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This study aims to examine how implicit distance (cognitive and social) impacts supply chain capabilities, and the roles of information technology (IT) utilization and supply chain flexibility in this process.

The authors designed a conceptual model including the implicit distance, supply chain flexibility, supply chain capability and IT utilization and verified the relationships among variables through a survey that collected data from 104 manufacturing enterprises in China.

The results show that cognitive and social distances positively and negatively affect supply chain flexibility, respectively. Furthermore, IT utilization strengthens the positive effect of cognitive distance and the negative effect of social distance on supply chain flexibility. Additionally, supply chain flexibility has a positive effect on supply chain capability and mediates the effects of cognitive and social distances on supply chain capability.

Enterprises should prioritize cooperation with different types of partners with whom the enterprises have established good collaborative working experiences. Moreover, if enterprises cooperate with new partners, enterprises should communicate and handle things face to face instead of frequently utilizing IT.

This study links the implicit distance between enterprises with supply chain capability and newly applies social network theory to explain the mechanism. Further, the authors' data confirm the moderating role of IT utilization in this process, supplementing the research on implicit distance. Moreover, this study employs dynamic capability theory to better understand how firms can improve supply chain capabilities.

Attention has been paid recently to the retail‐consumer link in the distribution channel. The importance of this attention, both for the retailer's revenues and the consumer's satisfaction, is obvious, but the way in which this link should be modelled is not obvious. A critical component for any such model is a measure of retail‐consumer separation or distance. In this article a measure of cognitive distance is proposed and evaluated with encouraging results.

Compares and contrasts the perceptions of travel distance held by tourists from Australia and the USA, two cultures often regarded as similar by marketers and researchers. Investigates the relationship of cognitive distance, actual distance and prior travel experience. Collects data from 224 US respondents and 230 Australian respondents. Reports that the US tourist has a significantly more unrealistic perception of long haul travel than Australians. Suggests that this should lead to localized strategies for such groups, especially when the results are combined with a high importance placed on travel time by the US tourists.

Emerging-market multinational companies (EMNCs) utilize cross-border merger and acquisitions (M&As) to acquire strategic assets that compensate for their resource deficiencies. Therefore, developed markets have become important destinations for EMNCs. Institutional distance constitutes a major source of competitive disadvantage for foreign firms competing with indigenous firms. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ownership pattern of cross-border M&As in the USA, and determine if EMNCs respond to institutional distance differently than advanced-market multinational companies (AMNCs).

Based on the extant literature in institutional theory as well as internationalization strategy, a quantitative study was carried out. Hypotheses were proposed and tested using fixed effects panel regressions.

This paper finds that both AMNCs and EMNCs take smaller ownership positions when there is greater cognitive and normative distance. The negative association is stronger for AMNCs than for EMNCs. Further, the larger the regulative distance in the positive direction, meaning a higher level of development in the host market than in the home market, the more AMNCs and EMNCs are led to opt for a higher ownership position, with EMNCs being less influenced by regulative distance.

Though findings are robust and stable, this study is limited to observations that only have US target firms.

By integrating the literature from institutional theory and strategy, this paper offers a clearer understanding and distinction of the acquisition decisions made by EMNCs and AMNCs.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the role of institutional distance as a determinant of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from India. The study combines a nuanced view of institutional distance, with traditional location factors to analyze Indian OFDI flows to developed and emerging economies (EEs) during the period 2009 to 2017.

The paper employs fixed effects panel regression model on an unbalanced panel data set.

The findings suggest that India's OFDI is undeterred by the isomorphic pressures caused by regulatory and normative institutional distance, but cognitive institutional distance acts as a deterrent in developed economies. Indian MNEs engage in institutional arbitrage as they simultaneously engage in strategies of institutional escapism and institutional exploitation. The study also finds that emerging economies have emerged as an important destination for strategic asset seeking FDI, in addition to developed economies.

The findings of the study present important implications for policymakers and corporate managers. For policymakers, the study points toward the need for improving the general business environment at home to prevent escapist OFDI and trade enhancement as a tool to overcome cognitive barriers and behavioristic stereotypes. For corporate managers, the study's findings underline the importance of adopting different strategies for dealing with different isomorphic pressures in developed and emerging economies.

The study adds value to the sparse literature using the IBV in the emerging markets context, to supplement and enrich existing theoretical frameworks. It is a pioneering study in its use of institutional distance as an explanatory factor for Indian OFDI and provides evidence of institutional arbitrage.

This paper aims to test the influence of external information search (EIS) on knowledge elaboration and group cognitive complexity (GCC) under the moderating effect of absorptive capacity (AC is indicated by prior knowledge base and gender diversity).

The results of three studies (one field study and two experimental studies) are reported. The first study tests the interaction between EIS and the two dimensions of AC on group knowledge elaboration in a sample of 65 organizational groups. In the second study, EIS was directly manipulated and the interaction with AC in a sample of 65 groups was tested. In the last experimental study, the AC of the boundary spanner (highest level of expertise versus lowest level of expertise) was manipulated and the effects of EIS in a sample of 37 groups were tested.

The first study reveals a significant interaction between EIS and prior knowledge base on knowledge elaboration and points toward a compensatory interplay of EIS and AC on GCC. The results of the second study indicate that EIS increases the time spent on task, as well as the efficiency of knowledge integration (GCC per unit of time). Furthermore, EIS has the strongest positive effect on GCC in groups in which at least one of the AC dimensions is average or high. The results of the last study show that the AC of the boundary spanner compensates for the lack of absorptive capacity of the group and also show that the cognitive distance between the boundary spanner and the rest of the group has a negative influence on the efficiency of knowledge integration in groups.

The limitations of Study 1, common to non-experimental research (related to causality), are dealt with in the second and third studies that establish causality between EIS and GCC.

The paper has important implications for the management of information search effort in organizational groups, in particular the groups are advised to: engage in EIS to increase their cognitive repertoire and cognitive complexity, delegate, when possible, their most competent members to engage in boundary spanning activities as they will maximize the cognitive benefits of EIS and finally minimize the cognitive dissimilarity between the boundary spanner and the rest of the group to facilitate the effective integration of novel insights into the group cognition.

This study is among the first empirical attempts to uncover the causal effect of EIS on knowledge elaboration and GCC in groups and to uncover the role of the boundary spanner in the EIS efforts.

Suggests that the intellectual distance among scholars is a cause of difficult co‐ordination during the project. The intellectual distance among scholars is the distance among their cognitive systems, a wide concept including a multi‐level belonging: institutional, disciplinary, paradigmatic, and cultural belonging, as well as social networking, etc. The higher the cumulative intellectual distance within the academic international research projects (AIRP), the higher the co‐ordination needs during the process. Nevertheless, this paper suggests a better acknowledgement of intellectual distance might foster AIRP effectiveness. Assumes that cognitive systems are assessable only indirectly through scholars’ intellectual artefacts, thus introducing a methodology in order to study them. Adopts scholars’ citations as a proxy of their cognitive system, thus testing methodology on two major management journals. Suggests a few actions project champions may adopt in order to abridge intellectual distance within AIRP.

The primary purpose of this study is to explore the impact of acquired ownership in Chinese target firm on the innovation performance of developed economies (DE) acquiring firms. Furthermore, the study aims to empirically investigate the moderating influence of institutional distance between two parties’ home countries.

For the empirical investigation of the hypotheses, the authors identified cross-border technological acquisitions from the Securities Data Company between 1995 and 2015. A hierarchical negative binomial regression technique was used to analyze 177 technological acquisitions completed by DE acquiring firms in China.

Analysis of technological acquisition deals confirmed that acquired ownership undertaken in the Chinese target firms increases the DE acquiring firms’ post-acquisition innovation performance. The authors found that DE acquiring firms underperform in innovation in institutionally distant host countries.

This study contributes to the international business literature by explaining the importance of acquired ownership undertaken in the Chinese target firms for the DE acquiring firm’s innovation performance. Second, institutional theory defines how institutional uncertainty in terms of distance modifies the positive impact of acquired ownership on acquiring firm’s innovation performance.

Whatever happened to retail trade area analysis? Some may recall that through the late 1950s and middle 1960s, location scholars seemed to be organising and expanding an interesting body of literature. However in the recent past, the central thrust of economic analysis seems to have stalled, with research dispersing in numerous directions.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing and unresolved debate in the international business (IB) literature with respect to what drives or impedes multinational company (MNC) success in emerging markets, focusing specifically on the impact of institutional conditions on subsidiary performance.

In the understanding that greater attention to different institutional settings and their diversity has much to offer theory-building in the IB area, this panel study examines the influence of institutional distance on the return on assets (ROA) of 399 foreign subsidiaries in a previously understudied host market, that of Brazil during the period from 2008 to 2011. Regression analysis was carried out on panel data using weighted least squares as estimator.

Similar to research conducted in other national contexts, results revealed significant correlation between institutional distance and firm performance measured by ROA. Unlike previous research, however, these correlations were positive: the greater the institutional distance, the better the performance. Both normative distance and regulatory distance positively influenced ROA, raising questions with regard to the concept of institutional distance, its operationalization and influence.

The paper is of value in showing the institutional distance and the performance of foreign subsidiaries with a positive relationship in an emerging market (Brazil) using a panel perspective rather than the more usual sectional perspective.