarcane plantation and on the outgrower operated plots is the remuneration system and thus the incentives to the workers we compare the productivity of the factory operated plantation with the outgrower operated plots based on a new cross sectional plot level data set that includes all plots that are operated by the sugar factory and its adjacent outgrower associations as sugar cane production depends on various exogenous factors that are measured as categorical variables e g soil type cane variety etc we estimate the production function by a nonparametric kernel regression method that takes into account both continuous and categorical explanatory variables without assuming a functional form and without imposing restrictions on interactions between the explanatory variables in order to obtain meaningful productivity measures we impose monotonicity in input quantities using the constrained weighted bootstrapping cwb method our results show that outgrower operated plots have ceteris paribus a statistically and economically significantly higher productivity than factory operated plots which can be explained by outgrowers having stronger incentives to put more effort into their work than the employees of the sugar factory

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

the transition to modern agriculture contract farming in developing economies recent years have seen considerable interest in the impact of contract farming on farmers in developing countries motivated out of belief that contract farming spurs transition to modern agriculture in this article we provide a thorough review of the empirical literature on contract farming in bo

managing the mne subsidiary advancing a multi level and dynamic research agenda abstract multinational enterprise mne subsidiaries abroad are important organizations in their own rights they typically hold some of the mne s most critical resources and operate at the forefront of complex international environments in this review we identify and organize theoretical and empirical research on subsidiary management based on over 600 articles in leading academic journals we develop a conceptual framework that integrates complementary streams of theoretical and empirical research with the subsidiary as its focal unit of analysis in particular we review six lines of research on subsidiary scope practices knowledge management engagement with local market and nonmarket actors performance and individuals within subsidiaries we highlight theoretical perspectives that have contributed to and been advanced by research on mne subsidiaries based on the review we explore future research agendas linking the contemporary research themes with two main thrusts first subsidiary management is a multi level phenomenon that would benefit from more microfoundational research second subsidiary management operates at key interfaces of technology paradigm shifts and of disruptions in the political and institutional environment research into the dynamics of subsidiary management would thus enhance our understanding of international business in a volatile global economy

the influence of entrepreneur s personal characteristics on mses growth through innovation abstractresearch in the separate areas of innovation and growth has considerably intensified in recent years however little scholarly attention has been paid to the entrepreneurs personal characteristics that might explain the growth of micro and small enterprises mses through innovation this study examines the key entrepreneurs personal characteristics affecting micro and small enterprises mses upgrading defined here as substantial growth through innovation six major determining types of entrepreneurs characteristics were identified from the innovation and the growth literature education work experience gender motivations nationality and age the empirical results which are based on t tests of the differences between upgraders and non upgraders the linear probability model and the logit model all suggest that work experience and motivations are cornerstones in the likelihood that an mse will upgrade the policy implications of this study on promoting mses upgrading are also discussed

a note on the relation between size ownership status and plant s closure sunk costs vs strategic size liability abstract in this paper we test both sunk cost and strategic size liability predictions by looking at the exit behavior of a sample of italian manufacturing plants for this purpose we focus on plants size and ownership status in particular we distinguish independent plants from plants that belong to multi unit organizations as to these latter we further distinguish state owned from privately owned plants we also consider the impact upon the likelihood of closure of the size and nationality of the parent firm in addition and contrary to previous empirical work data allow us to control for differences in the cost structure of plants namely we use technology adoption dummies to take into account plants technological heterogeneity

governance strategies and welfare effects vertical integration and contracts in the catfish sector in vietnam using an original dataset from the vietnamese catfish sector we study the impact of vertical coordination options on household welfare and the implications of different stages of vertical coordination for the success of the whole sector the welfare gain from contract farming and employment on processor owned estate farms is estimated using a maximum simulated likelihood estimator our results show positive welfare effects from participating in contract farming but not from employment on processor owned estate farms the results imply that contract farming presents opportunities for economic growth but additional effort is required to make the contracts more accessible to smallholders

subsidiary expansion contraction during times of economic crisis this paper compares two real options within country growth and across country operational flexibility to examine subsidiary expansion contraction during times of economic crisis specifically we examine how the real options orientations of individual subsidiaries interact with the general characteristics of multinational enterprise networks our main findings are that a economic crises can be detrimental for subsidiaries with stronger within country orientations and advantageous for those with stronger across country orientations and b network characteristics are not the sole determinants of subsidiary expansion contraction what really matters is how the real options orientations of individual subsidiaries mesh with the overall characteristics of the network they belong to

contract farming in staple food chains the case of rice in benin abstract in this paper we analyze the impact of smallholder participation in a contract farming scheme in the rice sector in benin we use data from a cross sectional farm household survey and different propensity score matching estimations to reveal how participation in a contract farming scheme affects smallholder rice production we find that contract farming results in expansion of the rice area intensification of rice production increased commercialization of rice and higher farm gate prices and ultimately contributes to rice output growth and increased income our findings imply that contract farming can contribute to upgrading the rice supply chain and the development of the rice sector in benin promoting and supporting the spread of contract farming schemes in the sector might be an effective way to contribute to reaching the government goals of expanding rice production to become self sufficient and improving rice quality to compete with imported rice while there is a large empirical literature on contract farming in high value and commodity export sectors studies on contract farming in staple food sectors are very scarce our results document that contract farming for staple food crops can be sustainable and benefit smallholder farmers which is against theoretical expectations that contracting for staple food crops is not feasible because of contract enforcement problems that stem from a low value of produce low storage and transport costs and a larger number of buyers in the chain our study contributes to understanding the role that contract farming might play in the much needed upgrading of domestic and staple food crop sectors in developing countries

contract farming and smallholder outgrower schemes in less developed countries abstract some studies of outgrower schemes involving smallholders and public or private corporations in less developed countries suggest the potential value of such arrangements in facilitating transfer of technology access to markets and other benefits for growers a diverse literature is surveyed to see what economic and political questions have been raised which have a bearing on the issue of grower welfare in some cases existing literature or the author s own research provides adequate answers to the questions raised in others the need for further research is indicated some possible directions and methodologies for systematic comparative studies are suggested

international relocation firm and industry determinants this article is the first to explore the determinants of international relocation of a firm it is found that labour intensive firms in a highly industrialized and open economy such as belgium tend to relocate more to other countries than their highly productive capital intensive counterparts access to a global network firm size and the rate of innovation have a positive effect on the probability of relocation uncertainty has a negative impact on the probability of relocation the positive effect of firm size and profitability on the relocation decision is clearly distinct from its effect on the exit decision of a firm

contract farming configuration smallholders preferences for contract design attributes while contract farming cf can enhance smallholders income in developing countries empirical research on the motivation of smallholders to participate in cf is scarce this paper explores farmer preferences for particular contract design attributes we combined analytical hierarchy process and discrete choice experiments to investigate the importance of contract design attributes on the basis of data collected among potato farmers in ethiopia we found that input market uncertainty is more important than output market uncertainty in smallholders decision to participate farmers tend to minimize their risk by opting for the buyer firm above the state and ngos as providers of seed inputs and technical assistance the results imply that the success of a cf scheme depends on the willingness of the firm to incorporate the preferred contract design attributes institutional intervention in the input market could induce agribusiness firms to offer attractive contracts for smallholders

relocation of headquarters and international taxation about 6 of multinationals relocated their headquarters to another country in the 1997 2007 period this paper presents empirical evidence on the role of taxes in these relocation decisions it considers a sample of 140 multinationals that relocated their headquarters over the past decade and compares them to a control group of 1943 multinationals that did not relocate it is found that the additional tax due in the home country upon repatriation of foreign profits has a positive effect on the probability of relocation the empirical results suggest that an increase in the repatriation tax by 10 percentage points would raise the share of relocating multinationals by 2 2 percentage points equivalent to an increase in the number of relocations by more than one third furthermore the presence of controlled foreign corporation legislation also has a positive effect on the number of relocations

distributional effects of agricultural cooperatives in china exclusion of smallholders and potential gains on participation abstract this paper examines the treatment effects of the agricultural cooperative and publicly funded extension services on individual household economy using data collected by the author from watermelon producing farm households in rural nanjing the cooperative addressed in this study restricts the participation of small scale farmers implying that selection into the program must be taken into consideration for an accurate assessment of the treatment effect the econometric analysis revealed that government extension services have a modest effect on farm income in contrast the treatment effect of the agricultural cooperative is robust and substantially large accounting for nearly 70 of the pre matching difference this suggests that the agricultural cooperative system is an important avenue for farmers to improve their economic status the treatment effect of the agricultural cooperative is highly heterogeneous the economic benefits arising from the cooperative are significant only for small scale farms we can argue that a coexistence of smallholder exclusion and the treatment effect in favor of small scale farms poses serious challenges to pro poor agricultural growth in china

sugarcane outgrowers in ethiopia forced to remain poor contract farming is often seen as a panacea to many of the challenges faced by agricultural production in developing countries given the large heterogeneity of contract farming arrangements it is debatable whether all kinds of contract farming arrangements offer benefits to participating smallholders we apply matching methods to analyze the effects of a public sugarcane outgrower scheme in ethiopia participation in the outgrower scheme significantly reduces the income and asset stocks of outgrowers who contributed irrigated land to the outgrower scheme while the effect was insignificant for outgrowers who contributed rain fed land we provide several explanations and discuss policy implications

extending the bargaining power model explaining bargaining outcomes among nations mnes and ngos participants in international bargaining include different types nation states mnes ngos and multilateral organizations and different numbers of these actors our theoretical contribution is to extend the bargaining power paradigm with a framework that models bargaining in this complex environment as a network the configuration of supports and constraints among all participating actors in the bargaining environment is captured in the structure of the network antecedents of an actor s bargaining influence in the network include the actor s basis of power network position bargaining outcome preferences and motivation to influence bargaining the network bargaining power nbp model uses network theory to build upon and integrate insights from previous literature in a way that allows us to simultaneously apply these different insights to explain bargaining outcomes these insights include effects of coalitions strategies of less powerful actors leveraging more powerful allies integration of international and domestic politics and applicability to mne related issues beyond fdi finally we illustrate nbp in a scenario of privatized utilities in the dominican republic in which the bargaining power outcome predicted by nbp differs from that of the canonical bargaining power perspective

the survival of international new ventures international new ventures invs are a popular mode of entry into foreign markets invs those companies that enter foreign markets at inception often suffer the two liabilities of newness and foreignness which may increase the odds of their failure this paper empirically examines the survival of invs by comparing them with other sequential modes of international operations e g acquisitions data from 275 british firms show that invs have lower unconditional survival probabilities than other modes of foreign market entry our analyses also show that differences in survival probabilities disappear when the firms competitive strategies are considered

new institutional arrangements for rural development the case of local woolgrowers associations in the transkei area south africa until recently smallholder farmers in the transkei area had very limited access to a profitable market outlet for their wool in response the south african wool industry built shearing sheds managed by a local association that sells directly to the brokers this article investigates the effect of joint wool marketing through the shearing shed on the farmers revenue from wool a three step regression model of the revenue from wool indicates that the farmers selling through the shearing shed obtain better financial results as compared to those who use alternative channels this analysis shows how new institutional arrangements may contribute to economic development

impact of contract farming on income linking small farmers packers and supermarkets in china summary this study compares contract and non contract growers of apples and green onions in shandong province china in order to explore the constraints on participation and the impact of contract farming on income we find little evidence that firms prefer to work with larger farms though all farms in the area are quite small using a heckman selection correction model we find that contract farming raises income even after controlling for observable and unobservable household characteristics these results suggest that contract farming can help raise small farm income though questions remain regarding the number of farmers that can be brought into such schemes 2009 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the lmdi approach to decomposition analysis a practical guide in a recent study ang energy policy 32 2004 compared various index decomposition analysis methods and concluded that the logarithmic mean divisia index method is the preferred method since the literature on the method tends to be either too technical or specific for most potential users this paper provides a practical guide that includes the general formulation process summary tables for easy reference and examples

success in high value horticultural export markets for the small farmers the case of mahagrapes in india summary in spite of being the second largest horticultural producer in the world india is a failed exporter mainly because of the inability to meet the food safety standards hence successes in horticultural exports are rare here we study one unique success story mahagrapes a marketing partner to farmer cooperatives attributing its success to a combination of collective action and public private partnerships our results indicate that mahagrapes farmers earn significantly higher income vis a vis their outside marketing option and smallholders face no bias in selection together with the farmer s ability to consistently meet standards this implies that the model can be scaled up 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

contract farming and food security contract farming has often been associated with an increase in the income of participating households it is unclear however whether contract farming increases other aspects of household welfare using data from six regions of madagascar and a selection on observables design in which we control for a household s marginal utility of participating in contract farming which we elicited via a contingent valuation experiment we show that participating in contract farming reduces the duration of a household s hungry season by about ten days on average and that it makes participating households about 20 percent more likely to see their hungry season end at any point in time further we find that these effects are more pronounced for households with a larger number of children and for households with a larger number of girls this is an important result as children especially girls often bear the burden of food insecurity

the future natural gas consumption in china based on the lmdi stirpat plsr framework and scenario analysis abstract due to the growing pollution concerns in china there have been major efforts to design interrelated environmental protection policies as the policy of reducing coal consumption is implemented china s natural gas consumption is expected to commensurately rise such a trend may lead to the significant impacts on china s energy security and the global gas market this paper empirically investigates the relationship between the natural gas consumption and influencing factors in a comprehensive lmdi stirpat plsr framework it is found that fossil energy structure and non clean energy structure are the most important factors followed by urbanization per capita gdp industrialization and industrial energy intensity and then these factors from lmdi decomposition are innovatively divided into economic development and cleaning indicators when using scenario analysis to forecast china s natural gas consumption the prediction results suggest that economic development with high clean energy system would make a significant increase in gas consumption a commensurate increase in demand even the system of economic energy under scenario of low economic development and low clean as china would depend on gas imports to meet this demand there may be a serious supply shortage by 2020 therefore the government should consider the future energy security issue in making economic and environmental policies

on the growth of foreign affiliates multinational plant networks joint ventures and flexibility we take a flexibility perspective to analyse employment growth in a large sample of japanese manufacturing affiliates in nine asian countries during the years leading up to and into the asian financial crisis 1995 1999 we find that joint ventures are less flexible than wholly owned affiliates in responding to changing environmental conditions in the focal country and underperform in high growth environments multinational enterprises mnes use the flexibility created by their multinational plant network to adjust affiliate employment in response to labour cost changes in other countries in which they operate plants however no evidence was found that the presence of joint ventures in multinational plant networks reduces this network flexibility our findings suggest that more research is needed on the heterogeneous responses of mnes and their affiliates to changing economic environments

multinational enterprises and climate change exploring institutional failures and embeddedness this paper explores how climate change affects multinational enterprises mnes focusing on the challenges they face in overcoming liabilities and filling institutional voids related to the issue climate change is characterized by institutional failures because there is neither an enforceable global agreement nor a market morality climate change is also a distinctive international business issue as its institutional failures materialize differently in different countries as governments are still highly involved mnes need to consider carefully their strategies to cope with non market forces including their embeddedness in multiple institutional settings using some illustrative examples of mne responses to climate related components in stimulus packages we explore mnes balancing act concerning their institutional embeddedness or lack thereof in home host and supranational contexts as input for further research on the dynamics of mne activities in relation to climate change

finding default understanding the drivers of default on contracts with farmers organizations under the world food programme purchase for progress pilot during the past two decades food assistance policy has shifted toward local or regional food purchases and away from purchases from donor countries while most local and regional procurement occurs through hard tendering processes open to large scale firms and farms there is growing interest in identifying how and whether to procure from smallholder farmer organizations to date little is known about the drivers of successful contracting with farmers organizations fos we utilize data from the united nations world food programme purchase for progress pilot in three east african countries to predict defaults on contracts we examine four possible explanations country contexts fo characteristics prior experience with contracts and contract modalities and their relationship to local spot market prices the single most important predictor of default is the increase in market prices between contract approval and delivery yet while increases in market prices are linked to increases in default this relationship is decreasing in contract size indicating search costs associated with breaking contracts our findings yield both generalizable and context specific insights about whether and when procuring from smallholder farmers can be successfully integrated into the food assistance toolkit this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

analysis of electricity consumption in china 1990 2016 using index decomposition and decoupling approach abstract electricity consumption accounts for a significant portion of final energy consumption in countries worldwide and has a close relationship with economic growth this paper explores the factors influencing electricity consumption in china during 1990 2016 using index decomposition analysis and analyses the decoupling status between economic growth and electricity consumption in addition to the influencing factors these analyses are conducted at both national and sectoral levels the results reveal that 1 the economic activity effect was the main driving force increasing total electricity consumption in china while the energy intensity effect hindered it 2 both diversity and aggregation existed at the sector level the power generation chemicals and non ferrous sectors were the top three contributors to increased electricity consumption 3 the change of electricity consumption caused by gdp growth in china showed three decoupling states during 1990 2016 expansive negative decoupling expansive coupling and weak decoupling in particular the energy intensity effect stimulated the occurrence of decoupling 4 industrial sectors played a significant role in decoupling in china while service sectoral electricity consumption showed expansive coupling with its sectoral gdp in recent years

limitations of contract farming as a pro poor strategy the case of maize outgrower schemes in upper west ghana summary contract farming cf arrangements have the potential to address market failures and improve technology adoption productivity and welfare in ghana government and donors use cf as a strategy for increasing adoption of new agricultural technologies and developing value chains yet to date there has not been a rigorous assessment of these cf schemes the focus in this paper is on different maize based cf schemes in the poorest and most remote region in ghana it assesses the profitability and potential impact of these cf schemes utilizing a unique plot level dataset that covers two periods of data and two maize plots scheme and non scheme per household and employing matching techniques and an instrumental variable approach to address selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity across farmers these are complemented by a community level survey in depth interviews with scheme operators and a series of key informant interviews results show that these schemes led to improved technology adoption and yield increases in addition a subset of maize farmers with high yield improvements due to cf participation have high profits maize cf schemes also enabled market coordination and consistent supply of quality maize to downstream industries however on average the impact of the cf schemes on profitability is negative even when input diversion is accounted for yield increases are not high enough to compensate for higher input requirements and the cost of capital under the schemes despite higher yields the costs to produce one metric tonne of maize under cf schemes are higher than on maize farms without cf schemes twice that of several countries in africa and more than seven times higher than that of major maize exporting countries the united states brazil and argentina sustainability of these cf schemes will largely depend on developing and promoting much improved varieties and technologies that boost yields in order to compensate for the high input and credit costs

globalization privatization and vertical coordination in food value chains in developing and transition countries food and agricultural commodity value chains in developing and transition countries have undergone tremendous changes in the past decades companies and property rights have been privatized markets liberalized and economies integrated into global food systems the liberalization and privatization initially caused the collapse of state controlled vertical coordination more recently private vertical coordination systems have emerged and are growing rapidly as a response to consumer demand for food quality and safety on the one hand and the farms production constraints caused by factor market imperfections in this article we 1 demonstrate the importance of these changes 2 discuss the implications for efficiency and equity and 3 provide empirical evidence on the effects in several developing and transition countries

some dynamic aspects of food standards food standards have existed since the beginning of trade and exchange but have increased and expanded in recent years affecting global and local value chains this has triggered vigorous debates on the impacts on trade and development standards may simultaneously enhance economic efficiency and redistribute rents complicating policy analysis and implying that the economics and the politics of standards are often hard to separate while substantial research has contributed important insights dynamic aspects of standards have not received much attention i present a framework to illustrate some dynamic economic and political aspects of standards in closed and open economies this framework integrates changes over time in preferences implementation costs and protectionist pressures as determinants of standards and suggests explanations for persistent differences in food standards across countries hysteresis in standards can persist due to protectionist motives even if the initial standards were not introduced for protectionist reasons i use some historical cases to document both the persistence and adjustment of standards over time and with international integration

contract farming smallholders and rural development in latin america the organization of agroprocessing firms and the scale of outgrower production abstract this paper demonstrates how contract farming functions as an economic institution and explores the causes of the observed variation in the scale of outgrower production in latin america we outline how market imperfections and transaction costs influence the decision of agroprocessing firms to contract out vertically integrate or use spot markets to obtain raw product the paper demonstrates how market conditions are likely to be associated with particular outgrower characteristics under contract farming an analysis of the mexican frozen vegetable industry illustrates determinants of successful and unsuccessful small scale contracting and suggests alternative policies to promote contract farming with smallholders

foreign and domestic divestments evidence on valuation effects of plant closings this study examines the valuation consequences of domestic and foreign divestments by comparing the stock price reaction to announcements of domestic plant closings and foreign plant closings a domestic plant closing could indicate firm wide problems and impending firm deterioration a foreign plant may serve to exploit arbitrage opportunities specific to that plant location closing a foreign plant need not signify firm wide problems our comparison of stated reasons for closings supports these propositions therefore foreign plant closing announcements should produce a smaller stock price decline that domestic plant closing announcements empirical results indicate a significant negative stock price reaction for domestic plant closings and an insignificant negative stock price reaction for foreign plant closings differences in stock price reaction remain after controlling for firm specific factors

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

economics and politics of food standards trade and development standards have played an important role in food trade for a very long time their rapid growth in recent years has triggered vigorous debates on their impacts on international trade and development with many arguing that standards are non tariff barriers to trade and that standards are marginalizing the poor i present conceptual frameworks and review empirical evidence on the equity and efficiency effects and the political economy of standards models which incorporate essential aspects of standards yield complex theoretical results and nuanced conclusions careful empirical analyses support such nuanced arguments and find complex effects for trade standards can create welfare gains but also involve rent redistribution which induces lobbying by interest groups to set the standards at their preferred level this makes it difficult to distinguish socially desirable standards from those resulting from political rent seeking for development it is crucial to explicitly account for a the endogeneity of the institutional organization of value chains and b both smallholder contracting and employment creation on large scale farms when considering the impact of standards on development and poverty

who gets what the mne the national state and the distributional effects of globalization globalization is the outcome of the interface between national states and mnes it is a negotiated solution rather than perfect market equilibrium even in a global liberalized world national states are trying to generate as much welfare for their residents as they can while mnes try to maximize their value this creates a bargaining situation a stylized game theory model is presented and discussed in order to gain insights into the income distributional effects of the globalization process two important features of the model are a that there is a need for a carefully spelt out strategy and b that optimal solutions depend on an ability to identify the elements of the bargaining where the opportunity cost is low a case study of the negotiation between the state of israel and intel is presented as an illustration for this general model

does corporate hedging attract foreign institutional investors evidence from international firms we study how corporate hedging affects the demand of foreign institutional investors we collect measures of foreign exchange hedging and interest rate hedging for a comprehensive sample of international companies we document a strongly positive relationship between foreign institutional demand and corporate hedging the effect of hedging is concentrated in the demand of non bank affiliated investors whereas bank affiliated investors are less sensitive to it the impact of hedging on foreign institutional ownership is higher for less transparent countries and a low quality of corporate governance amplifies the effect of lower transparency we address the potential endogeneity of hedging with an instrumental variable specification that exploits the changes in hedging induced by changes in the asset quality of relationship banks we also show that the pre ipo hedging policy is positively related to international investor demand after the ipo

modern value chains and the organization of agrarian production empirical studies of agrarian production in developing countries often find that small farms possess a productivity advantage over larger farms eswaran and kotwal 1986 famously derive this inverse farm size productivity relationship from the structure of agrarian production the focal prediction of their model is that in otherwise equivalent economies a more egalitarian land distribution raises both output and producer welfare the traditional spot procurement system implicit in the eswaran and kotwal model however diverges fundamentally from modern contractual procurement practices we therefore develop a new model of agrarian production in order to determine whether the introduction of a modern value chain alters the welfare effects of land redistribution the inverse farm size productivity relationship persists in our model but we find that more egalitarian land distribution leads to nonmonotonic changes in producer welfare we also find that the introduction of a modern sector can harm the laboring classes

why do small scale producers choose to produce under contract lessons from nontraditional vegetable exports from zimbabwe summary this article explores the motivations behind the decision of small scale producers to grow nontraditional vegetables under contract for export based on a survey of small scale producers in zimbabwe four factors are identified as motivating contracting namely market uncertainty indirect benefits e g knowledge acquisition income benefits and intangible benefits respondents are clustered according to the relative importance of these factors in their contracting decision four clusters are identified and related to the characteristics of these farmers including size of the farm amount of land devoted to export crops access to alternative markets and the proportion of family income derived from export crops the results suggest that there are systematic differences between farmers in their decisions to contract which needs to be recognized in contract design and management 2005 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

dynamic capabilities for hire how former host country entrepreneurs as mnc subsidiary managers affect performance mnc subsidiaries benefit from managers with entrepreneurial skills for finding superior combinations of mnc and host country resources however such management skills are scarce we reason that subsidiaries can improve their performance by hiring host country entrepreneurs as managers since they develop similar skills in start ups our theoretical model integrates mechanisms from entrepreneurial experience into theory on the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities we test and support our prediction using longitudinal employer employee data for 5587 foreign mnc subsidiaries in portugal further we show that performance effects are weaker when a subsidiary s management is internationally diverse and stronger in dynamic host country environments

the social performance and distributional consequences of contract farming an equilibrium analysis of the arachide de bouche program in senegal abstract this paper is an empirical analysis of the impact of a contract farming program in senegal we examine the access of poorer community members to contracts and the effect of the program on the income of participants the program performs very well on both counts participants and nonparticipants are indistinguishable by wealth measures and farmers increase their income substantially by participating in the program we attribute the former to the program s mobilization of local information through its use of village intermediaries permitting the substitution of social collateral for physical collateral and making the program more accessible to the poor

liberalization endogenous institutions and growth a comparative analysis of agricultural reforms in africa asia and europe thirty years ago a vast share of low and middle income countries was heavily state controlled the liberalizations of the 1980s and 1990s had greatly different effects on growth in countries in africa asia and europe a comparative framework is used to document these differences and a model is developed to formally analyze how liberalization affects production and income distribution when the institutions that govern production and exchange are also affected hypotheses are derived for how endogenous institutional adjustments affect the growth response to liberalization these insights motivate a series of explanations for the differences in performance across regions and commodities following liberalization

managing quantity quality and timing in indian cane sugar production ex post marketing permits or ex ante production contracts private sugar processors in andhra pradesh india use an unusual form of vertical coordination they issue permits to selected cane growers a few weeks before harvest these permits specify the amount of cane to be delivered during a narrow time period this article investigates why processors create uncertainty among farmers using ex post permits instead of ex ante production contracts the theoretical model predicts that ex post permits are more profitable than ex ante contracts or the spot market under existing government regulations in the sugar sector which include a binding price floor for cane and the designation of a reserve area for each processor wherein it has a legal monopsony for cane the use of ex post permits creates competition among farmers to increase cane quality which increases processor profits and farmer costs empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that farmers operating in private factory areas have higher unit production costs than do their counterparts who patronize cooperatives

do multinationals operate flexibly theory and evidence do multinational enterprises operate flexibly i e do they shift production in response to currency changes three theoretical perspectives are developed flexibility optimism premised on information and sunk cost advantages takes a macro efficiency perspective and predicts sizable responses flexibility pessimism premised on inertia and internal opportunism takes an organizational perspective and predicts sticky responses flexibility realism premised on the view that to be flexible in the current period multinational enterprises need to have planned and invested accordingly in previous periods predicts positive but relatively modest responses empirical analysis spanning the period 1977 1993 finds that multinational enterprises systematically exploit currency shifts but even in the face of large exchange rate changes their operational responses are relatively modest the results appear most consistent with flexibility realism and this hypothesis is selected over the alternatives considered

foreignness and exit over the life cycle of firms received wisdom indicates that owing to a liability of foreignness foreign firms exit with greater likelihood than do comparable domestic firms and that the difference attenuates as firms age and overcome the liability we posit that foreign firms are also intrinsically more volatile and footloose than domestic ones and that this leads to an increasing divergence between the exit rates of foreign and domestic firms empirically we find that the difference between exit rates of foreign firms and domestic firms increases with age as exit of foreign firms increases with age while that of purely domestic firms decreases exit rates of domestic based multinationals do not change significantly with age they are between those of foreign and purely domestic firms but are closer to the latter this suggests that the footlooseness observed for foreign firms is due to foreignness more than to multinationality

the impact of group based credit programs on poor households in bangladesh does the gender of participants matter this paper estimates the impact of participation by gender in the grameen bank and two other group based micro credit programs in bangladesh on labor supply schooling household expenditure and assets the empirical method uses a quasi experimental survey design to correct for the bias from unobserved individual and village level heterogeneity we find that program credit has a larger effect on the behavior of poor households in bangladesh when women are the program participants for example annual household consumption expenditure increases 18 taka for every 100 additional taka borrowed by women from these credit programs compared with 11 taka for men

comparison of private incentive mechanisms for improving sustainability of filipino tuna fisheries this paper analyzes the influence of three private incentive mechanisms over decision making related to improved sustainability of fishing practices in filipino tuna fisheries the three mechanisms compared are the world wildlife fund for nature s fishery improvement project model marine stewardship council certification and the international seafood sustainability foundation pro active vessel register the main question addressed in this paper is how and to what extent the private incentive mechanisms support the development of fisher capabilities to respond to the requirements set out by these mechanisms applying a global value chain approach to analyze results collected from key actors involved in philippine tuna fishers contributing to both domestic and regional economic development in the western pacific we explore the structure and function of these private incentive mechanisms in achieving both environmental and economic development outcomes our results show that these private incentive mechanisms deliver different direct and indirect incentives for changing to more sustainable fishing practices and that the success of these mechanisms is dependent on the extent to which the mechanisms support the development of target fisher capabilities to comply with their sustainability requirements we conclude that the future success of these incentive mechanisms depends for a large part on stricter sustainability requirements but also on the capacity of the mechanisms to incentivize the inclusion of more developing country fishers these findings contribute to a wider understanding of how the capabilities of developing country producers are influenced by their relationship with chain and non chain actors and with the wide institutional arrangements that the producers operate in

enhancing the obsolescing bargain theory a longitudinal study of foreign ownership of u s and european multinationals this research attempts to enhance the obsolescing bargain theory for manufacturing companies by statistically testing the effects of nine explanatory variables on the static and dynamic manifestations of bargaining success with longitudinal firm level data in order to highlight those effects it develops a conceptual framework that provides a broader context in which the primary variables operate it demonstrates that the obsolescing bargain took effect in india over a fifteen year period following restrictive legislation unlike previous research this study measures the effect of benefits received by multinationals from the host government in exchange for equity dilution american companies are found to retain a smaller share of their foreign ownership over time than british and other european multinationals some explanatory variables that have previously been found to influence level of foreign ownership static bargaining success are found to be less important or have a different effect in explaining proportion of foreign ownership retained dynamic bargaining success

change in domestic network centrality uncertainty and the foreign divestment decisions of firms abstract we investigate the role of domestic interfirm networks for the foreign divestment decisions of firms we argue that firms foreign operations risk being divested when a firm becomes more central in its domestic network positive changes in firm centrality at home facilitate access to information about new business opportunities but they may also lead firms to consider reconfiguring their value chain activities and resources across locations the resulting opportunity costs of maintaining foreign operations could subsequently lead to their divestment moreover we argue that the positive association between an increase in firm centrality in the domestic network and foreign divestment is stronger under higher uncertainty as pursuing new business opportunities at home becomes more appealing we distinguish between firm specific uncertainty and domestic market uncertainty we test and get support for our hypotheses using foreign subsidiary data from u s firms in the ict industry

comparative business failures of foreign controlled firms in the united states we explore the comparative business failures of foreign owned or controlled firms and domestically owned firms original data are collected regarding foreign controlled firms in the u s that filed for bankruptcy protection were involuntarily liquidated or ceased operations mainly due to poor financial performance during the 1978 1988 period our results show that foreign controlled firms fail less often than domestically owned firms the patterns of foreign controlled business failures and the impacts of entry modes ownership types and national culture on the failures of foreign controlled firms are also examined

the effect of own firm and other firm experience on foreign direct investment survival in the united states 1987 92 we argue that foreign firms operating in a host country generate information spillovers that have potential value for later foreign direct investment we test two predictions first we expect foreign direct investments by firms with experience in a host country to be more likely to survive than investments made by first time entrants second foreign direct investments will be more likely to survive the greater the foreign presence in the target industry at the time of investment subject to two contingencies the first contingency is that the relationship will be weak or nonexistent among firms with no experience in the host country because these firms have difficulty evaluating and taking advantage of the information spillovers the second contingency is that the presence of other foreign firms will not affect investment survival among firms that already have a presence in the target industry and undertake expansion these firms already possess general information about the target industries and are unlikely to gain additional benefit from information spillovers we find supportive evidence based on the survival to 1992 among 354 u s investments undertaken by foreign firms in manufacturing industries during 1987 1997 by john wiley sons ltd strat management j vol 18 811 824 1997 no of figures 1 no of tables 3 no of references 35

closure and divestiture by foreign entrants the impact of entry and post entry strategies we analyze the longevity of foreign entrants explicitly considering two possible ways of exit firm closure and capital divestiture we find that entry and post entry strategies affect the longevity of firms and of foreign equity holdings but in different manners while the ownership arrangements and organizational structure affect the likelihood of divestment they exert no significant effect upon closure the entry mode exerts opposite effects on the two modes of exit greenfield entrants being more likely to shutdown but less likely to be divested only human capital affects closure and divestment in the same manner firms with large endowments of human capital are less likely to exit irrespective of the exit mode considered copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

toward a cooperative view of mnc host government relations building blocks and performance implications this study examines cooperation based relations between mncs and host governments we theorize that resource commitment personal relations political accommodation and organizational credibility are four building blocks for improving an mnc s cooperative relationships with governments analysis of 131 mncs in china validates the importance of these blocks in shaping mnc government relations and the importance of these relations in shaping the performance of mnc subsidiaries

understanding energy systems change in canada 1 decomposition of total energy intensity abstract between 1995 and 2010 the total energy intensity e gdp pj gross domestic product in 2002 of the canadian economy declined by 23 or 2 64 mj to understand why the logarithmic mean divisia index lmd i method was used to decompose a large body of government statistical data supporting the observed e gdp decline the analysis shows that a 48 1 27 mj of the decline was associated with an inter sector structural change in the economy i e an increased contribution to the total gdp of the low energy using commercial and institutional sector compared with the high energy using manufacturing and heavy industry sectors b 24 0 62 mj was attributed to the impact of the canadian gdp growing faster than population c 22 0 58 mj of the decline was associated with an overall decrease in business energy intensity a deeper analysis of business sectors shows a positive impact of 0 4 mj from increased energy intensity in the oil and gas sector offset by a 0 98 mj decline due to energy intensity declines in the other business sectors d 6 3 0 17 mj of the decline was associated with an improvement in the energy intensity of households mostly from residential energy use rather than personal transportation energy use these results provide insights for policy makers regarding those aspects of the canadian economy that contribute to or work against efforts to transform energy systems toward sustainability

real options and foreign affiliate divestments a portfolio perspective this paper develops a real options portfolio perspective on foreign affiliate divestments affiliates are less likely to be divested in response to adverse environmental change if they represent growth or switch option value to the multinational firm under conditions of macroeconomic uncertainty however the affiliate is partially redundant to the option value of the multinational firm s affiliate portfolio if the affiliate shares the manufacturing platform role in the host country with other affiliates or if macroeconomic conditions of the host country are highly correlated with those of other countries in which the multinational firm operates affiliates we find strong support for these arguments in tests on a comprehensive sample of 1078 asian manufacturing affiliates of japanese electronics multinationals

the volatility of offshore investment abstract offshore investment often bears the image of footloose industry with little to hinder movement to the most favorable environment an effort to describe this particular segment of u s direct investment supports some elements of the colorful anecdotal portrait painted by critics in the third world semiconductor assemblers are moderately sensitive to wage rates and adjust quite rapidly in maintaining what they perceive as a diversified portfolio of risky ldc production locations on the other hand this reaction is small enough to guarantee that modest increases in wages will not send all investment fleeing from an export platform new methods of modelling direct foreign investment when risk diversification is important in explaining industrial location decisions are introduced in this paper

the role of headquarters subsidiary geographic distance in strategic decisions by spatially disaggregated headquarters various studies have explored how headquarters hq subsidiary geographic distance affects hq decisions about subsidiaries arguing that such distance causes some strategic options to be selected over others to limit ex post communication costs these studies have implicitly assumed that a multinational s hq is spatially concentrated even though multinationals have increasingly disaggregated their hq internationally we examine how such hq disaggregation changes the role that hq subsidiary geographic distance plays in hq decisions about subsidiaries we argue that hq disaggregation yields multiple hq subsidiary geographic distances all of which are a likely source of ex post communication costs and hence are likely to co determine hq decisions about subsidiaries we discuss several approaches for dealing with these multiple distances and recommend that the first best approach be adopted by future studies to avoid the biased geographic distance effects possibly present in prior studies

supermarkets farm household income and poverty insights from kenya summary the expansion of supermarkets in developing countries may have important implications for poverty and rural development while previous studies have compared farm profits between participants and non participants in supermarket channels wider income effects have hardly been analyzed moreover most existing studies do not account for structural differences between the two groups we address these issues by using endogenous switching regression and building on a survey of vegetable farmers in kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with a 48 gain in average household income which also contributes to poverty reduction to realize these benefits on a larger scale will require institutional support

contract farming and vulnerability to poverty among oil palm smallholders in indonesia abstractthis article addresses smallholder oil palm farming in indonesia and the risk of falling into poverty by comparing contract and non contract smallholders we use an asset based approach to define vulnerability and apply propensity score matching analysis to assess the impact of contract farming data were collected from a cross sectional survey conducted in 2010 of 245 oil palm smallholder households 126 of which were contract smallholders the study finds that approximately 40 per cent of oil palm smallholders can be classified as stochastic transient poor we also show that while contract participation reduces the negative impact of oil palm price shocks this is not the case for production shocks the study concludes that despite positive income effects contract smallholders also remain vulnerable to poverty

the performance of village intermediaries in rural credit delivery under changing penalty regimes evidence from senegal this article concerns the use of village intermediaries to mitigate asymmetric information problems in rural credit delivery we consider an example from senegal and examine the intermediaries screening of loan applicants the results show that when the intermediaries expected to incur a substantial penalty in the event of borrower default they engaged in appropriate screening allocating credit to borrowers likely to repay their loans when the default penalty was lowered however the intermediaries engaged in opportunistic screening emphasising political affiliation and consanguinity in their lending decisions these results reveal both the potential efficacy of village intermediaries in allocating credit and their extreme sensitivy to penalty regimes

foreign subsidiary and parents roles during strategic investment and divestment decisions empirical research is scarce to answer the concerns of governments unions and public opinion at large concerning how multinationals make decisions to restructure their international strategic portfolio or close plants overseas to ensure long run competitiveness based on three in depth analyses of different types of restructing decisions the author concludes that the foreign subsidiaries seem to carry most of the decisionmaking effort for their own plant closures while for strategic portfolio readjustments during which they change owners they are not consulted

liability of foreignness natural disasters and corporate philanthropy this study examines how philanthropy can mitigate liability of foreignness lof in the aftermath of a national disaster a major disaster restructures the social landscape creating an avenue for corporate contributions to play a role in recovery and relief efforts this social restructuring offers a valuable opportunity for multinational enterprises mnes to establish strong local ties in turn mne contributions at such times have a stronger impact on their local acceptance thus mnes can use these events to strengthen their position in the community and mitigate lof using the context of a national disaster in india i test these arguments with a sample of 190 mnes and 660 domestic firms i found that in the aftermath of the disaster the increase in mne contributions was much larger and less strongly tied to promotional activities than the increase in contributions from domestic firms and this difference persisted over time moreover the performance implication of post disaster philanthropy was stronger for mnes than for domestic firms these findings suggest that philanthropy plays a more strategic role for mnes in the aftermath of a disaster and it has a pronounced effect on mitigating lof

a review of research on the growth of multinational enterprises a penrosean lens abstract we provide a comprehensive review of the growth of multinational enterprises mnes based on a quarter century 25 years of scholarly international business publications we synthesize research insights on the determinants of the growth of mnes through the lens of penrose s theory of firm growth which is the most influential theoretical perspective on firm growth the review takes stock of the research findings on the facilitators constraints and the trajectory of growth of mnes and elaborates on the commonalities and differences between research on the growth of mnes that draws on penrose s theory and research that does not this comparison highlights the opportunity to build an internally coherent theory of the growth of mnes that is a theory that connects what an mne is to what determines an mne s growth it also indicates that past research placed a strong emphasis on exogenous factors e g cross country distances as key constraints on growth even though the penrosean lens suggests a close consideration of endogenous factors that drive international growth as well as endogenizing the ostensibly exogenous growth determinants the review highlights the importance of firm specific managerial knowledge and learning which shapes the direction of the growth of mnes and ensures its administrative coherence