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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of cross-listing in overcoming liability of origin (LOO) facing emerging economy corporations (EECs).

This paper takes Chinese firms' cross-listing in Hong Kong and the firms' establishment of international joint ventures (IJVs) with foreign partners as the research setting. This is an empirical study using Heckman's self-selection model as the primary econometric technique and two-stage least square (2SLS) regressions as the supplementary estimation procedure.

Cross-listing in developed economies can serve as a signal for EECs to overcome the LOO. In addition, the regional institutional voids of emerging economies (EEs) and state ownership are prominent boundary conditions shaping this effect.

Only Chinese firms and the firms' cross-listing in Hong Kong are considered for the empirical context as a result of data availability.

This paper provides a practical solution for EECs whose internationalisation tends to be hindered by the LOO.

This study is of high importance in that it centres on a distinctive and challenging problem faced with EECs—the LOO. Besides, it ascribes this liability to a matter of information asymmetries and explores how cross-listing can serve as a signal to cope with this challenge.

The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence-based policy recommendations for improving the implementation of universal service funds (USF) with a view to closing the digital divide in Africa.

The paper adopts a qualitative approach that draws examples from various African countries supported by 25 interviews from key stakeholders with hands-on experience and roles that shape telecommunications policy in Africa and other developing countries.

The study's findings point out that institutional voids which characterize several African countries inhibit the effectiveness of USF in African countries. The authors identify several institutional and organisational factors and explain how they negatively affect the performance of USF. The authors find that in order to overcome these obstacles, there is a need for a clear redefinition of Universal Access and Service (UAS) policies, restructuring the governance of USF, encouraging cross-sectoral collaborations, and bottom-up initiatives to bridge the digital divide in African countries.

The paper contributes to the underexplored USF literature by shedding light on the role of institutional factors in determining the success of USF. The paper thus complements and provides a different perspective on promoting digital inclusion in Africa from the viewpoint of institutional voids, bringing new insights into the existing literature on how to deal with an intractable area of UAS policy and the wider digital divide debate in developing countries.

The study explores how the intention to export affects financing and non-financing variables for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a low-income country (LIC). The objectives of this study are (1) to discern between regional and global exporting and (2) to evaluate its policymaking implications.

Primary survey data were collected from 330 Rwandan SMEs and were analysed using ordered logistic models as an application of the expectation-maximisation iterating algorithm, which was tested for robustness using a sampling model variation.

The results show that alternative sources of finance are the predominant choice to finance the intention to export within and outside Africa. As the scope of export intentions broadened from regional to global, there was a shift in preferences from less formal to more formal lending technologies, moving from methods like factoring to lines of credit. Moreover, reliance on bank officers became more significant, with increasing marginal effects. Finally, the study determined that government financing schemes were not relevant for SMEs pursuing either regional or global exporting.

Whilst alternative sources of finance predominate the export intentions of Rwandan SMEs, establishing a robust banking relationship becomes crucial for global exporting. Despite this implication, the intention to export should prompt more transparent communication regarding government financial support programmes. There is an opportunity for increased usage of relationship lending to customise support for SMEs involved in exporting, benefiting both the private and public sectors.

This study accentuates how export distance alters SME financing priorities. The results also contribute to understanding how the value of relationship lending changes when less familiar markets (i.e. global exporting) are the objective. Moreover, the study offers a new perspective on how institutional voids affect entrepreneurial financing decisions in LICs.

This paper aims to explore how the establishment modes used by emerging economy multinational corporations (EE-MNCs) influence their subsequent experiences of liability of origin (LOO) in developed economies based on the causal-model theory of categorization.

Taking Chinese listed firms' direct investments in developed economies as the sample, this paper utilizes Heckman (1979)'s self-selection model to examine the effect of establishment modes. Besides, when checking the robustness, subsample analyses and 2SLS regressions are used to rule out the alternative explanation associated with LOO mitigation.

EE-MNCs that enter a developed economy by greenfield investment experience heightened LOO while entries using M&A are associated with the mitigated liability. When EEMNCs enter a more institutionally distant developed country, the establishment modes will be more determinant of their subsequent experiences of this liability. Moreover, the effect of establishment modes can recede when EE-MNCs have established their presence in a developed country for a longer time.

This paper utilizes the causal-model theory of categorization to articulate the underlying mechanisms through which the country-of-origin cue is weakened by the cue transmitted by M&A. It further considers the context-saliency of the cue of M&A and clarifies boundary conditions for the effectiveness of this establishment mode to mitigate LOO.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate different strands of institutional theory within the internationalization process of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in developed and emerging economies. In the light of this purpose, the authors try to fill the gap in the literature through analysing the main institutional theories: neo-institutionalism, new institutional economics, comparative capitalism and the institution-based view. Therefore, the main concern is to determine the distribution of different strands of institutional theory in its subfields in this study.

This study provides a profound analysis of different strands of institutional theory within the period from 1990 to 2018 in a larger sample. With a qualitative content analysis, authors reviewed 150 articles using different strands of institutional theory at both theoretical and analytical level and accessed 25 journals published in Social Science Citations Index between 1990 and 2018. In this study, authors used the inductive approach and the qualitative content analysis (Duriau et al., 2007) and adopted a research method to investigate different strands of institutional theory within the internationalization process of MNEs in developed and emerging markets (EMs).

Coders have synthesized the strands of institutional theory in detail to analyse the theoretical contribution of the study. The strands of institutional theory have been analysed both by institutional perspective and citation analysis. Coders classify the analysis level into three main categories. These are country, headquarter and subsidiary level. Our findings are related to the basic determinants and assumptions of different strands of institutional theory. Because in new institutional economics, analysis levels are country and industry. On the other hand in institution-based view, analysis levels are country and firm. Finally in comparative capitalism, analysis levels are country and region and, in neo-institutionalism analysis level is organization itself. In this study, findings show that sociology-based institutional strands, especially neo-institutionalism, are more preferred than other theories.

This study’s content analysis is limited to scope of selected journals. However, this study may suffer from publication bias. The authors examined only peer-reviewed articles from selected journals and did not include book chapters, book reviews, editor and special issue editor articles, research notes, conference papers and congress invitations. The important theoretical limitation of this study is to clarify the different strands of institutional theory in international business literature (Aguilera and Grøgaard, 2019). The firm size of MNEs is not included in this study, but it should be involved in coding categories in future studies.

This study provides the largest sample up to now and covers developed markets and EMs. Authors analysed this research from four perspectives: theoretical foundation, methodology, location and entry mode choices. On the other hand, this study shows that the institutional environment not only mitigates or mediates the effects but also directs the effects on foreign direct investment’s internationalization process of location choice and entry strategies.

This study aims to investigate the impact of family management and ownership structure, including foreign ownership and business group ownership, on corporate performance.

Using an agency perspective and a quantitative research methodology, this study examines listed firms in Pakistan from 2009 to 2018.

The results suggest that family management and concentrated leadership constrain, whereas family leadership, foreign ownership and group ownership strengthen monitoring effectiveness and corporate performance. These findings imply that the shareholder governance logic offers optimal solutions in an emerging economy, as relational governance may activate agency problems.

The findings are consistent with the relevance of relational governance mechanisms in the form of family leadership. However, the results suggest that emerging economies require a hybrid governance model to address their unique agency problems, thereby underlining context relevance in corporate governance scholarship. Furthermore, this research adopts a thick view of institutions to clarify institutional embeddedness and corporate governance contextuality in an emerging economy.

The changing roles of the United Nations (UN) and national institutions have made addressing climate change a critical concern for many multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) survival and growth. This chapter discusses how such institutions, which vary in their nature and characteristics, shape firm strategies for climate change adaptation. Exploring different versions of institutional theory, the chapter demonstrates how and why institutional characteristics affect typical patterns of firm ownership, governance, and capabilities. These, in turn, influence companies’ internationalisation and climate-change strategies. Climate change poses challenges to how we understand firms’ strategic decisions from both an international business (IB) (HQ–subsidiary relations) and global value chains (GVC) (buyer–supplier relations) perspective. However, climate change also provides opportunities for companies to gain competitive advantages – if firms can reconfigure and adapt faster than their competitors. Existing IB and GVC research tends to downplay the importance of climate change strategies and the ways in which coherent or dysfunctional institutions affect firms’ reconfiguration and adaptation strategies in a globally dispersed network of value creation. This chapter presents a perspective on the institutional conditions that affect firms’ climate change strategies regarding ownership, location, and internalisation (OLI), and GVCs, with ‘investment’ and ‘emerging standards’ playing a significant role. The authors illustrate the discussion using several examples from the Global South (i.e. Bangladesh) and the Global North (i.e. Denmark, Sweden, and Germany) with a special emphasis on the garment industry. The aim is to encourage future research to examine how a ‘business systems’, or varieties of capitalism, institutional perspective can complement the analysis of sustainability and climate change strategies in IB and GVC studies.

Business research has highlighted the importance of knowledge transfer and innovation in multinational firms for better performance outcomes. However, the existing body of literature is characterized by differentiated theories, antecedents and outcomes. This study aims to address this gap by adopting a systematic approach to analyze knowledge transfer and innovation literature from the perspective of multinational organizations.

This study follows “preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses” (PRISMA) guidelines for conducting a systematic literature review. The study adopts a systematic approach for analyzing the literature using School of thought (S), Contexts (C), Methodologies (M), Triggers (T), Barriers (B), Facilitators (F) and Outcomes (O) framework (SCM-TBFO framework) devised for holistic literature review. The study analyzes 75 articles from reputed journals from 2000 to 2022.

In general, knowledge transfer and innovation in multinationals is a relatively new area and is evolving rapidly. There are many opportunities to study the various perspectives that are included in the SCM-TBFO framework. The key schools of thought included the evolutionary theory of innovation, institutional theory and internationalization theory. The studies had differing settings or contexts, including China, Europe, the USA and Taiwan. Further, key methodologies that were used included regression, case studies, structural equation modeling (SEM) and theoretical studies. Knowledge transfer and innovation triggers included competitive advantage, competitive pressure, constant requirements for better products and services, foreign direct investment (FDI) and globalization. Knowledge transfer and innovation facilitators were categorized into strategy-related facilitators, organization culture and orientation-related facilitators, and resource-related facilitators. Knowledge transfer and innovation barriers included autonomy, international knowledge dispersion, risk of knowledge leakage, search breadth, ambiguity and institutional voids. Key outcomes of knowledge transfer and innovation in multinationals included financial performance, innovation performance, knowledge flow, transfer effectiveness, patents and new product development.

By synthesizing the literature, the study aims to provide an overview of the current state of research on knowledge transfer and innovation in multinationals. The study develops a holistic model for fostering knowledge transfer and innovation in multinationals. The proposed novel framework can also be applied to perform a holistic assessment of the current literature in various research domains. Further, the study suggests future theory development and research agendas. The study also provides implications for practitioners using the framework to achieve more desirable outcomes.

The authors probe the relationships between country institutional support for entrepreneurship and new venture survival. Specifically, the authors unpack the nuanced influences of entrepreneurs' perceived environmental uncertainty and their subsequent entrepreneurial behavioral profiles and how this particularly bolsters venture survival in contexts with underdeveloped institutions for entrepreneurship.

Coleman (1990) ‘bathtub’ framework is applied to develop a model and propositions surrounding how and when emerging market entrepreneur's perceptions of their countries institutional support toward entrepreneurship can ultimately enhance new venture survival.

Entrepreneurs' interpretations of regulatory, cognitive and normative institutional support for private enterprise helps them embrace uncertainties more accurately reflective of “on the ground” realities and stimulates constructive entrepreneurial behaviors. These are critical for increasing survival prospects in characteristically turbulent, emerging market contexts that typically lack reliable formal resources for cultivating nascent ventures.

This paper has implications for international policymakers seeking to stimulate and sustain entrepreneurial ventures in emerging markets. The authors shed light on the practical importance of understanding the social realities and interpretations of entrepreneurs in a given country relating to their actual perceptions of support for venturing—cautioning a tendency for outsiders to over-rely on aggregated econometric indices and various national ‘doing business' rankings.

This study is the first to create a conceptual framework on the mechanisms of how entrepreneurs in emerging economies affect new venture survival. Drawing on Coleman's bathtub (1990), the authors develop propositional arguments for a multilevel sequential framework that considers how developing economies' country institutional profiles (CIP) influence entrepreneurs' perceptions of environmental uncertainty. Subsequently, this cultivates associated entrepreneurial behavior profiles, which ultimately enhance (inhibit) venture survival rates. Further, the authors discuss the boundary conditions of this regarding how the national culture serves to moderate each of these key relationships in both positive and negative ways.

While there is a general belief that a defective institutional environment will lead to higher compliance risk, the current state of knowledge about how the institutional environment affects enterprises' compliance is equivocal. This study aims to explore how does the host country's institutional environment affect the compliance risk perception of international engineering contractors and how to mitigate this impact.

This study empirically tests the impact of the institutional environment from the two dimensions of the institutional environment: legal completeness reflects whether the formal regulations are clear, detailed and comprehensive and legal effectiveness reflects whether rules and policies can be implemented effectively when the proper legal codes are provided. Based on 213 questionnaire data, this study uses partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) and Smart PLS software to test the hypothesis.

This study finds a negative relationship between the host country's legal completeness (LC) or legal effectiveness (LE) and a contractor's compliance risk perception. Further, the results show potential absorptive capacity (PAC) and realized absorptive capacity (RAC) of a contractor are critical for mitigating the impact of low LC in the host country, but not when LE is low.

The findings will be useful for international engineering contractors to respond to the compliance risk of the host country, both in choices of overseas investment locations and compliance capacity building.

This study reveals the impact of the host country's institutional environment on the compliance risk perception of international contractors, and provides theoretical guidance for how to alleviate the compliance barriers brought by the host country's institutional environment to international engineering contractors.