the performance implications of strategic fit of relational norm governance strategies in global supply chain relationships the search for strategic fit has become a core concept in normative models of strategy formation the issue of strategic fit is becoming increasingly important in global supply chain relationships as managers and academics examine the effectiveness of culturally founded relational governance strategies across multiple supply chain relationships this study empirically examines the performance implications of strategic fit of relational norm governance strategies in global supply chain relationships between us firms and their primary japanese and us partners the performance implications of fitting relational norm governance strategies i e information exchange flexibility and solidarity across culturally diverse partners are tested results indicate that firm performance is enhanced when the relational norms of information exchange and solidarity are fit to culturally founded norm expectations across culturally diverse relationships simultaneously implications for theory and practice are discussed

control and performance of international joint ventures control is a critical concept for successful management and performance of international joint ventures ijvs this paper reviews and synthesizes prior studies addressing the conceptualization and operationalization of control within ijvs as well as the ijv control performance relationship the paper also presents a new conceptualization of ijv control as well as a conceptual frame work for studying control of ijvs

partner nationality and the structure performance relationship in strategic alliances the dramatic growth of global strategic alliances between firms is fundamentally reshaping the nature of international business indeed interfirm cooperation has become a crucial component of the pursuit of global competitive advantage yet such alliances are enormously complex to manage successfully in part because of the opportunity and incentive to cheat and profit at the partner s expense that is an inescapable part of these relationships consequently strategic alliances are frequently subject to high instability poor performance and premature dissolution thus an important question arises is it possible to promote more stable cooperation and higher alliance performance through a realignment of companies incentives this question is addressed empirically in the present paper using recent work in game theory which suggests that high performance is linked to specific elements of the alliance structure further this study applies insights from international business literature suggesting th

japanese and local partners commitment to ijvs psychological consequences of outcomes and investments in the ijv relationships this study investigated the antecedents of commitment in ijvs from the major partners perspective data were gathered from japanese and local partners in ijvs located in eleven countries and analyzed in structural equations models results indicated that commitment is largely a function of the perceived benefits of the relationship i e satisfaction and economic performance however exploration analyses of differences between local partners and the japanese suggest that the effects of psychological antecedents might be contingent on the strategic intent of the relationship

entry mode deviation a behavioral approach to internalization theory we explore when and why decision makers choose international entry modes e g hierarchies or markets that deviate from internalization theory s predictions by applying a cognitive perspective on entry mode decision making we propose that the performance of prior international activities influences decision makers behavior in different ways than assumed in internalization theory more specifically due to a representativeness bias underperforming overperforming past ventures influence the decision to change continue using the previous entry mode choice which may result in an entry mode deviation in addition the propensity to deviate from theoretical predictions is stronger when the experience is recent and or salient due to an availability bias in conclusion we argue that internalization theory can benefit from incorporating more systematically important behavioral assumptions on how firms enter international markets in so doing we contribute to the recent conversation on how variations in human behavior influence internalization theory

an evolutionary approach to norms iorms provide a powerful mechanism for regulating conflict in groups even when there are more than two people and no central authority this paper investigates the emergence and stability of behavioral norms in the context of a game played by people of limited rationality the dynamics of this new norms game are analyzed with a computer simulation based upon the evolutionary principle that strategies shown to be relatively effective will be used more in the future than less effective strategies the results show the conditions under which norms can evolve and prove stable one interesting possibility is the employment of metanorms the willingness to punish someone who did not enforce a norm many historical examples of domestic and international norms are used to illustrate the wide variety of mechanisms that can support norms including metanorms dominance internalization deterrence social proof membership in groups law and reputation

enhancing international customer supplier relationships through it resources a study of taiwanese electronics suppliers the growing popularity of outsourcing and offshore partnering activities raises the issue of what strategies are appropriate for firms to successfully manage customer supplier relationships in the international context little has been written about how information technology it systems may impact on international exchange relationships in the present study we report on how suppliers use it as a strategic resource to govern their international exchange relationships with multinational enterprise customers taking the supplier s perspective we propose that two types of it resources it advancement and electronic integration create value for suppliers with respect to innovativeness and market performance we argue that this value creation process is mediated by three specific forms of governance cooperativeness output monitoring and behavior monitoring to test these arguments primary data obtained from 240 taiwanese electronics suppliers are used for hypothesis testing the survey results provide evidence that suppliers it resources enable them to work effectively with their international key customers importantly of the three governance mechanisms cooperativeness has the strongest impact on supplier performance owing to supplier electronic integration post hoc analysis revealed that cultural distance does not play a role in moderating the relationship between it resources and governance mechanisms in international exchange

developing successful trust based international exchange relationships trust is a central construct in relationship marketing yet the literature provides mixed empirical evidence on the trust performance linkage also there is limited research on how to build trusting international buyer seller relations we develop a comprehensive model integrating performance enhancing mechanisms and antecedent processes of trust in import export relationships our survey results from importers trading with overseas manufacturers suggest that existing levels of trust have a positive effect on relationship performance outcomes achieved 1 year later importantly trust takes on greater importance in enhancing performance under conditions of high interdependence whereas in circumstances of low interdependence trust has no discernible effect the findings also indicate that interfirm psychic distance internal uncertainty and exporter transaction specific assets and opportunism are related to importer trust implications for academics and practitioners are addressed

trust and performance in cross border marketing partnerships a behavioral approach existing research on international partnerships focuses primarily on the ex ante structuring of interorganizational relationships this study departs from this research by taking a behavioral approach to understand the ex post maintenance of cross border marketing partnerships a conceptual model is developed by identifying the antecedents of trust and performance in such partnerships the model is empirically tested on a sample of u s firms having distributor and licensing relationships with firms from asia europe and central south america findings support the importance of bilateral relational norms and informal monitoring mechanism in building interorganizational trust and improving market performance of international partnerships

host market government corruption and the equity based foreign entry strategies of multinational enterprises while extant theory suggests that the pervasiveness of host market government corruption should influence the equity ownership decisions of foreign investing multinational enterprises mnes empirical research has produced inconclusive results we leverage insights from transaction cost economics to advance an uncertainty oriented framework which can be used to explain the impact of host market government corruption on the equity based entry strategies of mnes we disaggregate government corruption into two distinct components grand corruption and petty corruption we propose that grand and petty corruption precipitate different types of uncertainty environmental and behavioral which motivate mnes to vary their equity based foreign entry strategies entry mode and partnering hypotheses pertaining to the entry strategies of mnes under conditions of more pervasive grand and petty corruption are developed and tested with a sample of 643 japanese investments in 30 countries between 2004 and 2007 we find that the main effect of grand corruption and the interaction between grand and petty corruption significantly impact a mne s entry mode further while more pervasive grand corruption increases the likelihood that a mne will engage in a joint venture investment with a host country partner we find that an increase in petty corruption heightens a mne s preference to invest with a home country partner

trust across borders we make the case for fresh approaches to examine the role of trust in international collaborations based on the idea that not only do the levels of trust differ across international borders but also both the nature of trust and the institutional and cultural support for trust can vary across different national contexts collaboration partners from different countries are therefore likely to bring either symmetric or asymmetric conceptions of trust to the business relationship we develop a model and propositions linking symmetry and asymmetry in the institutional and cultural support for trust in international collaborations with the degree of partner interdependence and identify implications for governance and trust building investments we conclude with some suggestions for research that incorporates trust asymmetries between partners

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

the transition of punjab agriculture a choice of technique approach the introduction of modern crop varieties in punjab india led to rapid income growth adoption rate and level of the new varieties is examined using a choice of technique approach in which techniques of production are identified by crop variety season of growth and method of production modeling the dynamic effects of technology resource availability and incentives reveals a consistent picture of the transition process the results show the importance of incentives and availability of quasi fixed inputs such as irrigation fertilizers and roads by the late 1970s the long run aggregate supply elasticity was between 1 3 1 5

a model of cultural differences and international alliance performance we propose a model of cultural differences and international alliance performance to explain the ambiguous findings regarding the influence of national culture differences on alliance performance building on research on national organizational and professional cultures we argue that the closer the domain of a social group is to the value creating activities of an alliance the more disruptive cultural differences between the partners members of that social group will be organizational culture differences will tend to be more disruptive than national culture differences and differences in the professional culture most relevant to alliance value creation typically will be the most disruptive implications for research and managerial practice are discussed and the model s relevance for international r d alliances is highlighted

the determinants of trust in supplier automaker relations in the us japan and korea a retrospective this retrospective on the dyer and chu 2000 article the determinants of trust in supplier automaker relationships in the us japan and korea attempts to accomplish a number of objectives first the paper examines the key findings and impact of the original paper and provides additional insights behind the original research notably we further clarify why interpersonal trust between organizational boundary spanners does not translate into inter organizational trust and why inter organizational trust is often based upon processes second the paper briefly discusses relevant research on inter firm trust since 2000 noting that research has shown the contingent value of trust and notably that it is more important when asset specificity and uncertainty are high third we discuss what has happened in the automotive industry over the past 15 years with regard to trust in supplier buyer relationships we show a correlation between automaker trustworthiness and automaker market share performance and suggest a causal link since some automakers e g hyundai kia have been increasing trust with suppliers and then improving market performance finally the retrospective discusses opportunities for future research on the topic of trust in inter organizational relationships

make buy or ally a transaction cost theory meta analysis since the publication of williamson s markets and hierarchies many empirical articles have investigated the tenets of transaction cost theory using meta analytic techniques we quantitatively syn

strategic determinants of partner selection criteria in international joint ventures prior studies are vague regarding determinants of criteria for selecting complementary partners for international joint ventures ijvs this paper first distinguishes task and partner related dimensions of selection criteria the paper then argues that relative importance of task related selection criteria is determined by the strategic context of the proposed ijv and the parent firm specifically the critical success factors of the venture s competitive environment and the parent s static and dynamic position vis a vis these factors

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

overcoming export manufacturers dilemma in international expansion learning and acquiring local market knowledge from foreign distributors are central to manufacturers export market performance drawing from the resource based view we propose that manufacturers need to develop stronger local market competence while simultaneously minimizing the costs of distributor opportunism in order to compete successfully in the export market cultural distance and other barriers however may hinder the development of local market competence for the manufacturer while contributing to the occurrence of distributor opportunism in order to overcome these barriers we examine the impact of three alternative forms of manufacturer governance trust knowledge sharing and contract based relationship in export channels findings suggest that all three governance mechanisms contribute to enhancing the manufacturer s competence to exploit local market opportunity however of the three trust seems to be the only effective way to curtail distributor opportunism

the transfer of organizational culture overseas an approach to control in the multinational corporation organizational control has traditionally been described within the framework of the ideal type of weberian bureaucracy in which rules and regulations specify desired behavior and rewards are based on explicit performance measures this paper describes an alternative organizational ideal type that relies on an organizational culture for control in this type of system behavior is specified by the organizational culture and performance is maintained via mechanisms of social pressure an example of this letter type of control is found in the type z organization an american organizational form similar in many ways to the japanese form particularly interesting is the way in which a type z organization manages overseas subsidiaries by establishing the organizational culture in the subsidiary the process by which this is accomplished and by which control is maintained are described in a comparative empirical study of the headquarters and subsidiary of a firm representative of each control type the implications of this approach for management of the multinational firm and for the host country are also discussed

control and performance in international joint ventures the authors examine the meaning of control in international joint ventures ijvs and the relationships of potential means of control in such organizations to the performance satisfaction of the foreign partner they propose a conceptual model that provides both a traditional ownership focused internalization perspective on those issues and an integrated approach combining a broader transaction cost interpretation of control with a resource input based bargaining power model a set of simultaneous structural equations with endogenous explanatory variables provides multiple possible paths from various resource and power inputs through different means of control to perceived performance satisfaction in such a model intermediate variables act both as dependent and independent variables thus the complex theoretical interactions of the variables are modeled more comprehensively and realistically than in single equation models to test the model and compare the theoretical relationships the authors used dat

a relational model of export performance export performance models anchored in the industrial organization and resource based theories have previously been developed and tested thus far there have been no empirically tested export performance models that have reflected the core tenets of the relational or behavioral paradigm drawing from relational exchange theory a model that includes reciprocal perceptions that relate to both past and future exchanges is developed this model is tested with dyadic data from 125 west east australia thailand exporter importer partnerships reflecting the increasing importance of west east exchange relationships results support the theory s contention that commitment to future exchanges is associated with export performance and is itself driven by a reciprocal cycle of each partner s perception of the other s commitment relationship specific investments and dependence this cycle of commitment is in turn influenced by each partner s trust in the other from past exchanges with different types of trust linked to different types of commitment trust and commitment are then found to be related both to interpersonal factors i e effective communication cultural sensitivity and likeability of partner and to firm factors reputation and competencies of partner

research on international business problems and prospects this paper reflects on the general problems and specific opportunities faced by contemporary research on multinational enterprise the general problems include controlling properly for the firm s opportunities when testing the effectiveness of its policy choices avoiding biases that result from studying surviving business units and ignoring those that disappeared and mobilizing longitudinal data and exploiting the many census based data sets now coming available

a multilevel approach to trust in joint ventures this article examines issues of level in the study of joint venture trust in particular we explain how international joint venture ijv trust can be conceptualized and measured at the person group and firm levels to do this we 1 provide a definition of ijv trust applicable to persons groups and firms 2 promote alignment of levels of theory and measurement through the use of a 3 3 approach to guide researchers in identifying the level at which they are theorizing and the proper level of measurement and 3 propose operational measures of ijv trust across levels and dimensions in order to lay a solid foundation for theory testing

an assessment of the measurement of performance in international business research a sizeable body of international business ib research is devoted to building knowledge about the determinants of organizational performance a key precursor to accurately diagnosing why some organizations succeed in the international marketplace while others struggle is operationalizing performance appropriately yet to date no systematic investigation has considered how well ib research measures performance we examine the measurement of performance in 96 articles published in the academy of management journal administrative science quarterly journal of marketing journal of marketing research journal of international business studies management science organization science a nd thestrategic management journal between 1995 and 2005 the findings reveal that most studies do not measure performance in a manner that captures the multifaceted nature of the construct we describe the implications of these results and offer suggestions for improving future practice journal of international business studies 2008 39 1064 1080

equity joint ventures and the theory of the multinational enterprise this paper extends the internalization approach to the theory of the multinational enterprise mne to include an expanded role for equity joint ventures using the transaction cost paradigm of williamson this paper explains why joint ventures may sometimes be preferred over wholly owned subsidiaries also presented is empirical work on joint venture performance in developing countries which demonstrates that under certain conditions joint ventures can be the optimal mode of foreign direct investment

trust between international joint venture partners effects of home countries trust is an important factor in interorganizational relations interorganizational trust in cross border relationships is likely to be influenced by the home countries of both partners using data on 165 international joint ventures ijvs we show that the perceived trustworthiness of an ijv partner is influenced by the general propensity to trust in the trustor s home country moreover the trustworthiness perceived by a focal parent firm is also affected by the home country of the other ijv partner this second effect is mitigated by experience between the partners

effects of cultural ethnicity firm size and firm age on senior executives trust in their overseas business partners evidence from china we investigate trust relationships between senior business executives and their overseas partners drawing on the similarity attraction paradigm social categorization theory and the distinction between cognition and affect based trust we argue that executives trust their overseas partners differently depending on the partners cultural ethnicity in a field survey of 108 chinese senior executives we found that these executives have higher affect based trust in overseas partners of the same cultural ethnicity as themselves cognition based trust is associated with affect based trust differently when overseas partners are of the same or different cultural ethnicity we also examine the role of relative firm size and age in shaping intra and intercultural trust relative firm size has a stronger negative effect on executives cognition based trust if their partners are of a different cultural ethnicity although firm age does not have a negative effect on executives affect based trust as hypothesized we found firm age to be positively associated with affect based trust for partners of the same cultural ethnicity we discuss theoretical and practical implications of this pattern of inter and intra cultural trust on international business and networking guanxi dynamics in china

international joint venture partner selection the role of the host country legal environment this study attempts to enhance our understanding of how a host country s legal environment influences international joint venture ijv partner selection criteria empirical results based on survey data collected on 169 ijvs revealed that host country rule of law perceptions negatively influence appropriation and coordination cost concerns which positively influence partner related criteria furthermore these concerns mediate the relationship between perceptions of host country rule of law and partner related criteria

sequential decision making in production models single equation estimates of production models usually are justified by the assumption that production inputs are chosen as part of a one period decision problem yet most production decisions in agriculture are made sequentially in this paper the farmer s optimal input choices are modeled as optimal controls in a stochastic control problem a two period cobb douglas example is used to show that sequential solutions to production problems may yield models which require either single equation or simultaneous equation estimators functional separability stochastic specification and behavior under uncertainty are discussed in the context of dynamic production models

revisiting multinational firms tolerance for joint ventures a trust based approach in spite of the increasing popularity of international joint ventures managers express a high level of dissatisfaction with them this paper argues that overemphasis on the outcome has resulted in a neglect of the social processes underlying the outcome the paper elaborates upon the rationale for a cooperative approach towards interorganizational collaborative relationships based on trust and discusses it in the context of joint ventures this is then applied towards understanding multinational ownership preferences and tolerance for joint ventures it is argued that trust centered logic is largely consistent with approaches that emphasize the issue of ownership and deepens and enriches the insights provided by the latter a shift in focus from ownership to relational dynamics is encouraged

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

process standardization across intra and inter cultural relationships theory suggests that culture may hinder the ability to effectively standardize the process of relationship development strategies across intra and inter cultural relationships construct relationships between trust commitment conflict and satisfaction in manufacturer distributor relationships are examined intra i e within a single cultural type and inter culturally i e between different cultural types with a sample of distributors from canada chile mexico and the united states results support theoretical differences in the consequences of the trust commitment relationship between intra cultural and inter cultural relationships the results suggest process standardization based upon cultural type

manufacturer governance of foreign distributor relationships do relational norms enhance competitiveness in the export market research on international marketing channels accentuates the importance of relational norms and trust building activities between buyers and sellers indeed cultural and country differences may limit the use and effectiveness of traditional tools such as market incentives and authoritative control that govern the relationship between an exporting manufacturer and its foreign distributor consequently exporting manufacturers need to emphasize relationships with their foreign distributors this research finds evidence that supports both direct and indirect effects between the manufacturer s use of governance via relational norms and its competitiveness in the export market the indirect effect results from the mediating role of trust a finding that makes a key contribution to the understanding of the role of relational governance in cross border relationships

the use of process and output controls in foreign markets this study builds upon previous control research to propose a model of formal controls used in managing activities performed in foreign markets theoretically derived contingency relationships are also proposed to assess the performance consequences of different formal control types the findings support the importance of internal and external sources of uncertainty in determining the type of control used partial support was also found for the premise that the fit between the type of control used and the type of uncertainty perceived will contribute to superior performance