Search results

The purpose of this paper is to critically assess the theoretical underpinnings and extant progress of the research on regional multi-national enterprises (MNEs) and offer a blueprint for future research by re-conceptualizing how (regional) boundaries relate to the international diversification of MNEs.

The paper integrates key insights from the theory of the regional MNE and economic geography to re-orient the treatment of regional borders within international business (IB) literature.

The paper suggests that the (L) component within the ownership location and internalization (OLI) paradigm should be disaggregated into continuous “distance effects” and discrete “border effects”. Within this rubric, regional borders represent discrete border effects that generate discontinuities that are permeable, fluid and firm specific. Such reconceptualization opens up avenues for future research and more tightly integrates the research on regional MNEs with other research streams.

IB scholars need to make concerted effort to think of regions as one among several parameters in studying the strategy and structure of MNEs. A stronger focus on internal processes and mechanisms elucidating the main drivers of MNEs strategies is needed.

The paper offers innovative ways in which future research can advance the study of how regions matter in the internationalization strategy of MNEs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate children's vulnerability to asthma and its relationship with marginalized locations. More specifically, the effects of zip code level social predictors on children's asthma and their conditionality on location in the Texas‐Mexico border region are explored. The border region is perhaps the most marginalized in the USA.

Data for analysis comes from the State of Texas and the US Bureau of the Census. Negative binomial regression models are used to predict asthma hospitalizations using a set of social predictors. Then, interaction effects are used to test if social predictors are conditional on border location.

Within the state of Texas, location in a metropolitan area, location along the US‐Mexico border, percent Hispanic, percent African American and percent Native American are positive and significant predictors of asthma hospitalizations; social class is negative and significant. The effects of proportion of Hispanics who were foreign born, median year of home construction, and percent of homes with inadequate heating are conditional on a zip code's location relative to the US‐Mexico border, with the slopes being steeper in border locations. Findings in general suggest that locational and social factors intersect in marginalized places (i.e. border regions of Texas) to create vulnerability to asthma hospitalizations.

This study is conducted solely in the USA.

As sociologists continue to consider space as a factor in health inequalities, this paper demonstrates the utility of considering space as operating at more than one scale.

Post-acquisition control is a crucial factor affecting acquisition performance. We investigate how post-acquisition control strategy affects cross-border acquisition performance of Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) through a configurational perspective.

Based on 70 cross-border acquisition cases by Chinese MNEs, we adopt fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to study the combined effects of strategic control, operational control, institutional distance, cultural distance, relative capacity and business relatedness on the cross-border acquisition performance.

On the basis of fuzzy set analysis of multiple interdependent factors, we identify six configurations that are conductive to achieving high cross-border acquisition performance and two configurations that relate to the absence of high performance, thus shedding light on the casually complex nature of performance drivers of acquisitions.

This study provides a holistic, configurational approach to investigating cross-border acquisition performance by emerging market firms. Our results provide some compelling evidence that accounts for the causal complexity of post-acquisition control strategies and acquisition outcomes in the context of emerging economies.

While the literature has highlighted the impacts of COVID-19, there is limited evidence on the gendered determinants of the impact of COVID-19 among small-scale rural traders in developing and emerging economies.

Cross-border fish traders who had operated before and during the COVID-19 pandemic were interviewed in a survey conducted in Zambia and Malawi. Logistic regressions among male and female traders were employed to assess the gendered predictors.

Heterogeneous effects in geographical location, skills, and knowledge were reported among male cross-border traders. Effects of household structure and composition significantly influenced the impact of COVID-19 among female traders. Surprisingly, membership in trade associations was associated with the high impact of COVID-19.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the migratory nature of cross-border fish traders, the population of cross-border fish traders at the time of the study was unknown and difficult to establish, cross-border fish traders (CBFT) at the landing sites and market areas were targeted for the survey without bias.

This paper addresses a gap in the literature on understanding gendered predictors of the impacts of COVID-19 among small-scale cross-border traders.

We study the wealth effects of 177 domestic and cross‐border acquisitions announced by Spanish corporations between 1990 and 2004. Our findings show that domestic transactions significantly outperform international transactions. However, controlling for several firm and transaction characteristics, we do not find any cross‐border effect for acquisitions of Spanish firms. Short‐term valuation is driven by three factors in particular. Target size and bidder’s profitability negatively affect announcement returns, whereas transactions in related industries have a positive effect. Our results may indicate that in contrast to prior empirical findings, international diversification incurs higher costs than synergies and is, among others, driven by managerial and ownership factors.

National borders are a hurdle to the expansion of the open economy. Integration today remains imperfect because national borders translate into trading costs, including differences in monetary regimes. Political borders shelter many goods and services from external competition and, consequently, represent a critical exogenous force in the integration process. Small economies face thicker borders than large economies. Regional trade arrangements have softened or, in some cases, pushed outward national borders, but in the process new borders have emerged. Borders affect also finance and monies. While the speed of financial integration suggests currency consolidation and a decline in the ratio of independent monies to sovereign nations, the formation of multilateral monetary unions (MUs) pushes the ratio toward unity.

This study presents evidence of increasing regionalization of international trade among 10 South American countries from 1980 to 2001. Regionalization of trade in South America is best described as an increasing trade among Spanish-speaking countries and increasing trade within the two regional agreements, the Andean Community and Mercosur. There is also evidence of border erosion in the continent, especially among the Mercosur members. These results emerge from a simple statistical analysis and are also economically significant when tested in a consistent gravity equation that controls for a set of macroeconomic and geographic variables.

The management of international supply chains may significantly contribute to the successful outcome of exports. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the level of supply chain collaboration in an uncertain cross‐border context, and whether it improves supply chain performance. The moderating role of export experience and intensity to the collaboration‐performance relationship is also investigated.

The paper draws on a survey of Finnish industrial companies with Russian exports. Correlation and regression analysis is used in investigating causal relationships.

The results weakly support the hypothesised positive relationships of collaboration and performance in the chosen cross‐border context. It seems that experience in cross‐border supply chain operations does not guarantee success in supply chain management. However, those companies with large export volumes, implying frequency and leveraged resources in operations, seemed to be better able to collaborate for successful outcomes.

The research is limited to supplier‐customer dyads, and the suppliers' perceptions. The findings are confined to the specific context of the Finnish‐Russian cross‐border trade.

Despite the generally bleak picture of cross‐border supply chain collaboration, interesting insight was generated concerning which areas of collaboration may be the most effective. Supply chain design is one of the areas where companies should clearly collaborate; joint‐planning should therefore include facility location, mode of transport, carrier selection, and general flow management related decisions.

Although the relationship of supply chain collaboration and performance has been established in the literature, the paper contributes to knowledge by exploring the cross‐border context, with international business environment and high level of supply chain uncertainty.

Extending the springboard perspective with the resource dependence theory, the authors posit that cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are a new channel for emerging economy firms (EEFs) to enhance their technology capabilities. This study aims to examine the impact of cross-border M&As initiated by EEFs on their technology augmentation vis-à-vis matched domestic M&A cases and investigate the factors influencing the difference in post-merger innovation capability.

This paper estimates the post-acquisition innovation capability of acquirers from emerging economies (EEs) that engage in cross-border M&As. To remove possible selection bias, the authors leverage a difference-in-difference-style approach in combination with a matched sample constructed by pairing each cross-border M&A case with a similar domestic deal. The data set contains 266 cross-border M&As and 266 matched domestic M&A deals between 2003 and 2011, whereby acquirers are based in 6 EEs and targets are in 36 countries consisting of both EEs and advanced economies (AEs).

The present empirical results show that cross-border M&As engaged by EEFs are an important engine for improving EEFs’ innovation capability through technology augmentation. The main empirical results are as follows. First, compared with matched domestic acquirers with similar characteristics, EE cross-border M&As have a positive effect on innovation capability. Second, the positive effect of the EEFs’ cross-border M&As relative to the matched domestic M&As on innovation capability is driven largely by cross-border M&As with targets in AEs. Third, the increase in post-M&A innovation capability of the EE cross-border acquirers comes mainly from deals where targets are based in countries with relatively superior human capital and innovation capability than those of the acquirers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first systematic study of whether cross-border M&As serve as an effective channel of technology augmentation for EE acquirers compared to matched domestic acquirers with similar characteristics.

Branching is not the only way for foreign banks to enter a national market, and it is impractical when there are informational and cultural barriers and asymmetries among countries. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the determinants of cross-border branching in the Latin American banking sector, a region with regulatory disparity and political and economic instability, offering elements to a grounded strategic decision.

This study uses data from six Latin American countries. To account for the preponderance of zero counts, classes of zero-inflated models are applied (Poisson, negative binomial, and mixed). Model fit indicators obtained from differences between observed and estimated counts are used for comparisons, considering branches in each region established by banks from every other foreign region of the sample.

Branching by foreign banks is positively correlated with the population, GDP per capita, household disposable income, and economic freedom score of the host country. The opposite holds for the unemployment rate and entry regulations of the host country.

Few paper address cross-border banking in emerging economies. This paper analyzes cross-border branching in Latin America in the context of the current financial integration and bank strategy. Econometrically, its pioneering design allows modeling of inflation of zeros, over-dispersion, and the multilevel data structure. This design allowed testing of a novel country-level variable: the host country’s economic freedom score.