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

rational ponzi games when can a government run a rational ponzi game i e issue debt and never pay back any interest or principal the transversalit y condition of each individual implies that such schemes require an i nfinity of lenders given this horizons are unimportant ponzi games cannot be ruled out by assuming that agents have infinite horizons the authors point out both the basic similarity of and some key diff erences between rational ponzi games and asset price bubbles or fiat money regarding international debt the analysis implies that what matters for the feasibility of rational ponzi games are conditions in the lenders not the borrowers economy copyright 1988 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

ownership based entry mode strategies and international performance this study examines the relationship between ownership entry modes and performance the ownership entry modes examined are the wholly owned modes of acquisition and new venture entry and the non wholly owned mode of joint venture entry a theoretical relationship is developed for international entry modes that is based on the contingency characteristics of resource requirements and organizational control factors this model suggests that different entry modes have different performance outcomes based upon their resource and organizational control demands the theoretical model although developed using the eclectic theoretical approach is based largely on concepts and relationships previously delineated in contingency theory our hypotheses suggest that new ventures should outperform joint ventures and joint ventures should outperform acquisitions an empirical test using a sample of 321 japanese firms entering the north american market provides supporting evidence

the agrarian barrier to industrial growth it is argued here that in transitional economies industrial growth depends not so much on the size of the agricultural surplus but rather on the rates of productivity growth and population growth in agriculture via their effects on the size of the home market for manufactures in developing this argument estimates of the agricultural surplus and inter sectoral market shares in post restoration japan and post independence india are compared a typology of agrarian systems is then suggested based on how alternative systems influence productivity and population trends in agriculture the typology is illustrated with historical comparisons from europe japan and india

the pace of mnes sequential entries cumulative entry experience and the dynamic process this study examines the pace with which multinational enterprises undertake sequential entries in a foreign market we focus on learning effects from cumulative entry experience of different modes within a host market moreover we investigate the dynamic process of entry mode switch and how cumulative entry experience reduces the expansion constraint using a dataset of sequential entries by us firms in china during 1979 2002 we find that the impact of cumulative entry experience on the pace of sequential entries varies across different modes further firms with more cumulative entry experience can cope with the constraint of entry mode switch

the spread of the multidivisional form among large firms 1919 1979 the multidivisional form is the favored form of organization for the large firms that dominate the american economy this study takes up the causes of the dissemination of that form among large firms from 1919 to 1979 five theories are initially proposed as possible explanations for the changes observed and these theories are operationalized and tested the model that seems most consistent with the data emphasizes the ability of key actors to alter structure under three circumstances when the firm has a product related or unrelated strategy which is consistent with chandler s 1962 theorizing when the corporate presidents have a background in sales or finance and when other firms in the industry alter their structures the implications of these results for theories of organizational change are discussed with special reference to the importance of conceiving how actors operate with varying rationalities in this process

legitimacy and multi level institutional environments implications for foreign subsidiary ownership structure in this study we examine from an institutional perspective the legitimacy rationale behind the choice of subsidiary ownership structure among multinational corporations mncs we suggest that when under a strong pressure to conform at the host country and local industry levels of their institutional environment mncs are likely to take a lower ownership stake in exchange for external legitimacy in the host country or local industry that their foreign subsidiaries are entering we also suggest that mncs are likely to take a higher ownership stake in response to strong internal pressure to sustain their internal legitimacy at the corporate level of their institutional environment we also propose that mncs are more likely to exchange ownership for legitimacy in local industries than in host countries and in local markets with a high level of political instability than in those with a low level of political instability these propositions are generally supported by our analysis of 4451 subsidiaries established by 898 japanese mncs that operated in 39 countries across 52 industries two digit sic between 1988 and 1999

individualism and confucian dynamism a note on hofstede s cultural root to economic growth hofstede and his associates have presented statistical evidence purporting to identify a link between national culture and economic growth this note describes two problems with this line of research first two of the dimensions of culture used in this research individualism and confucian dynamism are treated as if they are independent when in fact they appear to be highly interrelated and second culture is not a sufficient condition to explain economic growth and is related to other important factors that play a role in determining economic growth the consequences of these problems on interpretation of the research findings are discussed and recommendations for future research directions are proposed

mne institutional advantage how subunits shape transpose and evade host country institutions scholars increasingly emphasize the impact of institutions on multinational enterprises mnes but the opposite relationship has attracted less research that is mne agency in relation to institutions based on a comparative case study of six mnes from the united states and sweden this paper remedies this it explores and explicates mne subunits strategic responses to host country institutional constraints and opportunities in five different regions a new institutional approach is adopted which allows for an investigation of mne subunit agency in relation to normative and cognitive institutions as well as regulative ones this fine grained analysis reveals not only what kinds of responses mne subunits invoke but why and how they are able to respond we identify four strategic responses by which subunits shape transpose and evade institutions in the pursuit of competitive advantage innovation arbitrage circumvention and adaptation these responses are driven by three key enablers multinationality foreignness and institutional ambiguity that serve to enhance and heighten three mechanisms reflexivity role expectations and resources by linking the enablers and the mechanisms to specific types of strategic responses in a framework and typology the paper not only contributes to emerging research on the interplay between mnes institutions and strategy but to strategy practice

religious participation and children s education a social capital approach abstract based on the argument in both economic and sociological literature that religion is conducive to children s human capital formation this paper provides a model of religious participation and explores a mechanism that social capital affects children s education a la coleman coleman j s 1988 social capital in the creation of human capital american journal of sociology 94 s95 s120 the model generates several interesting implications which help explain some important stylized facts about education and religion further in a dynamic setting the model shows that there exists a steady state in which individuals allocate a positive amount of time and resources to religious activities thus it complements the existing literature to explain why seemingly unproductive religions can be everlasting

asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage given incomplete factor markets appropriate time paths of flow variables must be chosen to build required stocks of assets that is critical resources are accumulated rather than acquired in strategic factor markets barney barney j 1986 strategic factor markets expectations luck and business strategy management sci october 1231 1241 sustainability of a firm s asset position hinges on how easily assets can be substituted or imitated imitability is linked to the characteristics of the asset accumulation process time compression diseconomies asset mass efficiencies inter connectedness asset erosion and causal ambiguity

social culture and economic performance the connection between obtaining higher paying jobs and undertaking some seemingly irrelevant activity is interpreted as social culture in the context of a society trying to adopt a new technology i show that by allowing the firms to give preferential treatment to workers based on some cultural activity the society can partially overcome an informational free riding problem therefore social culture may affect the economic performance by altering the effective production technology of the economy jel p17 z1 what is social culture what is the role of social culture in economic performance in a provocative article kenneth arrow 1971 argued that norms of social behavior including ethical and moral codes are reactions of society to compensate for market failure somewhat surprisingly this idea of the role of social culture has not been further pursued in the literature in this paper i take arrow s viewpoint seriously and construct a simple model to examine the possibility that social culture may alleviate market failure i consider a society that is deciding whether to adopt a new technology three important assumptions are made about the economy first adoption decisions are made by entrepreneurs or firms but the operators of the new technology are workers second the new technology can be successfully operated only when the worker has invested in some imperfectly observable requisite skills and third it is costly for the workers

knowledge market failure and the multinational enterprise a reply debate is an indication that an issue warrants discussion the comments of james love and donald mcfetridge in this issue are fine statements that articulate a received wisdom their comments differ with each other and these differences remind us that there is less consensus in our understanding of internalization and transaction costs than commonly supposed if we do not address all of the commentators specific points it is not for lack of appreciation but because it is our belief that a fuller vision of the terrain already mapped and that which is yet uncharted would provide a more useful basis for exploration and discovery a listing of issues is the task of a referee while a published debate might perform a useful task by laying out the contours of the research tradition and future

characteristics of mexican economic growth empirical testing of some latin american structuralist hypotheses abstract this article examines a series of hypotheses about the latin american industrialization process put forward by the structuralist school of thought using mexico as a test case in particular it examines the relationship between the distribution of income and associated patterns of consumption and industrial structure and its implications on demand constraints growth constraints employment constraint and multinational control the results indicate that the modern traditional dichotomy based on durable versus non durable consumer goods is not the best way to examine this relationship since the consumption patterns for durable goods do not show a homogeneous behavior when distribution changes overall it was found that growth and employment constraints and multinational control seem to get more exacerbated under greater inequality with respect to the demand constraints no definite conclusion can be made because of the mentioned heterogeneity in the response of durable goods to changes in distribution and the lack of information on relative excess capacity and or dynamic linkages of the different sectors

varieties in state capitalism outward fdi strategies of central and local state owned enterprises from emerging economy countries institutional diversity characterizing state owned enterprises soes from emerging economies holds critical but under examined implications for their internationalization activities different types of soes can exhibit distinct motivations strategic resources and adaptive capabilities for penetrating foreign markets to understand how such idiosyncratic differences emerge we conceptualize the heterogeneity of soes as an outcome of multiple institutional reform processes administrative and fiscal decentralization industrial restructuring and market liberalization which create diversity between soes affiliated with central and local levels of government building on the idea of institutions as configurations we elucidate how such reforms reconfigure soes constellation of resources capabilities and priorities which shape the parameters of their ability to negotiate for home and host country institutional legitimacy specifically we propose that the restructuring of central soes into national champions exposes them to stronger institutional pressures from home and host country governments while local soes which have fewer obligations to serve national strategic prerogatives display greater managerial autonomy and market orientation but lower levels of monopolistic behavior we discuss how such contrasting attributes contribute to variations in soes international business diversification patterns foreign subsidiary establishment and ownership modes and overseas location preferences recognition of soes organizational diversity holds important implications for theories on state owned multinationals

how does regional institutional complexity affect mne internationalization international business research is only beginning to develop theory and evidence highlighting the importance of supranational regional institutions to explain firm internationalization in this context we offer new theory and evidence regarding the effect of a region s institutional complexity on foreign direct investment decisions by multinational enterprises mnes we define a region s institutional complexity using two components regional institutional diversity and number of countries we explore the unique relationships of both components with mnes decisions to internationalize into countries within the region drawing on semiglobalization and regionalization research and institutional theory we posit an inverted u shaped relationship between a region s institutional diversity and mne internationalization extremely low or high regional institutional diversity has negative effects on internationalization but moderate diversity has a positive effect on internationalization larger numbers of countries within the region reduces mne internationalization in a linear fashion we find support for these predicted relationships in multilevel analyses of 698 japanese mnes operating in 49 countries within 9 regions regional institutional complexity is both a challenge and an opportunity for mnes seeking advantages through the aggregation and arbitrage of individual country factors

food supply and inflation abstract the paper presents an analytic version of the latin american structuralist theory of inflation it emphasizes the difference between the productive sectors of the economy and draws attention to the fact that the inflationary process is closely linked to inconsistent claims for shares in income it describes a keynesian economy with two three sectors real desired wages are rigid money is passive it is shown that the structuralist hypotheses are capable of generating disequilibria that can lead to constantly rising prices without any built in mechanism to offset them steady inflation can only persist if workers allow their real wage to be kept below target as the workers try to catch on the model will blow up an accelerating inflation can be observed in many latin american countries during periods when wage settlements aimed at restoring inflation losses escaped the government control the paper also explores the implications of foreign trade it shows that under structuralist hypotheses external disequilibria cannot be corrected through exchange rate devaluations alone and it examines the stagflationary impacts of an increase in the price of imported intermediates

local knowledge transfer and performance implications for alliance formation in asia foreign firms in host country environments frequently face location based disadvantages this study proposes three means channels of overcoming local knowledge disadvantages based on a sample of 558 japanese joint ventures jvs located in southeast and east asia we find that partnering with local firms the first channel can be a primary strategy for accessing local knowledge and improving jv performance jv experience in the host country the second channel also mitigates local knowledge disadvantages and leads to increased jv performance the third channel the foreign parent s host country experience leads to increased performance in the absence of a local partner however when a jv is formed with a local partner increased parent experience in the host country leads to decreased performance suggesting that the need for a local partner declines as parent experience in a host country increases

terms of trade and domestic distribution export led growth with abundant labour abstract a general equilibrium macro model is constructed to explore effects of export led growth policies on the terms of trade and the domestic distribution of a developing region with abundant labour this region the south trades with another the north they have different technologies and supplies of factors it is shown that under certain conditions of dualism in the production of goods and of abundant labour supply in the south an increase in the volume of exports from the south may bring about a sustained worsening of the south s terms of trade with the north even if this increase in exports is due to a positive shift in demand from the north this change in the terms of trade is accompanied by a sustained loss of purchasing power of wages within the south these results take place in a walrasian stable market when technologies are more homogenous and labour less abundant the results are reversed increased exports will take place together with improvements in terms of trade and a tendency to equalise factor prices between the regions the results argue for coordination of domestic and international policies with special attention to technologies and labour markets

first versus second mover advantage with information asymmetry about the profitability of new markets is it better to move first or second to innovate or to imitate we show that if one player s information about the profitability of new markets is only modestly superior the possibility of foreclosing the market can lead to a first mover advantage on the other hand more extreme information superiority can reverse this leading to a second mover advantage knowing more surely what is the best choice the better informed player wants to delay to keep his information private and the less informed player wants to delay to learn because of this more accurate information can actually lead to inefficiency by increasing the incentive to delay and exogenous costs of delay can aid efficiency by neutralizing that strategic incentive in fact in some circumstances a player may purposely coarsen his information to deter imitation

solving theoretical and empirical conundrums in international strategy research linking foreign entry mode choices and performance several theoretical and empirical developments in the literature on foreign entry mode and performance and on international strategy more generally were influenced or prefigured by brouthers 2002 jibs decade award winning paper regarding theory brouthers is an archetype of the integration of transaction cost and institutional perspectives i argue that it is also relevant to the growing literature that aims at synthesizing these and other perspectives methodologically brouthers 2002 contributed several uniquely direct and rich measures furthermore it not only displayed awareness of endogeneity specifically self selection issues but also was among the pioneers in the comparative analysis of governance choices for a given firm or transaction i elaborate on the promising if challenging use of such what if imputation to identify the impact of more or less well aligned choices overall i argue that such methodological advances cannot be decoupled from the conceptual advances that enable them and which they reinforce

beyond entry mode choice explaining the conversion of joint ventures into wholly owned subsidiaries in the people s republic of china while there is a vast amount of research on firms choice of ownership form when entering a foreign market little attention has been paid to changes in ownership forms of operation abroad after initial entry using transaction cost economics and institutional theory we identify a number of factors that may help to explain the likelihood of foreign firms converting their joint venture with a local firm into a wholly owned subsidiary we formulate a number of hypotheses and test them against data collected through a questionnaire survey of managers representing foreign subsidiaries in the people s republic of china prc that are run either as international joint ventures ijvs or as wholly owned foreign subsidiaries wfoes that have recently been converted from ijvs into a wfoe the paper contributes to research by showing that transaction cost based thinking is useful for explaining not only the initial choice of ownership mode when entering a new market but also the potential subsequent changes of this ownership mode by combining transaction cost theory with arguments from institutional theory the study identifies a number of factors that contribute to explaining post entry changes of foreign firms ownership forms in the prc and provides empirical evidence of this phenomenon

heterodox theories of economic growth and income distribution a partial survey heterodox theories of economic growth and income distribution are surveyed focusing on major theories and recent contributions first a general framework for examining growth and distribution is discussed in terms of which classical marxian and post keynesian kaleckian and other theories are presented since this framework examines how variables are determined in equilibrium second dynamics behind equilibria are examined focusing on goods market and labor market changes third the framework is extended in a variety of ways to examine additional models addressing productivity growth and technical change money and inflation finance and debt additional distributional considerations multisector issues open economy questions and the environment it is concluded that the literature on heterodox theories of growth and distribution is vibrant large and growing and addresses many issues that are ignored or neglected in orthodox theories including power unemployment and aggregate demand

terms of trade policy in a model with non produced means of production abstract terms of trade policies between agriculture and industry are analysed in a two sector sraffian model if both sectors use only produced means of production and labor it can be shown that an improvement in agriculture s terms of trade always leads to higher profits in agriculture however when non produced means of production are introduced an exogenous increase in the relative price of agricultural commodities may cause the rate of profit in agriculture to increase remain constant or even decrease two preconditions are identified for the case in which a favorable movement in agriculture s terms of trade decreases that sector s profit rate first at least one quality of competitively priced land must be scarce relative to the total output required second the initial economy wide rate of profit must be positive finally the effect of an input subsidy used in conjunction with terms of trade policy is considered it is shown that under certain conditions reducing the price of production inputs can also cause profits to fall and rents to rise in agriculture

internationalization of the firm a discourse based view while internationalization process theory has deepened our understanding of international expansion it and many other international business ib theories have largely neglected the underlying managerial processes and decision making contexts of internationalization in response we articulate a model that accounts for both the external context and the internal processes leading to internationalization decisions we argue that internationalization decisions are grounded in contestation and struggle for control eventually leading to a dominant discourse consensus and performativity we illustrate our model through two contrasting cases of internationalization and we show how contemporary ib theories can be enhanced by adding a discourse approach

stagnation income distribution and monopoly power the deceleration in the rate of industrial growth in the indian economy since the middlesixties initially interpreted by some as a temporary downward deviation from trend hasnow come to be generally accepted as reflecting long run tendencies towards stagnation several explanations for these tendencies have been offered bhagwati and desai 1970 and bhagwati and srinivasan 1975 have focused on inefficiencies and the misallocationof resources arising from industrial policies pursued by the government others chakravarty 1974 raj 1976 and vaidyanathan 1974 among them have emphasisedthe sluggishness of agricultural growth which is alleged to have retarded industrial growthby limiting markets and the supply of wage goods and raw materials a third view reflectedin srinivasan and narayana 1977 for example has put the blame on a slackening of invest ment demand due to lower public investment but does not explain why public investmentfell or why its fall restrained industrial growth finally there is the explanation put forthin bagchi 1970 1975 1982 in nayyar 1978 and in parts of mitra 1977 that inequali ties in income distribution have resulted in a limited demand for industrial goods reducedincentives for investment and therefore reduced growth this view seems to suggest apositive relation between growth and income equality which is opposed to the generallyaccepted idea derived from cambridge growth models that higher growth requires greaterinequality the purpose of this paper is to examine the last explanation by considering the inter action between growth and income distribution in an underdeveloped economy with thehelp of a simple macroeconomic model the model is a stylisation of the indian economy so that we will be able to use the model to assess the argument that a deceleration in therate of growth of the indian industrial economy could have been caused by an unequaldistribution of income the argument will not be made that this income distributional con straint is the binding constraint on industrial growth the model will merely examine theinternal consistency of the argument that a bad income distribution could explain stagnation in the sense of reduced growth and show that in the indian context as in other similarcontexts this argument can be put forward in explaining stagnation our argument is first presented with a highly simplified schematisation of the indianeconomy which we shall call the basic model the economy modelled produces only one

the eclectic paradigm of international production a restatement and some possible extensions this article reviews some of the criticisms directed towards the eclectic paradigm of international production over the past decade and restates its main tenets the second part of the article considers a number of possible extensions of the paradigm and concludes by asserting that it remains a robust general framework for explaining and analysing not only the economic rationale of economic production but many organisational and impact issues in relation to mne activity as well

on the dynamic instability of induced migration unemployment in a dual economy abstract previous attempts to integrate the todarian analysis of rural urban migration with the dual economy growth model have relied upon an essentially static version of the migration hypothesis inappropriate in a growth context in this paper it is shown that when a dynamic version of the hypothesis is used the steady state growth equilibrium whilst characterised by a positive unemployment rate typical of todarian models is unstable these results have policy implications which differ from those presented in the previous literature

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

rent income distribution and growth in an underdeveloped agrarian economy abstract a model is constructed to examine the determination of income distribution in an underdeveloped agrarian economy such as the indian one in which both rich capitalist farmers and poor subsistence farmers rent in land from landlords it is used to analyse the growth and income distributional consequences of different kinds of institutional and technological changes the possibilities of the growth of capitalism and the impact of industrial expansion

terms of trade and class conflict in a computable general equilibrium model for mexico a computable general equilibrium model for mexico is constructed in which class conflict over the distribution of the surplus is the principal determinant of the terms of trade the model consists of seven social classes and eight productive sectors classes are distinguished as fundamental or subsumed according to whether their incomes are primarily determined by conscious class struggle or by the resulting system of relative prices flexible prices are assumed to clear markets for which non produced means of production such as agricultural land limit supply while output in the remaining sectors is determined by the level of effective demand for the latter sectors two theories of price formation are compared and are seen to differ radically in their implicit conception of the nature of class conflict a keynes kalecki closure is considered in which prices are determined by a fixed mark up on costs this enables capitalists to protect themselves from incursions on the rate of profit due to labou

performance and survival of joint ventures with non conventional ownership structures the international joint venture jv literature has focused on two parent jvs formed between one foreign and one local firm yet other types of jvs exist this paper identifies four distinct forms of jvs based on the jv partners nationality and equity affiliation these are i jvs that are formed between affiliated home country based firms ii jvs that are formed between unaffiliated home country based firmsl iii jvs that are formed between home country based and local firms and iv jvs that are formed between home country and third country based firms our analysis of 737 japanese jvs in asia demonstrates that the conventionally assumed form of jv represented only 30 percent of the total further each of the four jv forms significantly differed in terms of incidence performance and survival likelihood

transaction cost determinants and ownership based entry mode choice a meta analytical review entry mode choice is a critical ingredient of international entry strategies and has been voluminously examined in the field the findings however are very mixed especially with respect to transaction cost related factors in determining the ownership based entry mode choice this study conducted a meta analysis to quantitatively summarize the literature and empirically generalize more conclusive findings based on the 106 effect sizes of 38 empirical studies the meta analysis shows that the findings of the existing studies are moderated to varying degrees by both study setting factors and statistical artifacts although the combined overall effects of transaction cost based determinants are consistent with the predictions of transaction cost economics we extensively discuss the implications of meta analytical results especially moderating effects of location country of origin industry type and statistical artifacts highlight the measurement adequacy equivalence and multidimensionality of transaction cost determinants and present our suggestions to improve theoretical inquiries and empirical verifications on entry mode choice

intra and inter organizational imitative behavior institutional influences on japanese firms entry mode choice this paper compares the predictions of transaction cost and institutional theories in an empirical study of the entry mode choice for 1 194 japanese foreign subsidiaries the findings indicate the institutional model adds significant explanatory power over and above the predictions of the transaction cost model using the concepts of frequency based trait based and outcome based imitation i find support for institutional isomorphism as later entrants tended to follow the entry mode patterns established by earlier entrants isomorphic behavior was also present within a firm as firms exhibited consistency in entry mode choices across time further a firm s investment experience moderated institutional influences on entry mode choice

agricultural terms of trade and distributional perversities in a neo ricardian model abstract the comparative static effects of a change in terms of trade for the agricultural sector are examined in a two sector neo ricardian model when wages are held constant and intensive rents are earned by owners of the non produced land resource it is possible for a favorable shift in agriculture s terms of trade to lead to a fall in the rate of profit on circulating capital or a decline in the rental rate on land the conditions causing these perverse profit and rental rate responses are shown to depend on the type of high yielding technology available the relevance of the analysis to policy making and investment in the agriculture sector is discussed

state ownership effect on firms fdi ownership decisions under institutional pressure a study of chinese outward investing firms this study investigates the effect of state ownership on chinese firms foreign direct investment fdi ownership decisions it adopts a political perspective to extend the application of institutional theory in international business research specifically it examines firms heterogeneous responses to external institutional processes during foreign market entry while taking into consideration the political affiliation of firms with the external institutions we argue that state ownership creates the political affiliation of a firm with its home country government which increases the firm s resource dependence on home country institutions while at the same time influencing its image as perceived by host country institutional constituents such resource dependence and political perception increase firms tendency to conform to rather than resist isomorphic institutional pressures we tested our hypotheses using primary data for 132 fdi entries made by chinese firms during 2000 2006 and we found that the effects of home regulatory host regulatory and host normative pressures on a firm to choose a joint ownership structure were stronger when the share of equity held by state entities in the firm was high

determinants of success in international strategic alliances evidence from the global aerospace industry this paper presents the results of a study linking the performance of international joint ventures and alliances set up in the global aerospace industry to their strategic and organizational features in a first stage an empirically based taxonomy of the observed alliances is generated then the economic performance of various types of alliances is evaluated on the basis of industry expert opinions and the difference in performance of different alliance types is tested

trust social capital and economic development many argue that elements of a society s norms culture or social capital are central to understanding its development however these notions have been difficult to capture in economic models here we explore ap ossible role for trustworthiness as corresponding to social capital individuals are trustworthy when they perform in accordance with promises even if this does not maximize their payoffs the usual focus on incentive structures in motivating behaviour plays no role here instead we emphasize more deep seated modes of behaviour and consider trustworthy agents being socialized to act as they do to model this socialization we borrow from a process of preference evolution pioneered by bisin and verdier 2001 the model developed endogenously accounts for social capital and explores its role in the process of economic development it captures in a simple formal way the interaction between social capital and the economy s productive processes the results obtained caution against rapid reform and provide an explanation for why late developing countries may not easily be able to transplant the modes of production that have proved useful in the west

a retrospective on institutional cultural and transaction cost influences on entry mode choice and performance for several decades researchers have focused on the entry mode decision because it is critically important for firms expanding abroad despite this attention we still lack clear tools to help managers make effective entry decisions in this paper i review past research exploring transaction cost and institutional perspectives of mode choice provide a critique of this literature and generate suggestions to move our knowledge forward in addition i review the limited research exploring entry mode performance and emphasize the importance of examining the normative merits of proposed theoretical models i hope these suggestions will lead to the development of prescriptive tools for managers to make better entry mode decisions that result in improved firm performance

the effect of national culture on the choice of entry mode characteristics of national cultures have frequently been claimed to influence the selection of entry modes this article investigates this claim by developing a theoretical argument for why culture should influence the choice of entry two hypotheses are derived which relate culture to entry mode choice one focusing on the cultural distance between countries the other on attitudes towards uncertainty avoidance using a multinomial logit model and controlling for other effects the hypotheses are tested by analysing data on 228 entries into the united states market by acquisition wholly owned greenfield and joint venture empirical support for the effect of national culture on entry choice is found

knowledge market failure and the multinational enterprise a comment the purpose of this note is to comment briefly on two papers published in this journal kogut and zander 1993 and love 1995 kogut and zander k z argue that market failure is not necessary to explain the existence of multinationals or indeed any firm love argues that the existence of a firm necessarily reflects a market failure but that opportunism is not necessary for market failure to occur i have problems with the logic of both papers

confidence and the real value of money in an overlapping generations economy we demonstrate that stochastic bubbles which have a constant exogenous probability of collapsing may exist in general equilibrium on an intrinsically useless and unbacked asset money this may happen provided that the probability q that the bubble will persist next period is large enough and exceeds a threshold level q which we call the minimum rate of confidence this condition is always violated when the economy without bubble is dynamically efficient it is more likely to be satisfied in dynamically inefficient economies the larger the size of the inefficiency as measured by the excess of the growth rate over the no bubble interest rate we study both exchange and production economies

interdependent behavior in foreign direct investment the multi level effects of prior entry and prior exit on foreign market entry this paper examines the interdependent foreign market entry decisions of multinational corporations mncs based on the argument that legitimacy and competition are two important forces in foreign market entry decisions we hypothesize that an mnc s market entry decisions are influenced by its own prior entry and prior exit decisions and those of other mncs we examine this general proposition at four levels of analysis the host country global industry an industry that spans host countries local industry an industry that is separately defined within each host country and parent firm level our analysis of a panel data of over 4000 market entry decisions that were made by japanese mncs shows that an mnc s market entry decision has a stronger inverted u shaped relationship with the prior entry and exit decisions of other mncs at the local industry level than the prior entry and exit decisions of other mncs at the host country and global industry levels we also find that both the prior entry and prior exit decisions of an mnc have a marginal influence on its own subsequent market entry decisions at the parent firm level

choosing an appropriate alliance governance mode the role of institutional cultural and geographical distance in international research development r d collaborations we identify a variety of r d alliance modes in a knowledge intensive industry e g pharmaceuticals and classify them into four ordered categories which go beyond the traditional binary equity vs non equity alliance classification this enriches our understanding of alliance governance structures and broadens the application of alliance modes in what is today a more complicated international r d collaboration setting we then explore national industry and firm factors that determine the selection of an appropriate r d alliance governance mode using a sample of 237 international alliance deals the likelihood of using a more integrated alliance governance mode decreases as the difference or distance between nations of the partner firms increases in terms of human capital and cultural distance on the other hand a greater geographic and institutional difference is positively associated with the selection of more integrated alliance governance modes furthermore firms in the research stage are more likely to use a more integrated governance mode as opposed to firms in the development stage these findings advance research on alliance governance structure they reveal the factors affecting the r d alliance governance mode choice

social articulation as a condition for equitable growth abstract a formal model is developed to establish the structural conditions that result in growth being progressive or regressive on the personal distribution of income these conditions include 1 intersectoral investment priorities between wage goods and luxuries and 2 the state of the levels and distribution of incomes which determines the social origin of demand for different sectors of the economy the particular combinations of investment and income structures that result in equalizing social articulation or unequalizing growth social disarticulation are derived we show empirically that the structural conditions that allowed rapid but unequalizing growth in brazil between 1968 and 1977 were those of social disarticulation

a note on social articulation abstract de janvry and sadoulet 1983 present a model of unequalizing growth and the closure rule of the model is discussed in this note it is shown that income distribution in the model is determined by the market clearing mechanism in the wage goods market and how the condition for social articulation is related to the excess demand function on the wage goods market

measuring performance of international joint ventures international joint ventures ijvs are increasing in frequency and strategic importance however efforts to identify variables associated with ijv performance have been constrained by disagreements regarding the comparability and reliability of alternative performance measures and methods this study tests several hypotheses regarding the reliability and comparability of a range of objective and subjective measures of ijv performance as well as evaluating the relative utility of different data collection approaches

growth distribution and sectoral heterogeneity reading the kaleckians in latin america abstract the aim of this paper is to explore a parallelism between two episodes in the history of economic thought in order to suggest that the interaction between them can contribute to the research on kaleckian growth and distribution models first a brief summary of the theoretical development from steindl s stagnationist claims to the debate about demand regimes is offered then a more detailed account is provided of the latin american debate that began with furtado s stagnationist claims and resulted in the formulation of models of social articulation and disarticulation finally an analytical classification of kaleckian and latin american growth and distribution models is provided indicating the way in which sectoral heterogeneity and demand composition can act as a plausible link between growth and distribution

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

a note on the transnational solution and the transaction cost theory of multinational strategic management this article assesses the extent to which the results of bartlett and ghoshal s 1989 work can be incorporated in what has now become one of the core explanations of multinational strategic management i e the transaction cost based theory of international production we demonstrate that the transaction cost approach fully incorporates the empirical findings of bartlett and ghoshal s work to do so requires that we make a new distinction between location bound and non location bound firm specific advantages in addition three possible uses of country specific advantages by multinational enterprises need to be identified while the transnational solution as proposed by bartlett and ghoshal is not itself a new theory of multinational strategic management it is compatible with the transaction cost based model of multinational strategic management

firm ownership preferences and host government restrictions an integrated approach two approaches may explain how multinational enterprises mnes select ownership structures for subsidiaries the first argues that mnes prefer structures that minimize that transaction costs of doing business abroad the second argues that ownership structures are determined by negotiations with host governments whose outcomes depend on the bargaining power of the firm this paper presents a framework integrating these two approaches and uses statistical methods to separate their effects empirically

what makes and what does not make a real option a study of equity shares in international joint ventures this paper examines the boundaries of real options logic with an application to joint ventures jvs we distinguish between forms of uncertainty that are resolved endogenously and those that are resolved exogenously and theorize that only exogenous uncertainty will have the impact predicted by real options theory on a foreign investor s choice of how large an equity share to take in a jv we theorize that macroeconomic and institutional variables generate exogenous uncertainty whereas by contrast cultural distance and choices pertaining to corporate scope and product or process development activities involve endogenous sources of uncertainty that investors can both assess and act upon without having to wait and see using a sample of 6472 sino foreign jvs we find support for our predictions we discuss and implement proper methods to test for the existence of null effects as is relevant to establish the boundaries of a theory such as real options theory we draw implications for research and practice on jvs specifically equity share decisions which deserve more attention and real options including suitable uses and desirable extensions of the concept

getting to global an evolutionary perspective of brand expansion in international markets the globalization of brands is an evolutionary process that is determined by environmental and firm level factors including a brand s position in the firm s global brand architecture a framework is developed incorporating aspects of environmental uncertainty mimetic behavior and experiential learning as they relate to the globalization of brands global brand architecture is introduced as an important strategic consideration of a brand s position and stage of internationalization the hypotheses are tested within the context of the global automotive industry employing an event history analysis with time varying covariates the results reveal complex effects with respect to the role of market attractiveness experiential learning and mimetic behavior in globalization patterns overall this study suggests that firms can accelerate the process of creating global brands if they enter the three major continents in the early stages of international expansion

sme internationalization modes in the german biotechnology industry the influence of imitation network position and international experience in this article we reveal how network enabled imitation processes impact young small and medium sized enterprises smes internationalization and how a firm s network position as well as its experiential knowledge moderate imitative behavior in internationalization modes building on institutional network and organizational learning theory we suggest that firms imitate the internationalization modes of their peers in their network moreover we argue that a firm s imitation propensity depends on two important boundary conditions network position and past experience applying a longitudinal event history analysis to analyze the complete population of 977 german biotechnology firms between 1996 and 2012 largely supports our hypotheses our findings reveal that firms imitate the internationalization modes of their peers in a precise manner this implies that the imitation of others can initially serve as a presumably convenient low risk shortcut to a planned or experience driven internationalization process furthermore our results confirm that this imitation process is channeled through formal network relations and that central network positions that are associated with superior information access enhanced legitimacy and status may promote deviating behavior acknowledging the interplay of different learning sources our findings additionally show that initial internationalization mode choices of smes can have a lasting effect on subsequent internationalization behavior overall our study contributes to a more nuanced view of imitative behavior of internationalizing smes and its boundary conditions and highlights future research opportunities that exist for considering imitation and its implications in international business research

an east asian model of economic development japan taiwan and south korea the east asian model of economic development focuses on 5 shared characteristics that seem significant in the contemporary economic development of japan taiwan and korea they are economic characteristics and include 1 high investment ratios 2 small public sectors 3 competitive labor markets 4 export expansion and 5 government intervention in the economy large and efficient investments in human capital and well developed capacities to absorb new technology are 2 other economic features shared by the three one could add overcrowding high man land ratios and scarcity of natural resources though these are handicaps rather than sources of economic strength it is possible however that virtue springs from necessity and that ample arable land or abundant natural resources mainly permit governments to postpone the difficult decisions needed to promote development rather than provide the wherewithal needed to finance development other noneconomic characteristics of the three such as ethnic and linguistic homogeneity relatively compact geography manageable population size and the confucian tradition have not been considered in the model even though they have undoubtedly influenced labor productivity savings behavior and other aspects of economic performance whether the east asian model ought to be followed depends on whether current and foreseeable circumstances are sufficiently like those faced by the three to justify using the same policies that they used applicability of the east asian model should also depend on whether the strategy employed by the three has been responsible for their economic success 2 aspects of the east asian models policy features are noteworthy 1 the policies typically work by influencing rather than replacing private market decisions and 2 the public expects government to intervene to influence economic growth

a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence this paper presents a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence political equilibrium depends on the efficiency of each group in producing pressure the effect of additional pressure on their influence the number of persons in different groups and the deadweight cost of taxes and subsidies an increase in deadweight costs discourages pressure by subsidized groups and encourages pressure by taxpayers this analysis unifies the view that governments correct market failures with the view that they favor the politically powerful both are produced by the competition for political favors

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

sectoral balance in development a survey abstract this paper surveys the literature on sectoral balance to see how sectoral imbalances can retard economic development it examines definitions of sectors and balance provides background facts theories and planning tools reviews the debate on balanced growth and surveys two sector models of agriculture industry consumption investment and luxury basics interaction the open economy and the role of service nonmarket and unproductive sectors it argues that the examination of important development issues requires multisectoral analysis incorporating the insights of several of these models and that alternative models with different structural characteristics deserve attention

the regional dimension of mnes foreign subsidiary localization this paper examines the regional effect of mnes foreign subsidiary localization we hypothesize that the number of subsequent foreign subsidiaries in a country is in part determined by a firm s prior foreign subsidiary activity at the regional level we test our hypotheses using data on 1076 japanese mnes that created 3466 foreign subsidiaries 1837 wholly owned fdis and 1629 joint ventures over the period 1996 2001 we use a multilevel negative binomial approach with three levels of analysis localization decisions in a country 49 countries in a region six regions and at the headquarters level in this way we test the regional effects controlling for country and corporate dimensions we also run separate models to differentiate wholly owned and joint venture localization decisions our results strongly support the semi globalization perspective in that the regional level effects are significant and different from the country level effects for all foreign subsidiaries for wholly owned subsidiaries and for jointly owned subsidiaries japanese mnes adopt a regional perspective that complements their decisions at the country and firm levels they seek regional agglomeration benefits and make arbitrage decisions between countries in the same region

increasing returns and the foundations of unemployment theory current approaches to macroeconomic theory divide roughly into two basic schools of thought one approach typically associated with rational expectations views the economy as basically at or near walrasian market clearing equilibrium in which case it becomes very difficult to explain away convincingly the undeniable persistence at times of involuntary unemployment another approach views the underemployed economy as being in a state of temporary fixed price disequilibrium in which case aside from having to repress suspicions that the essence of effective demand failure might not have to do with prices fixed at wrong values there is a lot of rationalising to be done about why profitable adjustments are so slow this paper argues that something like an internally consistent theory of steady state involuntary unemployment is possible and even plausible the cornerstone of this third approach is increasing returns to scale which blocks unemployed agents from breaking out of a low level equilibrium trap unless there is overall coordination or stimulation a simple model is presented which contains the basic ideas

egalitarianism and international investment abstract this study identifies how country differences on a key cultural dimension egalitarianism influence international investment flows a society s cultural orientation toward egalitarianism is manifested by intolerance for abuses of market and political power and a desire for protecting less powerful actors we show egalitarianism to be based on exogenous factors including social fractionalization dominant religion circa 1900 and war experience from the 19th century we find a robust influence of egalitarianism distance on cross national flows of bond and equity issuances syndicated loans and mergers and acquisitions an informal cultural institution largely determined a century or more ago egalitarianism exercises its effect on international investment via an associated set of consistent contemporary policy choices but even after controlling for these associated policy choices egalitarianism continues to exercise a direct effect on cross border investment flows likely through its direct influence on managers daily business conduct

culture as a bubble this paper considers an overlapping generations growth model in which culture is viewed as a public input in the production process of the labor efficiency units of future generations given the low appropriability of its beneficial effects the market value of culture will be due to bubbles i shall characterize the balanced growth paths associated with stationary rational bubbles on culture indeterminacy arises in the transition dynamics

yes we really do need more entry mode studies a commentary on shaver in a recent commentary published in this journal shaver raises the provocative question of whether we need more entry mode studies after assessing the reasons for shaver s doubts and further developing his broad research suggestions we conclude that this question should be answered affirmatively we derive three important questions for future entry mode research 1 what determines the evolution of operations resulting from suboptimal mode choices 2 what causes the replication of past mode choices 3 how is the entry decision process structured focusing on these questions should assure a bright future for entry mode research

key characteristics in the choice of international technology transfer mode the choice between licensing and direct investment as a vehicle for international technology transfer is hypothesized to be related to characteristics of the individual technology parent corporation and the host country involved in the transfer a set of hypotheses regarding these relationships are developed and tested in a logit statistical model for a sample of 1 226 technology transfers we find that hypotheses regarding the effects of technology and parents characteristics are strongly supported by this analysis hypotheses regarding the effect of host country characteristics on transfer patterns receive mixed support

knowledge market failure and the multinational enterprise a theoretical note this article offers a critique and extension of recent work by bruce kogut and udo zander kogut and zander are correct to argue that opportunism is unnecessary to explain the existence of the multinational but wrong to infer that this indicates an absence of market failure they have identified an important class of transaction costs and market failure which arises in the absence of opportunism but do not cat doubt on the market failure approach to the theory of the multinational their argument that they have identified an important source of ownership advantage is unconvincing and is not supported by the empirical evidence however kogut and zander s work is of considerable significance but in areas different from those that they highlight

modes of foreign entry a transaction cost analysis and propositions a frontier issue in international marketing is the appropriate choice of entry mode in foreign markets the objective of this paper is to offer a transaction cost framework for investigating the entry mode decision this framework provides 1 a theoretical basis for systematically interrelating the literature into propositions 2 propositions about interactions which resolve the apparently contradictory arguments advanced to date specifically the paper illustrates the feasibility of clustering 17 entry modes into the degree of control the mode provides the entrant proposes that the most appropriate i e most efficient entry mode is a function of the tradeoff between control and the cost of resource commitment advances testable propositions delimiting the circumstances under which each mode maximizes long term efficiency

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

public policies pressure groups and dead weight costs abstract this paper presents a model of competition among special interest groups for political influence each active group exerts pressure to affect its taxes and subsidies where activities of different groups are related by the equality between total tax collections and total tax subsidies the dead weight costs and benefits of taxes and subsidies play a major role in our model an increase in the dead weight cost of taxation encourages pressure by taxpayers while an increase in the dead weight costs of subsidies discourages pressure by recipients various applications of the analysis are discussed