How International Firms Conduct Societal Marketing in Emerging Markets

• This study tests the relationship between activities of societal marketing and firms’ CSR legitimacy in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR). It also examines the effects of the CSR legitimacy on firm performances in marketing. In addition, the study considers the relative importance of different activities of societal marketing.
• Based on data from a large sample of firms operating in both southern and northern China, this study compares the relative importance of three dimensions of societal marketing activities which influence a firm’s CSR legitimacy.
• Different from research findings from developed economies, our data show that the social dimension of societal marketing activities is the most effective when it comes to influencing a firm’s CSR image in an emerging economy. This image, in turn, has a positive effect on its marketing performances.
• This study suggests that, in an emerging economy such as China, firms that pay more attention to the social dimension of societal marketing are likely to be more effective in terms of building CSR legitimacy and achieving good performances.

     

The Impact of Psychic Distance on Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investments

• The aim of this paper is to investigate the value of the well-known construct of psychic distance, developed to explain the internationalization path of firms from developed countries, for the internationalization of Chinese firms.
• Our research question is: Does psychic distance and its individual stimuli (differences in language, religion, culture, economic development, political systems, education, and geographic distance) explain Chinese investments abroad?
• We test hypotheses on the relation between psychic distance and its stimuli and Chinese outward direct investments with OLS regression analyses.
• We find that Chinese OFDI indeed is influenced by an aggregate construct of psychic distance and by certain psychic distance stimuli, but not by all; in particular, similarities or differences with regard to language and culture, the level of industrialization and the level of democracy relate to Chinese firms’ internationalization.
• Our findings suggest that psychic distance and its stimuli cannot be ignored as explanatory factors for Chinese outward FDI but that the explanatory value of these constructs depends on the context of the phenomenon under study.
• We conclude that it is important to understand how the home country context influences managerial perceptions and thereby patterns of international expansion from different regions.

     

Subsidiary Interdependencies and International Human Resource Management Practices in German MNCs

• Using the resource-based view, this paper links the degree of interdependence that exists between subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs) to the use of various International Human Resource Management (IHRM) practices.
• We assume that in many MNCs this interdependence has increased the need for cross-border coordination.
• We analyze to what extent MNCs use IHRM practices in order to enhance their coordination capability across national borders.
• We present a framework that addresses these effects and empirically test it using data from a questionnaire survey among 142 majority-owned overseas subsidiaries of German MNCs.
• The findings show that the degree of interdependence is related to the level of international experience of staff employed in subsidiaries, the use of third-country nationals, the provision of training, the use of cross-cultural management teams, and the choice of employee evaluation and reward methods.
• We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for IHRM practitioners and scholars as well as the limitations of our study.

     

Revisiting the Trust-performance Link in Strategic Alliances

• We extend research on the trust-performance link in strategic alliances (SAs) by arguing that the traditional focus of research on the influence of trust on performance of SAs needs to be complemented with a more explicit acknowledgment and analysis of the role that SA performance plays in the development of trust.
• Drawing on existing theoretical arguments and empirical findings related to the consequences and determinants of trust we argue for the existence of a bidirectional causal relationship between trust and performance in SAs. We empirically test this bilateral relationship using 3-stage least square regression models on data from 110 strategic alliances.
• Our results support the positive effect of SA performance on trust, but not the commonly stressed positive effect of trust on SA performance. We discuss the relevance of this finding for the theory of inter-firm collaboration. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for practitioners and scholars interested in SAs.

     

What Do HR Managers Really Do?

• The contribution of the HR function in supporting international business operations has received limited attention to date, with even less attention paid to HR roles.
• This article seeks to address this by studying the role of HR managers on international projects.
• We identify five IHR roles: service provider, policy police, strategic partner, change agent; and welfare officer.
• We also identifyhow these roles are enacted, questioning the prevailing divide between strategic and operational roles; and adding another dimension??emotional.
• We also argue that role enactment is context-specific; and show how context constrains as well as enables IHR role enactment.

     

Antecedents to Government Relationship Building and the Institutional Contingencies in a Transition Economy

• This study argues that the government-relationship building efforts by foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) depend on the perceived level of regulatory uncertainties, which, in turn, is conditioned by the institutional distances between their home and host countries.
• The regulatory antecedents (regulatory complexity and enforcement uncertainty) to government-relationship building by foreign-invested enterprises and the moderating effects of institutional distance (regulative and cultural distances) in the context of the large transition economy of China are examined using a sample of 424 foreign-invested enterprises.
• The results show that they tend to actively engage in government-relationship building when regulatory uncertainties (complexity and enforcement uncertainties) are high. The moderating analyses reveal the strengthening effects of regulative distances on the relationship between regulatory uncertainties and government-relationship building and the mixed effects of cultural distance.

     

Ranking International Business Institutions and Faculty Members Using Research Publication as the Measure

• This study measures and ranks the productivity of academic institutions and faculty members based on the number of publications appearing in the top three core international business journals between 2001 and 2009.
• This research serves as a useful update and extension of studies by Morrison and Inkpen (1991), Inkpen and Beamish (1994), and Kumar and Kundu (2004), which examined the top three international business journals, namely,Management International Review,Journal of International Business Studies, andJournal of World Business.
• Copenhagen Business School, University of Miami, and University of Leeds (among institutions), and Yadong Luo, Peter J. Buckley, and Alain Verbeke (among authors) occupy the top three positions.

     

In at the Deep End of Firm Internationalization

• The purpose of this research is to examine the consequences of top management team (TMT) internationalization: why and under what conditions can TMT nationality diversity be beneficial?
• On the basis of the upper echelons theory from the strategic leadership literature, the relationship between the TMT nationality diversity and firm performance in the strategic context of firm internationalization is investigated in moderated multiple regressions models (MMR) for a sample of Dutch, Swiss, and UK companies.
• The study findings suggest that the TMT nationality diversity becomes advantageous only in firms with high degree of internationalization. Companies have to be strongly committed to foreign markets so that the benefits of the TMT nationality diversity can materialize.
• The arising managerial implication is that the TMT nationality diversity can be a powerful tool in building a firm’s competitive advantage, provided that companies are strongly exposed to the international environment. The study also provides corroborative evidence that the search for moderating and mediating variables in the TMT demography research represents a step in the right direction.

     

Family Management and Internationalization: The Impact on Firm Performance and Innovation

• Researchers in international business have long been interested in understanding the impact of internationalization on firm performance and innovation. However, because international diversification offers both advantages and agency problems, prior studies of this research stream offer mixed results.
• Based on a sample of Taiwan’s publicly listed firms during the period of 2000–2009, this study contributes to this research stream by examining the impact of family management on firm performance and innovation implications of internationalization.
• This study finds that family management positively moderates the relation between internationalization and performance/innovation. These findings suggest that family management helps mitigate the agency problems associated with internationalization so that family firms experience positive benefits from internationalization in terms of innovation and performance.

     

Some questions on the corrosion of steel in concrete—Part I: when,how and how much steel corrodes

It is widely accepted that concrete-embedded steel is in a passive state. However, there are some exceptional circumstances that induce corosion in an active state within concrete structures, thereby severely reducing their durability. This two-part paper analyses some major questions which, however elementary they may be, are still controversial in scientific, technical and economic terms. The first part provides answers to the following questions on the steel/concrete/environment system:

1. How does steel in concrete normally behave?
2. What are the initiating factors for depassivation?
3. What are the effects of corrosion?
4. What is the morphology of corrosion in the active state? and
5. What is the corrosion rate threshold above which the durability of reinforced concrete structures is impaired? The answers to these questions are provided in light of experimental results, most of which were obtained by the authors themselves.

     

Does National Context Affect Target Firm Employees’ Trust in Acquisitions?

• In this study, we test the assumption that the way target firm employees respond to a takeover is contingent on their national origin.
• The antecedents of target firm member trust in the acquiring firm management were examined in a cross-national sample of German and Singaporean employees using a policy-capturing design.
• Five factors hypothesized to affect target firm member trust after a takeover were found to be significant influences on employees?? trust judgments in a decision-making simulation: (i) combining firms?? collaboration history, (ii) mode of takeover, (iii) whether it was a domestic or cross-border acquisition, (iv) degree of autonomy removal, and (v) attractiveness of the acquiring firm??s human resource policies and reward system. Further analyses suggest that the relative importance of these factors in predicting target firm employees?? reactions to a takeover varies depending on their national origin.
• We conclude that companies engaged in cross-border acquisitions need to consider contingencies in the cultural and institutional contexts in which the acquired firms are embedded and adapt their approaches for integrating them accordingly.

     

FDI Structure, Investment Specificity, and Multinationality Value under Host Market Uncertainty

• To address mixed results regarding the value of multinationality, we take into account some important but less explored contingent factors related to country and subsidiary asset specificity.
• From our analyses using a panel dataset of Korean FDI, we find that subsidiaries’ local commitment in terms of FDI depth and local sales are negatively associated with multinationality value, whereas their intra-firm trade links to other affiliates are positively associated with the value.
• We conclude from our findings that in addition to dispersed operations across countries, other country- and subsidiary-specific factors moderate the effect of FDI breadth on multinationality value.
• We believe our study contributes to the literature by its fine-grained analysis of the environmental and organizational conditions wherein MNCs’ multinationality generates value.

     

National Culture and International Differences in the Cost of Equity Capital

• Prior literature suggests that national culture influences many facets of business operations including corporate governance, capital structure, managerial compensation, foreign direct investment behavior and accounting systems.
• Extending this line of literature, we examine whether key aspects of national culture are also related to international differences in the cost of equity capital.
• In a cross-country sample of 32 countries during 1992–2006, we find that the cost of equity capital tends to be higher in more individualistic and less uncertainty avoiding societies consistent with their greater risk-taking orientation.
• This finding contributes to the international business and financial literature by identifying national culture as an important institutional variable influencing firms’ cost of equity capital around the world.

     

International Activities of Emerging Market Firms

• During the last decade emerging market firms (EMFs) have increasingly attracted scholarly attention. Yet, the conclusions concerning the nature and the theoretical foundations of EMFs?? international expansion vary greatly thus calling for a critical assessment of the existing theorizing in this field.
• We examine publications on the internationalization of EMFs in fourteen top international management (IM) journals in the period of 2000?C2010 and use the inductive approach and the qualitative content analysis methodology.
• Our analysis shows that the published research can be classified into two groups: macro- and micro-level studies. The former predominantly employ macro-level institutional factors to examine the overall patterns of EMFs?? international expansion, while the latter build on a wider range of approaches, including the resource-based view, network and strategy perspectives to investigate various aspects of EMFs?? internationalization.
• The paper identifies a number of theoretical inconsistencies in the existing research that arguably cause ambiguity in findings and suggests future research directions to address these inconsistencies. By doing so the analysis contributes to the central debate in literature concerning whether conventional theories suffice to explain the EMFs?? internationalization or new theoretical approaches are needed.
• The analysis illustrates that the research on EMFs?? internationalization can be improved through refined application of a broader range of methodologies such as longitudinal and mixed-method studies. The geographic focus of studies needs to be widened as well. Currently it is clearly biased towards China, while other emerging markets remain under-researched.

     

Reconstructing the Indigenous in African Management Research

• The primary aim of this article is to help lay the foundations for mainstreaming indigenous research within international and cross-cultural management studies, taking sub-Saharan Africa as the primary and initial focus, and using the informal economy as an example.
• It sets out to critically examine the concept of indigenous, looking at how concepts and scholarship have been shaped by global dynamics, and the implications for developing empirical management research. It then discusses a research agenda and methods for undertaking indigenous management research, going on to discuss the importance of this to the further development of international and cross-cultural management within a global and changing context.
• Its contribution to scholarship is a more systematic re-examining of the concepts of indigenousness and indigenous knowledge drawing on a range of disciplines and what these concepts mean to undertaking management research that more thoroughly reflect global realities, while evaluating indigenous research methods that could be used effectively and appropriately in this endeavour.

     

Process perspectives in international business research in CEE

Abstract

Internationalisation processes have been a core interest of international business research since the seminal contribution by Johanson and Vahlne (1977).

The unique context of economic transition in CEE directs the attention to dynamic aspects of these processes, and to the interaction with changing environmental conditions.

This introductory paper reviews the contributions of recent CEE research, and this special issue in particular, to advance our understanding of internationalisation processes.

     

Emotions and foreign direct investment: A theoretical and empirical exploration

Abstract

Emotions are largely absent in economic models. Possibly for this reason, many theories fail to explain the actual decisions made by managers.

Therefore, we integrate emotions with regular microeconomic theory. We focus on FDI decisions, and include both economic and emotional variables in our analysis of the firm’s decision-making process.

In our theoretical analysis, emotions are included in a utility maximization model that considers not only the utility of the firm but also the utility of the individual decision-maker.

In our empirical analysis, the presence of emotions in FDI decision-making is tested using a sample of Dutch enterprises that considered an investment in Central or Eastern Europe between 1990 and 2000.

     

Effective Persuasion of International Business Sales Letters

• Language usage has attracted increasing research attention in international business studies. Yet scarce research has been done on the use of language in sales letters across cultures.
• Our paper, using a combined etic-emic approach aims to compare Chinese and New Zealand managers’ reflective accounts of persuasive strategies and the function of sales letters used in these two countries. In particular, we seek to contribute to an improved in-depth cross-cultural understanding through an investigation using emic sources of language and persuasion.
• Our findings indicate that language and persuasion play a significant role in sales letters, the Chinese managers focusing more on building qing (positive affect) with the reader whereas the NZ managers sought a more immediate reaction to their sales pitch and informal engagement with the reader.
• Furthermore, also based on the insights gained reflectively and reflexively from our discussion, these differences were closely related to persuasion strategies which are also important parameters influencing cross-cultural adaptations.

     

The suitability of new sample preparations for the determination of the cement content of cement stabilised tropical soils

Three new sample preparation methods other than the method suggested in B.S. 1924: 1967 are utilised for the determination of the cement content of cement-stabilised tropical soils with a view to

1. reducing the quantity of acid digested,
2. making unnecessary the use of ball mill crushers, and
3. reducing the preparation time.

Statistical analyses of the results obtained indicate that the above advantages can indeed be realised and recommendations are made accordingly.