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The aim of this study is to compare the relative efficiency of quality management practices among American, Japanese, and Taiwanese firms located in Taiwan. Data envelope analysis (DEA) technique is used to measure the relative efficiency of these firms. Quality management practices and organizational performances are treated as input and output factors respectively. The firms are grouped in four based on their efficiency levels. These groups are referred to as robustly efficient, marginal efficient, marginal inefficient, and distinctly inefficient units in DEA. The results of the analysis showed that there is a significant difference between the levels of efficiency among the three typologies of firms – American‐, Japanese‐, and Taiwanese‐owned firms. The study found that the efficiency of quality management practices for Japanese‐owned firms is the highest, even though almost all of their employees are Taiwanese; also, American‐owned firms’ efficiency is higher than that of Taiwanese‐owned firms. It was also observed that the ethnocentric quality management practices of foreign firms in Taiwan might have contributed to the inefficiency of Taiwanese firms. The study shows that Taiwanese and US firms can benchmark the efficient practices of Japanese firms in order to be the best‐in‐class.

There is limited empirical research on the internationalization processes, strategies and operations of Asian multinational enterprises (MNEs) from countries at different levels of development. This paper examines and analyzes the internationalization strategies and characteristics of Asian MNEs within the investment development path (IDP) perspective.

Primary data are drawn from matched case studies of emerging MNEs from Taiwan (a newly industrializing country) and Malaysia (a fast developing country) in the textile and electronics industries.

The internationalization strategies of our Taiwanese and Malaysian case firms were founded on cost‐based competencies and other location‐based advantages, brought together by an extensive web of ethnic networks. Differences between our Taiwanese and Malaysian case firms were found and discussed. In general, the Taiwanese firms were more internationalized (at stage 3 of IDP) than the Malaysian firms (stage 2). They had more developed and elaborate production networks and greater own design manufacturing/own brand manufacturing participation than the Malaysian firms.

The research did not capture the operational strategies at the level of the subsidiary or JV. The findings were exploratory and formed the basis for research propositions presented. As indicated there existed a wide empirical research gap on Asian as well as Taiwanese and Malaysian MNEs. These need to be filled to provide further evidence and answers to the issues raised in the paper. Other potential areas of research could include longitudinal studies of Asian MNEs to examine whether they will resemble Western MNEs as they evolve, the impact of ethnic networks on the performance of Asian MNEs of both Chinese and non‐Chinese origins, and the role of the state in internationalization strategies.

Few studies have been done on emerging market multinationals and their internationalisation strategies.

This study aims to refocus the analysis of global political economies using concepts from studies on Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) to track Taiwan’s rise in the Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) industry. Taiwanese electronics firms began to outpace their competitors from Japan in TFT-LCD industry’s competition from about the year 2000.

Drawing on depth interviews and analysis of secondary source material, newspaper and magazine.

A time factor that helps determine advantage and/or disadvantage of high-tech industry in Japan and Taiwan. Stable organizational structure and less talent mobility in the Japanese TFT-LCD firms may well have been an advantage initially in the transformation process from US firms’ experimental technologies to tacit mass production technologies, but proved to be a disadvantage in the subsequent competition with more mobile talent in Taiwanese firms eager to standardize mass production techniques. Japanese firms’ rigid organizational structure could not keep pace to the market-oriented technology strategy in the global TFT-LCD industry, lost competitive advantage in a rapid pace.

VoC literature should be focused to highlight two insights. The first is the premise of institutional forms specific to national models of capitalism. Patterns of technology transfer appear critical in the innovation process, and differ markedly between Taiwan and Japan. Second, the VoC literature suggests comparative institutional advantage.

Through the comparative analyses between Taiwanese capitalism model and Japanese counterparts, we can understand the reason and process of the rise of Taiwan in global TFT-LCD market.

This paper aims to investigate outsourcing of different types of logistics activities in Taiwanese food industry, and benchmark with practices in The Netherlands.

The outsourcing of four levels of logistics activities is investigated: transportation (level 1), packaging (level 2), transportation management (level 3), and distribution network management (level 4). A structured questionnaire was designed and sent to logistics managers in The Netherlands and Taiwan to evaluate the most commonly outsourced activities and identify specific outsourcing firm's characteristics.

About 69 per cent of the companies, in both countries outsource level 1 activities, 16 per cent level 2, and 37 per cent level 3 activities. Only few companies (about 10 per cent) outsource the highest level of activities. In particular, The Netherlands has higher percentages for levels 1 and 3. This might be caused by the fact that most Taiwanese companies emphasise low cost whereas the Dutch companies focus on flexibility in order to deal with higher complexities. When intentions for the future are included, Taiwan is planning to outsource level 2 (40 per cent) and level 4 activities (36 per cent) much more than The Netherlands (respectively 13 and 17 per cent). When zooming in, it was found that outsourcing strategies of companies in the subsectors differ. For instance, the dairy sector outsources more frequently than the meat sector on the first three levels. This might be caused by the fact that meat companies emphasise food quality, whereas dairy companies emphasise flexibility and reliability.

This study investigated only food processors. The paper suggests further research should include other types of food organisations.

The paper provides valuable insights in outsourcing strategies of food processing companies in Taiwan and The Netherlands for advanced logistics service providers who are looking at the market potential of Taiwan.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of outward foreign direct investment (O‐FDI) on the competitiveness of home‐country export.

This paper employs a six‐year data set from Taiwanese manufacturing data for 15 industries over the period between 1991 and 2007.

The authors find that exports in Taiwan are positively associated with O‐FDI by Taiwanese firms. This finding supports the view that outward FDI complements home country exports and concurs with the majority of earlier empirical findings which focus on developed home countries. The authors also find that such effect is stronger for Taiwanese FDI in China than in other countries and in traditional sectors than in modern sectors.

These findings suggest that location‐and industry‐specific characteristics moderate the strength of the relationship between O‐FDI and home country exports.

Taiwanese computer and electronic products possess advantages in design, innovation, rapid response, and global market flexibility. This study aims to examine Taiwanese computer and electronics firms to explore the product marketing strategies they adopted to deal with global competition. Furthermore, it is intended to analyze firms in different marketing strategic groups in terms of their product design strategies and how they incorporated design and marketing strategies into design innovation. This analysis is applied as an integrated innovation model for allocating design and marketing strategies.

Based on a questionnaire survey and case studies, the marketing strategies adopted by the Taiwanese computer and electronics industry can be classified into the categories of “market leader”, “market focus”, “market challenge” and “market niche”.

Firms employing different marketing strategies employed different design innovation strategies in product design. The design strategies adopted by enterprises in the market leader group incorporated aggressive innovation; those in the market focus group were characterized by focus innovation in product design; those in the market challenge group exhibited strong innovation integration in product design; and those in the market niche group exhibited flexible innovation in product design.

The innovation models adopted by the Taiwanese computer and electronics industry were related to enterprise scale, business type, and product development category. Results of this study provide a valuable reference for enterprises with regard to R&D and marketing in relation to product innovation.

This empirical study aims to examine an organizational response to the needs of e‐business, virtual organization, and associated determinants of its successful adoption in the Taiwanese electronics industry.

The research examined a large sample of Taiwanese electronics companies. A research population of Taiwanese electronics companies was drawn from firms listed on both the TAIEX and the OTC markets and included 305 firms. Questionnaires were sent to firm administrators who were asked the degree to which the company had undertaken virtual organizational structuring that was enabled by information technologies.

The findings of this research reveal significant impacts of individual and organizational factors, but no effect for environmental variables on virtual organization adoption.

While the results might provide clues for understanding the adoption of virtual organization structure in the manufacturing sector, there still remains uncertainty in generalizing to service industries. The variety of types of service firms and their outputs makes any generalization to services from this study difficult.

First, information technologies may provide the potential means to implement innovative organization structures, such as virtual organization, to respond to the pressures of change. Second, the adoption and diffusion of virtual organization might transform firms to meet the demands of e‐commerce.

The study identifies factors which may impact on the successful use of information technologies to implement innovative organization structures, such as virtual organizations, to respond to the pressures of change.

Using a data set of listed firms domiciled in Taiwan, this paper aims to empirically assess the effects of ownership structure and board of directors on firm value.

Using a sample of Taiwanese listed firms from 1997 to 2015, this study uses a panel estimation to exploit both the cross-section and time–series nature of the data. Furthermore, two stage least squares (2SLS) regression model is used as robustness test to mitigate the endogeneity issue.

The main results show that the higher the proportion of independent directors, the smaller the board size, together with a two-tier board system and no chief executive officer duality, the stronger the firm’s performance. With respect to ownership structure, block-holders’ ownership, institutional ownership, foreign ownership and family ownership are all positively related to firm value.

Although the Taiwanese corporate governance reform concerning the independent director system which is mandatory only for newly-listed companies is successful, the regulatory authority should require all listed companies to appoint independent directors to further enhance the Taiwanese corporate governance.

First, unlike most of the previous literature on Western developed countries, this study examines the effects of corporate governance mechanisms on firm performance in a newly industrialised country, Taiwan. Second, while a number of studies used a single indicator of firm performance, this study examines both accounting-based and market-based firm performance. Third, this study addresses the endogeneity issue between corporate governance factors and firm performance by using 2SLS estimation, and details the econometric tests for justifying the appropriateness of using 2SLS estimation.

HRM practices in foreign subsidiaries have been the subject of much attention in recent years. However, research on HRM practices by subsidiaries of multinationals (MNCs) has so far focused largely on subsidiaries of western multinationals in western and or emerging economies. The authors have little knowledge concerning HRM practices of subsidiaries of multinationals from emerging economies in developed western countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine HRM practices of MNCs from emerging economies operating in western developed countries.

Survey.

A blend of practices has been adopted by the subsidiaries, ranging from emulating home country practices, adapting host country practices, and a Melange of home and host country practices.

First, HRM practices used by emerging economy MNCs in an advanced economy have been identified. Second, the results suggest that MNCs from emerging economies behave differently from MNCs from developed countries such as Japan, the USA and Western European countries. Past research shows that MNCs from advanced economies such as Japanese MNCs in the UK tend to transplant the ideas and practices of so‐called excellent human resource management systems from their own parent companies. However, Taiwanese MNCs deliberately adopt a varied HR approach to operate in an advanced economy as a result of dual pressures of home and host country effect. Consequently, apart from strategic issues wholly made by headquarters in Taiwan, other HR practices either adapt to local practices or use a hybrid style.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the performance appraisal practices of US subsidiaries in Taiwan to those of their parent firms and to those of large Taiwanese companies in an effort to understand how foreign subsidiaries adjust to the competing demands for global integration and local responsiveness.

A stratified random sampling scheme was employed to ensure that performance appraisal practices of manufacturing firms in similar industry sectors were compared. A mail survey was chosen over other ways of gathering data because of the wide geographical dispersion of companies, the required speed of data collection, and the length of the questionnaire.

The results indicate that performance appraisal is not a uniform function, but consists of practices that differ in their relative resemblance to local practices and to parent practices. This finding suggests that the competing demands for global integration and local adaptation should not be viewed as opposite ends of a continuum, but as two independent dimensions.

Selection bias, the difficulty in numerically quantifying HR practices, and survey bias by respondents are discussed.

This paper introduces the concept of categorizing performance appraisal practices via the use of the Integration and Adaption Matrix.