tax policy uncertainty and corporate investment abstract the anticipatory effects of a corporate tax reform of the tax cut cum base broadening variety are analyzed in a dynamic stochastic adjustment model of firm behavior focusing on the case where the firm is uncertain both about the timing and the contents of the expected reform the value of the firm is solved prior to and after the reform the existence of investment spurts prior to the implementation of the tax reform is established rigorous results are derived under constant returns and the effects of diminishing returns are explained the expectation of a future tax cut causes the firm to accelerate optimal investment while the expectation of a reduction in the tax base the rate of fiscal depreciation has the opposite effect for a firm which updates information timing uncertainty interacts with the expectation effect moreover increased timing uncertainty may accelerate or decelerate investment as an optimal response to an expected tax cut futhermore for reasonable assumptions it is shown that a rate cut cum base broadening tax reform of the type implemented in several oecd countries in the 1980s and 1990s cannot be revenue neutral

corporate taxation and capital accumulation evidence from sectoral panel data for 14 oecd countries abstract we present new empirical evidence that sector level capital output ratios are strongly influenced by corporate tax incentives as summarised by the tax component of a standard user cost of capital measure we use sectoral panel data for the usa japan australia and eleven eu countries over the period 1982 2007 our panel combines internationally consistent data on capital stocks value added and relative prices from the eu klems database with corporate tax measures from the oxford university centre for business taxation our results for equipment investment are particularly robust and strikingly consistent with the basic economic theory of corporate investment

factors determining the location decisions of spanish mnes an analysis based on the investment development path on the basis of theoretical assumptions approached via the investment development path idp this study examines the most important factors for and against the location decisions in foreign direct investment taken by multinational enterprises considering host countries at very different stages of economic development latin american and european union countries we carry out different kinds of analysis on a sample of 103 firms belonging to a medium sized country that has recently achieved the status of developed country the results reveal that the importance that home country firm managers give to diverse location factors depends to a certain extent on the stage that each group of host countries has reached in the idp in line with prior research we find that firm managers consider mainly the group of factors associated with strategic asset seeking when deciding to locate their investments in the group of more developed countries european union in contrast our results show that when these firm managers choose the group of less developed countries latin america social and cultural factors play a more determinant role thus suggesting the importance of historical and cultural ties between the home and host countries

fixed costs of adjustment coordination and industry investment we test whether smooth industry level investment dynamics result from explicit aggregation of asynchronous and possibly lumpy firm level investment we compare the deviations of optimal from actual firm behavior across industries categorized by their ratios of idiosyncratic uncertainty to the sum of idiosyncratic and aggregate uncertainty the deviations are represented by the residuals of a cointegrating regression that is derived from the firm s first order condition under no adjustment costs in support of models with asynchronous firm decisions we find a significant negative relationship across industries between idiosyncratic uncertainty and the persistence of these residuals

cosmopolitan consumers as a target group for segmentation for international companies the literature recommends directing segmentation efforts at customer characteristics rather than country characteristics consumers degree of cosmopolitan orientation has been suggested as a powerful segmentation base as this characteristic is expected to drive consumers tastes and preferences to advance research on this segmentation base this article offers a conceptualization of the consumer cosmopolitanism construct by 1 delineating its conceptual domain 2 highlighting its key dimensions namely open mindedness diversity appreciation and consumption transcending borders and 3 examining its links with theoretically relevant variables specifically consumer ethnocentrism and global consumption orientation based on the aforementioned conceptualization a consumer research specific and psychometrically sound measurement instrument the c cosmo scale is subsequently developed and tested in a series of complementary studies finally empirically based insights into the characteristics of cosmopolitan consumers are offered by 1 profiling them on consumption relevant variables innovativeness risk aversion susceptibility to normative influence consumer ethnocentrism and demographic characteristics 2 examining the link between consumer cosmopolitanism and willingness to buy foreign products and 3 developing an empirically based typology of cosmopolitan local consumers using a cluster analysis approach from a managerial perspective findings suggest that the identification and subsequent targeting of cosmopolitan consumers may well represent an appropriate strategy for internationally active companies

tests of three parity conditions distinguishing risk premia and systematic forecast errors abstract this study provides evidence that uncovered interest differentials between currencies cannot be attributed to either risk premia or systematic forecast errors alone the evidence is based on developing joint tests of three parity conditions uncovered interest parity purchasing power parity and real interest parity the study tests parameter restrictions based on knowing that risk premiums only affect nominal and real interest differentials but not inflation differentials while systematic errors in forecasting exchange rates only affect nominal interest differentials and inflation differentials but not real interest differentials the study finds a variety of cases where deviations from some or all of the parity conditions can be systematically related to variables currently known to investors and borrowers the most intriguing evidence is that for some currencies these deviations from parity are perfectly correlated as if they were driven by a common factor

labor law reform and the role of delay in union organizing empirical evidence from canada this paper examines the determinants and consequences of delay in the union certification process using data from certification applications and unfair labor practice complaints ulps from british columbia 1986 98 and ontario 1993 98 during the period studied there were several changes in delay related laws including laws regulating the presence and stringency of election time limits and the availability of expedited ulp hearings key findings are that ulps against the employer reduced the likelihood of compliance with time limit laws except where expedited ulp hearings also existed employer filed objections to the application reduced the likelihood of compliance and election delay reduced the likelihood of certification success both in policy regimes without time limits and in those where stipulated time limits were frequently breached overall the results suggest that enforced time limits on elections coupled with expedited ulp hearings may substantially mitigate the adverse effects of election delay on certification success

location and the multinational enterprise john dunning s thoughts on receiving the journal of international business studies 2008 decade award a retrospective by john h dunning on location and the mne written in the form of responses to questions posed by rajneesh narula in an interview recorded at the university of reading which was shown at the jibs decade award session at the aib annual meetings in milan june 2008

the influence of parent control structure on parent conflict in vietnamese international joint ventures an organizational justice based contingency approach there has been significant interest in understanding how the distribution of parental control over international joint ventures ijv influences ijv outcomes e g parent conflict survival performance yet the accumulation of research on the relationship between control structure and ijv outcomes has been somewhat inconclusive and even contradictory we contribute to this research stream by developing an organizational justice based contingency model relating parental control structure to parent conflict we suggest that the level of conflict between ijv parents will depend on the consistencies between the control structure and parents contribution of proprietary resources and between control structure and the parents abilities to effectively monitor operations our analysis of vietnamese joint ventures provides some support for our model and suggests that the relationship between parent control structure and ijv outcomes is perhaps more complex than previously thought

micro processes of translation in the transfer of practices from mne headquarters to foreign subsidiaries the role of subsidiary translators recent research has increasingly emphasized the micro foundations of knowledge transformation in multi national enterprises mnes although the literature has provided ample evidence of the enablers of and barriers to the translation of practices less is known about the activities and efforts of translators that lead to specific types of translation in the context of the transfer of practices initiated at a mne s headquarters hq to foreign subsidiaries we apply a scandinavian institutionalist approach to examine the translation of corporate social responsibility reporting an hq initiated practice that is transferred to five foreign subsidiaries of a uk based mne our paper builds from a preliminary framework based on extant research to develop an extended framework of the micro processes of translation by theorizing the sequence of the micro processes undertaken by translators identifying the conditions under which they occur and connecting them to the three types of translation we provide a deep understanding of the micro foundations of translation when transferring practices from hq to subsidiaries our paper shows that translation is an evolving phenomenon and illuminates the importance of attending to the social spatial and temporal situatedness of translators it also brings insights into the individual experience of institutional distance and its effects on translation

random walk expectations and the forward discount puzzle nber working paper seriesrandom walk expectations and the forward discount puzzlephilippe bacchettaeric van wincoopworking paper 13205http www nber org papers w13205national bureau of economic research1050 massachusetts avenuecambridge ma 02138june 2007we are grateful to adriano rampini for comments the paper was written while van wincoop visitedthe hong kong institute for monetary research van wincoop acknowledges financial support fromthe institute bacchetta acknowledges financial support by the national centre of competence in research financial valuation and risk management nccr finrisk the views expressed herein are thoseof the author s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the national bureau of economic research 2007 by philippe bacchetta and eric van wincoop all rights reserved short sections of text notto exceed two paragraphs may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit including notice is given to the source

high performance work systems and organizational performance across societal cultures this paper assesses whether societal culture moderates the relationship between human resource management hrm practices and organizational performance drawing on matched employer employee data from 387 organizations and 7187 employees in 14 countries our findings show a positive relationship between hrm practices combined in high performance work systems hpws and organizational performance across societal cultures three dimensions of societal culture assessed power distance in group collectivism and institutional collectivism did not moderate this relationship drawing on the ability motivation opportunity amo model we further consider the effectiveness of three bundles of hrm practices skill enhancing motivation enhancing and opportunity enhancing practices this analysis shows opportunity enhancing practices e g participative work design and decision making are less effective in high power distance cultures nevertheless in markedly different countries we find combinations of complementary hpws and bundles of amo practices appear to outweigh the influence of societal culture and enhance organizational performance

comparing capitalisms and taking institutional context seriously a major limitation of existing international business ib research remains the rather thin view of institutional context in this retrospective we reflect upon and highlight different strategies for overcoming de contextualized perspectives and developing thicker conceptions of institutions drawing on comparative research institutions shape firm behavior not only through their direct or additive effects but have more complex influences by moderating relationships between firm level variables or having interactive or configurational effects related to wider sets of institutions these views can each be extended by adopting a dynamic perspective examining how multinational enterprise mne agency contributes to processes of institutional change ultimately a large gap remains in taking institutions seriously that ib scholars could fill by developing middle range theories that link and compare how particular kinds of institutions or institutional configurations influence particular kinds of mne activities

capital tax reform and the real economy the effects of the 2003 dividend tax cut this paper tests whether the 2003 dividend tax cut one of the largest reforms ever to a us capital tax rate stimulated corporate investment and increased labor earnings using a quasi experimental design and us corporate tax returns from years 1996 2008 i estimate that the tax cut caused zero change in corporate investment and employee compensation economically the statistical precision challenges leading estimates of the cost of capital elasticity of investment or undermines models in which dividend tax reforms affect the cost of capital either way it may be difficult to implement an alternative dividend tax cut that has substantially larger near term effects jel c72 c78 c91

the impact of legitimacy pressure and corporate profitability on green innovation evidence from china top 100 abstract green innovation is an important approach for achieving sustainable development most research on determinants of corporate green innovation has focused on either external or internal drivers combining institutional theory and resource based view the scientific value of this study lies in simultaneously exploring the influence of external legitimacy pressure and internal corporate profitability and their interaction on green innovation samples of the top 100 listed companies in china from 2008 to 2012 were used and the results demonstrated that legitimacy pressure from stakeholders has a significantly positive influence on both corporate green product innovation and process innovation the results also revealed that corporate profitability positively affects green product innovation while there was found to be no significant influence on green process innovation moreover corporate profitability positively moderates the relationship between legitimacy pressure and green product innovation the results show that not only the single factor of external legitimacy pressure and internal profitability but also their interaction affects corporate green innovation practices this offers an integrating perspective on how corporations can be more innovative in sustainability

unfunded liabilities and uncertain fiscal financing we develop a rational expectations framework to study the consequences of alternative means to resolve the unfunded liabilities problem the projected exponential growth in federal social security medicare and medicaid spending with no known plan for financing the transfers resolution requires specifying a probability distribution for how and when monetary and fiscal policies will change as the economy evolves through the 21st century beliefs based on that distribution determine the existence of and the nature of equilibrium we consider policies that in expectation combine reaching a fiscal limit some distorting taxation modest inflation and some reneging on the government s promised transfers in the equilibrium inflation targeting monetary policy and debt targeting tax policy cannot anchor expectations on those target variables expectational effects are always present but need not have large impacts on inflation and interest rates in the short and medium runs in the economy s stationary distribution the capital stock may grow or shrink and substantial probability falls on little or no reneging

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

is demand for polluting goods manageable an econometric study of car ownership and use in mexico abstract our motivation for estimating a demand system for gasoline and cars is its strategic relevance to policy objectives such as pollution control if demand is responsive to pricing demand reductions for polluting goods will provide an important share of the pollution reductions otherwise cleaner technologies will have to do most of the job we estimate a model of gasoline demand and car ownership in mexico using a panel of annual observations by state key features that we introduce include instrumental variables on differenced data and the treatment of possible dynamics measurement errors in the data and unobserved individual state characteristics we use tests of serial correlation in the a residuals to model the dynamics properly the resulting demand system is quite responsive to pricing even in the short term 0 6 for the own price elasticity of gasoline but we emphasize a medium to long term perspective of 5 10 years as most relevant for policy five to ten year elasticity estimates are in the range of 1 25 to 1 13 applying these elasticity estimates to data on pollution control options for the vehicle fleet in mexico city the costs of reaching a target for pollution reductions would be 45 more expensive if one were not willing to use a demand management instrument such a gasoline tax in the control program

tax policy and heterogeneous investment behavior abstract we estimate the effect of temporary tax incentives on equipment investment using shifts in accelerated depreciation analyzing data for over 120 000 firms we present three findings first

internal equity financing and the performance of multinational subsidiaries in emerging economies we examine the internal equity financing of the multinational subsidiary which retains and reinvests its own earnings internal equity financing is a type of firm specific advantage fsa along with other traditional fsas in innovation research and development brands and management skills it also reflects subsidiary level financial management decision making here we test the contributions of internal equity financing and subsidiary level financial management decision making to subsidiary performance using original survey data from british multinational subsidiaries in six emerging countries in the south east asia region our first finding is that internal equity financing acts as an fsa to improve subsidiary performance our second finding is that over 90 of financing sources including capital investment by the parent firms in the british subsidiaries come from internal funding our third finding is that subsidiary level financial management decision making has a statistically significant positive impact on subsidiary performance our findings advance the theoretical empirical and managerial analysis of subsidiary performance in emerging economies

seeking commonalities or avoiding differences re conceptualizing distance and its effects on internationalization decisions past research established distance s key influence on internationalization however theoretical issues methodological challenges and inconsistent results hinder scholarship on why distance plays such an influential role to address these problems we draw from cognitive research on similarity comparisons to re conceptualize distance and test a model of internationalization decisions analyzing the verbal protocols of executives considering a series of internationalization opportunities we demonstrate that over and above objective distance indicators considerations that reduce distance commonalities and considerations that augment distance differences have distinct effects on decisions of where when and how to internationalize as such our study contributes new insights for understanding the nature and effects of distance across different dimensions of distance and internationalization decisions moreover internationalization theories have come to emphasize different theoretical rationales for explaining the influential role of distance on different decisions by integrating these rationales together with the notion that distance reducing commonalities and distance augmenting differences have distinct implications for internationalization decisions we introduce the notion that it is not only the addition of distance considerations that matters but also the directionality of such changes doing so our study points to new theoretical and methodological insights to help address prior criticisms and advance future research

investment ramifications of distortionary tax subsidies abstract this paper examines the investment effects of tax subsidies for which some assets and not others are eligible distortionary tax subsidies concentrate investments in tax favored assets thereby reducing the expected pre tax profitability of investment and reducing payoffs to bondholders in the event of default anticipation of asset substitution encourages lenders to require covenants in debt contracts which only imperfectly address asset substitution and distort investment the result is that borrowing is made more expensive which in turn discourages investment borrowing rates can react so strongly that aggregate investment may rise very little or even fall in response to higher tax subsidies debt issued by u s firms in risk of default after the 2002 introduction of bonus depreciation for u s equipment investment contained many more covenants than in other periods a pattern that reversed when bonus depreciation was discontinued after 2004 furthermore firms at risk of default borrowed less and were more apt to lease capital than were other firms during the bonus depreciation period

managerial metric use in marketing decisions across 16 countries a cultural perspective research on metrics is consistently designated a priority by academics and practitioners however less is known about how culture and cross national differences can potentially impact metric use which is theoretically and managerially limiting this work develops a model that examines national and organizational cultural antecedents while controlling for the decision setting testing the model on data collected from 4384 managerial decisions from 1637 firms in 16 countries reveals that both levels of culture are associated with metric use but each has varying effects our results enable multinational executives to better understand and increase managerial metric use across different cultures and settings

british unions in decline determinants of the 1980s fall in union recognition this examination of establishment level data from the workplace industrial relations surveys of 1980 1984 and 1990 shows that the proportion of british establishments that is workplaces in both the private and public sector that recognized unions for collective bargaining over pay and working conditions fell by almost 20 between 1980 and 1990 largely accountable for this decline was a much lower rate of union recognition in establishments founded in the 1980s than in previous years particularly in the private sector citing these findings as well as recent structural changes in employment in the british labor market such as the shift from manufacturing to services from manual to non manual employment and from full time to part time work and a government that continues to enact anti union legislation the authors foresee no reversal of unions decline in the 1990s

convergence rates to purchasing power parity for traded and nontraded goods this article estimates the speed of the adjustment coefficient in structural error correction models we use a system method for real exchange rates of traded and nontraded goods by combining a single equation method with hansen and sargent s instrumental variables methods for linear rational expectations models we apply these methods to a modified version of mussa s model our results show that the half lives of purchasing power parity deviations for the rates of traded goods are less than 1 year and are shorter than those for general price and for nontraded goods in most cases implying a faster adjustment speed to parity

irving fisher and the fisher relation setting the record straight william j crowder 1997 1124 1127 states that the fisher hypothesis represents one of the oldest and most basic equilibrium relationships in financial economics the fisher equation encapsulates the simple relationship hypothesized to exist between nominal interest rates and expected inflation first delineated by irving fisher 1930 whose name has been associated with the equation ever since crowder s first sentence is indisputable the other sentence quoted presents a belief that seems almost universal in the literature on the fisher relation as distinct from the history of economic thought literature about irving fisher it credits fisher with one of the few innovations in the area for which he does not deserve and did not claim credit neglects what he did contribute on related topics and views the theory of interest 1930 as his first presentation of the relationship a third of a century later than his classic reformulation of the relation the celebrated equation which appears in fisher s american economic association monograph appreciation and interest 1896 and in an appendix to his the rate of interest 1907 does not appear in the theory of interest where the treatment of the relation in chapters 2 and 19 is verbal supplemented with diagrams but no equation in appreciation and interest 1896 fisher drew attention to statements by william douglass john stuart mill alfred marshall jacob de haas and john bates clark of how expected inflation or deflation affects nominal interest and he made no claim to originality on the point writing at the end of a thirty year period of declining prices fisher referred in his title to appreciation of the purchasing power of money rather than to depreciation fisher was the first to write down the relation as an equation but not the first to articulate the relation while endorsing

institutional theory and mnc subsidiary hrm practices evidence from a three country study this study sets out to explore human resource management hrm practices in multinational corporation mnc subsidiaries within an institutional theory framework based on a sample of 158 subsidiaries of mncs operating in the united states russia and finland the paper examines factors hypothesised to influence the hrm practices adapted in us japanese and european mnc subsidiaries located in russia finland and the us the results indicate significant differences in hrm practices used across host countries both the status of the subsidiary human resource department and the degree to which the subsidiary was involved in knowledge transfer with other parts of the mnc had a significant impact on the selection of hrm practices

do country level institutional frameworks and interfirm governance arrangements substitute or complement in international business relationships interfirm relationships among partners from institutionally distant environments are subject to governance difficulties owing to the paucity of shared cognitive and regulatory frameworks we examine the potential of formal contracting and relational governance developed at the partnership level to overcome the formal and informal institutional gap at the country level empirical results from a sample of 184 international partnerships of large us firms support an overall substitutive relationship between informal institutional frameworks and interorganizational relational arrangements whereby the performance benefits of relational governance are reinforced at higher degrees of informal institutional distance contrastingly formal institutional frameworks and contractual governance are found to have a complementary relationship with performance gains from formal contracting undermined at higher degrees of formal distance

union status and double breasting at multinational companies in three liberal market economies the relationships among employee representation formal union status and employer strategies within and across institutional regimes offer a variegated landscape in the context of globalization key questions remain as to the relative weight of macro and micro level influences on union status at subsidiaries of multinational companies mncs this study analyzes data gathered through coordinated surveys of mnc subsidiaries in canada ireland and the united kingdom and tests the extent to which union status and double breasting depend on home country variation host country influences and particular organizational characteristics the authors find support for a combination of effects on both union status and double breasting further analyses test explicit variations on union status within each host context and support arguments that effects depend on the particularities of national industrial relations regimes

strategy meets institutions the transformation of management labor relations at deutsche telekom and ntt this comparison of labor management relations at deutsche telekom dt and ntt group formerly nippon telephone and telegraph demonstrates the value of considering both institutions and strategic decision making to under stand the interaction between companies and unions as corporations diversify multi divisional or holding company structures emerge but the degree of diversity introduced in employment relations within the corporate group de pends on the interaction between corporate strategy and the strategy of orga nized labor the authors field research based on interviews with managers and labor leaders shows that despite a broadly similar corporate strategy of diversi fication by dt and ntt after the liberalization of telecommunication markets employment relations became more decentralized both for unions and for works councils within the dt group than within the ntt group this differ ence in outcomes is explained by the relative power and strategic choices of labor and management rather than by constraints and opportunities specific to the existing national institutions

from the editors common method variance in international business research jibs receives many manuscripts that report findings from analyzing survey data based on same respondent replies this can be problematic since same respondent studies can suffer from common method variance cmv currently authors who submit manuscripts to jibs that appear to suffer from cmv are asked to perform validity checks and resubmit their manuscripts this letter from the editors is designed to outline the current state of best practice for handling cmv in international business research

union certification success under voting versus card check procedures evidence from british columbia 1978 1998 the author estimates the impact of compulsory election laws on certification success using data on over 6 500 private sector certifications from british columbia over the years 1978 98 a unique quasi experimental design is used by exploiting two changes in the union recognition law first in 1984 the introduction of mandatory elections and second in 1993 the repeal of elections and their replacement by the original card check procedure the author also estimates the effectiveness of management opposition tactics across union recognition regimes success rates declined by an average of 19 percentage points during the voting regime and then increased by about the same amount when card checks were re instituted the results indicate that the mandatory election law can account for virtually the entire decline in addition the findings suggest that management opposition was twice as effective under elections as under card checks

investment tax incentives prices and the supply of capital goods using data on the prices of capital goods this paper shows that much of the benefit of investment tax incentives does not go to investing firms but rather to capital suppliers through higher prices the reduction in the cost of capital from a 10 percent investment tax credit increases equipment prices 3 5 7 0 percent this lasts several years and is largest for assets with large order backlogs low import competition or with a large fraction of buyers able to use investment subsidies capital goods workers wages rise too instrumental variables estimates of the short run supply elasticity are around 1 and can explain the traditionally small estimates of investment demand elasticities in absolute value the demand elasticity implied here exceeds 1

inflation tax rules and investment some econometric evidence this paper presents econometric evidence on the effect of tax incentives on business investment in the united states in the period from 1953 through1978 the analysis emphasizes that the interaction of inflation and existing tax rules has contributed substantially to the decline of business investment since the late 1960 s because the investment process is far too complex for any simple econometric model to be convincing i have estimated three quite different models of investment behavior the strength of the empirical evidence rests on the fact that all three specifications support the same conclusion more generally the analysis and evidence show that theoretical models of macroeconomic equilibrium should specify explicitly the role of distortionary taxes especially taxes on capital income the failure to include such tax rules can have dramatic and misleading effects on the qualitative as well as the quantitative properties of macroeconomic theories this paper was presented as the fisher shultz lecture at the fourth world congress of the econometric society 29 august 1980 in aix en province this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

asset specificity and foreign market entry mode choice of small and medium sized enterprises the moderating influence of knowledge safeguards and institutional safeguards according to transaction cost economics tce reasoning firms choose equity as opposed to non equity foreign market entry modes to safeguard specific assets the present paper contextualizes the well researched relationship between asset specificity and foreign market entry mode choice by introducing knowledge safeguards international experience host country networks and imitation and institutional safeguards property rights protection and cultural proximity as alternative mechanisms for securing a firm s specific assets testing our hypotheses on a sample of 206 small and medium sized enterprises we find that knowledge safeguards and institutional safeguards weaken the effect of asset specificity on the choice of equity foreign market entry modes contextualizing the relationship between asset specificity and foreign market entry mode choice helps to enhance our understanding of the scope conditions of tce based entry mode studies and beyond

comparing capitalisms understanding institutional diversity and its implications for international business this paper examines the role of institutional analysis within the field of international business ib studies within ib institutions matter but the view of institutions tends to be thin utilizing summary indicators rather than detailed description and thus approaches institutions as unidimensional variables that impact on particular facets of business activity this paper argues that ib research would be usefully advanced by greater attention to comparing the topography of institutional landscapes and understanding their diversity a number of alternative case based approaches are outlined that draw on a growing comparative capitalisms literature in sociology and political science the paper develops a number of empirical examples to show the utility and limits of these approaches for ib scholars

extending the theory of the multinational enterprise internalization and strategic management perspectives this paper assesses the continued relevance of buckley and casson s 1976 book on the future of the multinational enterprise mne against a background of increasing criticism of transaction cost related scholarly work we demonstrate that the schism that can currently be observed in the field between international business and international management is misguided as the transaction cost internalization school may offer useful insights to both management scholars and managers for this to occur however it is necessary first to extend the empirical scope of transaction cost based reasoning to include the functioning of differentiated network mnes the paper suggests that buckley and casson s book still represents a beacon of clarity and a superb starting point for the study of the mne even if the complexity of this governance structure has grown far beyond what any international business scholar or even international management scholar could have predicted 25 years ago

outside in global demand heterogeneity and dynamic capabilities of multinational enterprises we conceptualize the dynamic capabilities of multinational enterprises mnes as learning and adaptation capabilities that address the pressure of global integration and local responsiveness complementing the extant literature on dynamic capabilities which is focused on the supply side our study draws attention to the demand side influences especially in terms of global demand heterogeneity we propose that global demand heterogeneity provides pressures and opportunities for mnes to learn and adapt and thus positively relates to the development of mne dynamic capabilities however external sources per se may be insufficient firm specific advantages particularly human capital at the managerial and employee levels facilitate the internalization of external knowledge and pressure into the development of dynamic capabilities an empirical study of chinese multinational service firms strongly supports these arguments

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

equilibrium relationships between money and other economic variables central to the quantity theory of money are a number of important propositions about the long run equilibrium effects of changes in the nominal stock of money on other economic variables a standard way of testing these propositions is to use quarterly or annual data explicitly model the lag structure and then derive the long run solution of the model from the empirical estimates an alternative is to use some type of smoothing procedure to approximate positions of equilibrium and then to use these transformed data directly in testing hypotheses the national bureau technique of averaging data over reference cycle phases is one such method robert lucas s application of fourier transforms in two illustrations of the quantity theory of money 1980 is another and john geweke s method 1982 of frequency decomposition is a third an entirely different way of approaching the problem is to use cross country average rather than time series data as the basic units of observation the advantage according to lucas is that since the two quantity theoretic laws that he examines are obtained as characteristics of steady states or limiting distributions of theoretical models the ideal experiment for testing them would be a comparison of long term average behavior across economies with different monetary policies but similar in other respects p 1006 in this paper i conduct such an experiment the data that i use are for 20 oecd countries over the period 1956 80 the specific relationships that i examine are those between money and the price level money and real income money and interest rates and money and exchange rates in the main the data accord well with the quantity theoretic model classical neutrality holds there is evidence of a fisher effect albeit a less than complete effect on interest rates finally the data are consistent with long run purchasing power parity and hence correspondingly with a long run monetary approach to exchange rate determination

mentoring across global boundaries an empirical examination of home and host country mentors on expatriate career outcomes there has long been an interest in the effects of mentors on protege career outcomes and with scholars now beginning to examine mentoring across national boundaries using survey information as well as company records for 299 expatriates 163 men 136 women in 10 countries we examined the impact of home and host country mentors upon expatriate effectiveness we found that having a host country mentor had a significant positive effect on the expatriate s organizational knowledge organizational knowledge sharing job performance promotability and perceptions of teamwork having a home country mentor had a significant positive effect only on organizational knowledge job performance and promotability surprisingly our results revealed that having a home country mentor had a significant but negative effect on the expatriate s organization identification and job satisfaction contrary to the literature neither type of mentoring had a significant effect on job tension implications for practice as well as future research are detailed

customer involvement and service firm internationalization performance an integrative framework to overcome the costs of doing business abroad researchers have suggested either legitimacy or efficiency based solutions however both types of solutions still treat host country customers as external to the theory we highlight the role of customers in the international professional business service setting and argue that customer involvement is positively related to the perceived internationalization performance of multinational corporations mncs mncs with managers who perceive higher legitimacy pressures and greater needs for local knowledge tend to undertake greater efforts to build customer involvement furthermore we develop a configuration framework between perceived strategic needs and mncs capabilities specifically mncs that match relational capability with legitimacy needs and absorptive capacity with knowledge needs are more likely to engage in customer involvement our survey of 175 chinese mncs provides evidence that customer involvement is positively related to perceived internationalization performance when mncs relational capabilities are stronger the positive relationship between legitimacy pressure and customer involvement increases by contrast mncs with greater perceived market ambiguity improve customer involvement only when they have stronger absorptive capacity we conclude that mncs may simultaneously reduce legitimacy and efficiency costs through customer involvement after considering the fit between perceived environmental pressures and firm capabilities

certification delay under elections and card check procedures empirical evidence from canada this paper examines the determinants and consequences of delay in the union certification process using data from certification applications and unfair labor practice complaints ulps from british columbia 1986 98 and ontario 1993 98 during the period studied there were several changes in delay related laws including laws regulating the presence and stringency of election time limits and the availability of expedited ulp hearings key findings are that ulps against the employer reduced the likelihood of compliance with time limit laws except where expedited ulp hearings also existed employer filed objections to the application reduced the likelihood of compliance and election delay reduced the likelihood of certification success both in policy regimes without time limits and in those where stipulated time limits were frequently breached overall the results suggest that enforced time limits on elections coupled with expedited ulp hearings may substantially mitigate the adverse effects of election delay on certification success

global standardization or national differentiation of hrm practices in multinational companies a comparison of multinationals in five countries drawing on a dataset constructed from a parallel series of nationally representative surveys of multinational companies mncs we compare the performance management pm practices of mncs in the uk ireland canada spain denmark and norway in each country we analyze data relating to mncs from that country and of the foreign affiliates of us mncs we argue that there is evidence of standardization in the nature of practices across countries particularly evident in the analysis of us mncs standardization of practices among mncs is also evident in the rather limited variation in practices between us and indigenous mncs within each country moreover even where there is evidence of variation across and within countries this cannot be fully explained by adaptation to local institutional constraints but rather can be seen as the product of how distinct national contexts can promote the take up of practices

dynamic factor demands and the effects of energy price shocks a dynamic model is used to understand how sharp changes in energy prices affect investment behavior employment and energy use the authors discuss the theory behind their model selection model specifications estimation methods and data list parameter estimates and elasticities for the selected model and describe the simulations they conclude that 1 the data strongly reject the hypothesis of constant returns to scale within their specification of aggregate production 2 the data indicate adjustment costs on labor are small and 3 their results help reconcile some of the conflicting estimates of energy demand elasticities appearing in recent literature 23 references 3 figures 3 tables

translating european labor relations practices to the united states through global framework agreements german and swedish multinationals compared extensive research has shown that european multinational enterprises mnes have a propensity to avoid collective employee representation when going abroad this study investigates whether global framework agreements gfas can reverse this pattern by comparing how four european mnes two from germany and two from sweden implement gfas in the united states a country with weak collective representation rights the authors find that an mne s home country labor relations lr system mediates whether gfas support collective representation in the united states sweden s monistic lr system in which unions are the dominant organizations legally representing workers gives unions the power to directly influence the negotiation and implementation of gfas by contrast germany s dualistic lr system in which unions and works councils share worker representation weakens the influence of unions on implementing the gfa mnes home country lr systems thus influence how transnational instruments are used to improve co

international capital markets and foreign exchange risk author s brennan michael j xia yihong abstract the relation between the volatilities of pricing kernels associated with di erent currencies and the volatility of the exchange rate between the currencies is derived under the assumption of integrated capital markets and the volatilities of the pricing kernels are related to the foreign exchange risk premium time series of pricing kernel volatilities are estimated from panel data on bond yields for five major currencies using a parsimonious term structure model that allows for time varying pricing kernel volatilities the resulting estimates are used to test hypotheses about the relation between the volatilities of the pricing kernels in di erent currencies and the volatility of the exchange rate as predicted time variation in foreign exchange risk premia is found to be related to time variation in both the volatility of the pricing kernels and the volatility of exchange rates the estimated pricing kernel volatilities can account for the forward premium puzzle in an average sense across exchange rates

influences on human resource management practices in multinational corporations a study of human resource management practices in 249 u s affiliates of foreign based multinational corporations mncs shows that in general affiliate hrm practices closely follow local practices with differences among specific practices the degree of similarity of local practices is significantly influenced by the method of founding dependence on local inputs the presence of expatriates and the extent of communication with the parent in addition sharp differences are revealed among affiliates of canadian japanese and european mncs suggesting strong country effects together these findings support the view of mncs as composed of differentiated practices which in turn are shaped by forces for local isomorphism and for internal consistency

performance pay and wage inequality an increasing fraction of jobs in the u s labor market explicitly pay workers for their performance using bonus pay commissions or piece rate contracts using data from the panel study of income dynamics we show that compensation in performance pay jobs is more closely tied to both observed and unobserved productive characteristics of workers than compensation in non performance pay jobs we also find that the return to these productive characteristics increased faster over time in performance pay than in non performance pay jobs we show that this finding is consistent with the view that underlying changes in returns to skill due for instance to technological change induce more firms to offer performance pay contracts and result in more wage inequality among workers who are paid for performance thus performance pay provides a channel through which underlying changes in returns to skill get translated into higher wage inequality we conclude that this channel accounts for 21 of the growth in the variance of male wages between the late 1970s and the early 1990s and for most of the increase in wage inequality above the eightieth percentile over the same period

trans specialization understanding in international technology alliances the influence of cultural distance in the information age the firm s performance hinges on combining partners specialist knowledge to achieve value co creation combining knowledge from different specialties could be a costly process in the international technology alliances itas context we argue that the combination of different specializations requires the development of trans specialization understanding tsu instead of the internalization of partners specialist knowledge this article examines the extent to which inter firm governance in itas shapes tsu and whether the development of tsu is endangered by cultural distance we hypothesize that relational governance product modularity and cultural distance influence tsu development which in turn influences firm performance we collected data from 110 non equity itas between software and hardware firms participating in the mobile device sector we analyzed the data using partial least squares path modeling our findings suggest that tsu largely depends on product modularity and relational governance in alliances however while cultural distance negatively moderates the path from relational governance to tsu it has no effect on the relationship between product modularity and tsu based on this we conclude that product modularity can substitute for relational governance when strong relational norms are not well developed in international alliances thus cultural distance does not invariably amount to a liability in itas

extending the internationalization process model increases and decreases of mne commitment in emerging economies the internationalization process model suggests that firms internationalize by building positions in foreign markets and networks following iterative cycles of learning and changes in commitment however as subsidiaries evolve commitments may be decreased as well as increased a phenomenon that has rarely been studied moreover it remains an open question why strategic intentions at the outset of an investment project differ from the actual operations established we address these questions by extending the model and combining it with mintzberg and waters framework of strategy formation specifically we suggest that commitment decisions correspond to statements of intended strategy while network positions correspond to realized strategies the processes of learning opportunity creation and trust building triggered by commitment decisions are however moderated by institutional influences that lead to divergences between realized and intended strategies we test propositions derived from this framework on a survey data set of subsidiaries of multinational enterprises in hungary lithuania and poland and find that institutional voids and institutional uncertainty affect subsidiary strategy implementation but in opposing directions under high institutional uncertainty investors prefer low commitment but flexible modes that enable later commitment increases whereas institutional voids increase up front information search and adaptation costs that reduce the likelihood of early post entry adjustments our analysis reinforces the need for more differentiated theoretical analyses of how institutions affect business strategies over time

tax reform and adjustment costs the impact on investment and market value this paper provides an effective tax rate measure that is valid in the presence of adjustment costs and anticipated tax changes and a measure of the impact of tax changes on market value that may be decomposed into the effects on discounted pure profits and normal returns to capital changes in the value of capital may in turn be decomposed further into changes in the marginal value of new capital and changes in the relative value of new and existing capital these new measures are used to evaluate tax changes similar to those introduced by the recent u s tax reform copyright 1989 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

taxation corporate financial policy and the cost of capital the cost of capital plays an important role in the allocation of resources among competing uses in a decentralized market system the purpose of this paper is to organize and present what is known and what is hypothesized about the effects of taxation on the incentive to invest via the cost of capital taking full account of important issues that arise independently from the question of taxation included in the analysis is a discussion of empirical findings about the interaction of inflation and taxation in influencing the incentive to invest and a treatment of taxation and uncertainty this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

the varieties of capitalism and hybrid success denmark in the global economy the varieties of capitalism literature maintains that advanced capitalist countries whose institutions best fit either the liberal or coordinated market economy types will perform better than countries whose institutions are mixed this is because hybrids are less likely to yield functionally beneficial institutional complementarities the authors challenge this assertion denmark has performed as well as many purer cases during the 1990s and denmark has recently developed a more hybrid form than is generally recognized by a increasing the exposure of actors to market forces and b decentralizing collective learning and decision making the institutional complementarities associated with such hybridization have contributed to its success however these complementarities are based on institutional heterogeneity rather than homogeneity this is demonstrated by analyses of three cases danish labor markets vocational training and industrial policy the implication of the authors argument is that the

global delivery models the role of talent speed and time zones in the global outsourcing industry global delivery models gdms are transforming the global it and business process outsourcing industry gdms are a new form of client specific investment promoting service integration with clients by combining client proximity with time zone spread for 24 7 service operations we investigate antecedents and contingencies of setting up gdm structures based on comprehensive data we show that providers are likely to establish gdm location configurations when clients value access to globally distributed talent and speed of service delivery in particular when services are highly commoditized findings imply that coordination across time zones increasingly affects international operations in business to business and born global industries

tax policy and business fixed investment in the united states abstract this paper derives and estimates models of nonresidential investment behavior in which current and future tax conditions directly affect the incentive to invest the estimates suggest that taxes have played an independent role in affecting postwar u s investment behavior particularly for investment in machinery and equipment in addition the paper develops a method for assessing the impact of tax policy on the volatility of investment when such policy is endogenous illustrative calculations using this technique based on the paper s empirical estimates suggest that tax policy has not served to stabilize investment in equipment or nonresidential structures during the sample period

investment tax incentives and frequent tax reforms despite the frequency of tax changes and their potential importance to investors almost all of the analysis of tax based investment incentives assumes investors never anticipate any tax changes we depart from this approach by analyzing the historical pattern of u s corporate investment incentives over the period 1953 86 incorporating the feature of investor awareness that the tax code may change our analysis incorporates a predictive equation for future tax variables into a model of optimal investment subject to adjustment costs and uncertainty we find that expectations of future tax changes significantly affect the incentive to invest only if adjustment costs are low in this case the incentive to invest in 1986 was strong as investors are estimated to have anticipated the coming reduction in investment incentives this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

limits to international entry mode learning in smes despite extensive research the literature is unclear about the circumstances under which a firm learns from its past foreign entry modes and how this experiential learning is related to future mode choices building on the internationalization process ip model and the idea that some experiential learning is location bound while other learning is non location bound we develop and test theory to explain how experiential learning about foreign operation modes and markets impact future mode choices in new foreign markets overall we argue that mode based experiential learning is limited through the repeated use of a specific operation mode firms develop routines and processes that are non location bound and can be replicated in new foreign markets leading to the use of this same mode type in new locations but when complemented by experiential learning about a target market region firms opt for operation modes with greater commitment in new foreign markets drawing on a sample of german smes and examining four different types of entry modes we find some support however we also identify a number of notable exceptions to our theory in this way we help provide unique new insights informing future ip model experiential learning and international entry mode research

strategic alliance based sourcing and market performance evidence from foreign firms operating in china although foreign multinational firms from the triad regions increasingly use mainland china as both a sourcing and a marketing location no study has directly examined the sourcing strategy performance linkage using resource complementarity and resource dependence theory we extend the sourcing literature and apply these perspectives to an important transitional economy china these two theoretical perspectives suggest that product and uncertainty factors moderate the relationship between strategic alliance based sourcing sa sourcing of major components and market performance we find that at low levels of product innovativeness and technological uncertainty the use of sa sourcing is positively related to market performance however the effects of product differentiation and demand uncertainty on the sourcing performance relationship are insignificant journal of international business studies 2005 36 187 208 doi 10 1057 palgrave jibs 8400120

a model of exchange rate dynamics this model treats the exchange rate as an asset price that depends on expectations concerning exogenous real and monetary factors that will affect relative prices and absolute price levels in future periods changes in exchange rates reflect both expected changes in these exogenous factors and changes in expectations occasioned by new information the model explains the random component in exchange rate behavior the source of divergences from purchasing power parity the anticipatory response of exchange rates to future expected disturbances and the causes of exchange rate overshooting

the effects of market economy type and foreign mne subsidiaries on the convergence and divergence of hrm this study explores patterns of human resource management hrm practices across market economies and between indigenous firms and foreign mne subsidiary operations offering a novel perspective on convergence and divergence applying institutional theorizing to improve our understanding of convergence divergence as a process and an outcome data collected from nine countries at three points in time over a decade confirm that convergence and divergence occur to different extents in a nonlinear fashion and vary depending on the area of hrm practice observed patterns of adoption and convergence divergence are explained through the effect of institutional constraints which vary between liberal and coordinated market economies and between indigenous firms and foreign mne subsidiaries specifically we expected and largely found supporting evidence confirming that compensation and wage bargaining level practices show more evidence of being institutionally constrained and hence were less likely to converge than contingent employment training and direct information provision practices the study contributes a more graded conceptualization of convergence divergence from constant no difference through robust convergence non robust convergence non robust divergence and robust divergence to constant difference allowing us to tease out the subtle manifestations of the process that can incorporate the complex dynamic reality of international business

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

alternative approaches to analyzing economic data this paper compares two approaches to the analysis of economic data the exclusively econometric approach recommended by hendry and ericsson and the more eclectic approach that we employed in our books monetary history and monetary trends it concludes that the article by hendry and ericsson is mislabeled their article is not in any relevant sense an evaluation of our empirical model of u k money demand rather it uses one equation from our book as a peg on which to hang an exposition of sophisticated econometric techniques insofar as their empirical findings do bear on ours they simply confirm some of our principal results and contradict none jel 036 212

user cost elasticity of capital revisited researchers still lack consensus about the size of the user cost elasticity of capital the divergence in prior estimates may have arisen because one of the two strands of research has neglected cointegration among capital its user costs and sales using german firm level panel data i show that estimating a distributed lag model prevalent in prior literature leads to low estimates of the user cost elasticity properly accounting for cointegration in an error correction model yields a much larger point estimate of the price elasticity of capital close to 1 non random sample attrition is found to be relatively unimportant

realignment expectations and the us dollar 1890 1897 was there a peso problem we investigate dollar sterling exchange rate expectations during the period 1890 1908 we show that the dollar faced a peso problem in that for much of the period financial markets expected it to depreciate against sterling but this never in fact happened i e expectations were persistently biased drawing on the economic history of the period we identify 11 events which probably gave rise to realignment expectations once the dollar s adherence to the gold standard was settled as a political matter in the 1896 presidential election expectations of dollar realignment abruptly subsided and united states interest rates fell relative to british rates

temporary investment tax incentives theory with evidence from bonus depreciation even modest reductions in the after tax cost of capital purchases provide strong incentives for increased investment indeed for tax subsidies that are temporary and for capital goods that are very long lived the incentive to invest when the after tax price is temporarily low is essentially infinite firms that would have purchased new capital equipment in the future instead make their purchases during the period of the subsidy for tax increases the effects are the opposite firms that would have normally invested now delay until the tax rate returns to normal we present a model of the equilibrium effects of temporary investment tax incentives the model reveals a simple relationship between the shadow price of investment goods and the size of a temporary investment tax incentive specifically for sufficiently long lived capital goods goods with very low rates of economic depreciation and for sufficiently short lived investment tax subsidies the shadow value of capital should be nearly unchanged and thus the pre tax shadow price of capital goods should fully reflect the magnitude of the tax subsidy this result holds regardless of the elasticity of investment supply and regardless of the underlying demand for capital instead it relies only on the firm s ability to arbitrage predictable movements in the after tax price of long lived capital over time two conclusions immediately follow first observ ing price increases following a temporary tax incentive is not evidence that investment supply is relatively inelastic a temporary investment tax subsidy can substantially affect investment even if it bids up the price of investment sharply second because economic theory dictates that the shadow price of investment moves one for one with a temporary tax subsidy the elasticity of supply can be inferred from quantity data alone recent changes in us tax law allow us to use the model and its implications to estimate struc tural parameters that govern the supply of investment the 2002 and 2003 tax bills provided temporarily accelerated tax depreciation called bonus depreciation for certain types of qualified capital goods under the 2002 bill firms could immediately deduct 30 percent of investment purchases and then depreciate the remaining 70 percent under standard depreciation schedules

adjusting to and learning from institutional diversity toward a capability building perspective this paper identifies two main dimensions institutional diversity and dynamism in the research stream that has substantively engaged with the important contribution of jackson and deeg j int bus stud 39 4 540 561 2008 taking into account their core criticism that institutional analysis in international business research is often de contextualized and building on these two dimensions we present two possible paths for institutional analysis that are sensitive to context the first is a methodological shift towards configurational analyses and specifically the analysis of counterfactual scenarios that could reveal new information about decision alternatives the second is a shift away from a focus on costs and towards the possibility of mnes building capabilities in an exploratory manner when confronted with institutional diversity both approaches build on an understanding of mnes as strategic actors that co evolve with their environments

two illustrations of the quantity theory of money of two central implications of the quantity theory of money that a given change in the rate of change in the quantity of money induces i an equal change in the rate of price inflation and ii an equal change in nominal rates of interest the illustrations were obtained by comparing moving averages of the three variables in question using quarterly u s time series for the period 1953 77 readers may find the results of interest as additional confirmation of the quantity theory as an example of one way in which the quantity theoretic relationships can be uncovered via atheoretical methods from time series which are subject to a variety of other forces or as a measure of the extent to which the inflation and interest rate experience of the postwar period can be understood in terms of purely classical monetary forces the theoretical background of the study is reviewed very briefly as it is familiar material in the next section the data processing methods are described and rationalized in section ii the illustrations

i discovered the peso problem irving fisher and the uip puzzle abstract irving fisher was the first economist to posit what has come to be known as uncovered interest parity relation he was also the first to offer a peso problem type explanation for important episodes in which it was violated after reviewing his theoretical and empirical work on this subject we go on to reexamine both his data and several other bodies two consisting of multi country panel data and a third consisting of a two century long time series for the united states and the united kingdom we find evidence in these data of the important role played by episodic phenomena in disturbing the uip relation like fisher we find that the influence of such phenomena dissipates over time over the long term these errors prove to be less important and uip receives empirical support

data equivalence in cross cultural international business research assessment and guidelines data equivalence refers to the extent to which the elements of a research design have the same meaning and can be applied in the same way in different cultural contexts failure to establish data equivalence in cross cultural studies may bias empirical results and theoretical inferences although several authors have encouraged researchers to ensure high levels of data equivalence no study has assessed the status of the field in relation to compliance with data equivalence standards accordingly this study examines three aspects of data equivalence construct equivalence measurement equivalence and data collection equivalence within 167 studies that involve cross cultural data published in the journal of international business studies management international review journal of world business strategic management journal and the academy of management journal from 1995 to 2005 the findings indicate that international business researchers report insufficient information in relation to data equivalence issues thus limiting confidence in the findings of many cross cultural studies to enhance future research a guideline for procedures for researchers to follow and report in establishing data equivalence is offered