Search results

Financial internationalization is of particular importance to emerging country firms. Its significance arises from the impact of institutional void and related agency problems (common to emerging markets) on the internationalization path of these firms. Building on concepts from international finance, agency theory and institutional theory, this paper aims to examine the main aspects of financial internationalization by emerging country multinationals, namely, cross-listing, foreign ownership and foreign independent directors.

This paper follows a multiple case study approach which is a good fit for the exploratory nature of this research. The interest is to examine the context-driven financial internationalization of each case firm and replicate the firm-level information to find a common strategy.

The findings suggest that financial internationalization by emerging country multinationals starts mainly as these firms plan to enter advanced country markets. It is a dynamic process that entails interaction between financial internationalization and real internationalization, as well as among different aspects of financial internationalization. Cross-listing comprises the first stage of the process. Then, foreign ownership, particularly foreign institutional investments, would increase gradually in response to advances in financial and factor markets. Recruiting foreign independent directors seems to be adopted last, possibly out of fear of losing control of strategic decisions.

This paper presents a unique perspective that delineates different stages of the process of financial internationalization by emerging country multinationals. This complements the efforts to explain the distinct path of internationalization followed by these firms and supplements scarce literature by including emerging multinationals from India where the matter has not yet attracted proper attention.

Internationalizing new firms face the dual challenge of overcoming the liabilities of newness and liabilities of foreignness (Stinchcombe, 1965; Dunning, 1981; Zaheer, 1995). Because of their newness, new firms are constrained in their ability to access external resources required for survival and growth. Because of their foreignness relative to the foreign target market, internationalizing firms are disadvantaged relative to domestic firms when establishing business relationships. These disadvantages are exacerbated by the additional knowledge inputs required by the internationalization process itself: internationalizing firms face the dual challenge of both learning how to do business in a new national and institutional environment while also learning to manage the inherently complex international business organization (Johanson & Vahlne, 1990).

This paper aims to study how firms’ export behavior is associated with their corporate governance.

This study uses whole population data of Estonian small and medium-sized enterprises: 9,530 exporters and 73,619 non-exporters. Several theory-driven corporate governance variables and exporting variables (based on previous studies) are used. Binary logistic regression is applied to study how exporters’ corporate governance differs from that of non-exporters. Eight additional continuous dependent variables are used to portray exporters’ internationalization with ordinary least squares regression. The robustness of the obtained base results is checked for younger/older and smaller/larger firms.

Having female board members did not lead to a higher likelihood of export activities. Experience – tenure’s length, board members’ age and other board memberships – provided mixed results. Having a larger board was associated with a higher export propensity and larger exports but a lower export share. A larger share of a chief executive officer’s shareholding was associated with lower export propensity, exporting less overall and activities on a smaller number of markets. The presence of a majority owner was associated with larger export share and export turnover, but more focus on the main export market. Firm age and size affected the results.

Previous studies about the interconnection of corporate governance and exporting have relied on varied theoretical explanations and limited sets of variables. This paper provides an extensive insight by using corporate governance variables emergent from various theoretical explanations accompanied by a large set of dependent exporting variables. The latter enables obtaining a more holistic view of the interconnection between the two phenomena.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the evolution of institutional arrangements to support the internationalisation of real estate involvements in European markets.

Using a broadly institutional economics approach to markets the paper first outlines a market rational for institutional arrangements to support internationalisation and then examines how such arrangements have evolved in the context of European real estate markets.

Significant new institutional arrangements have evolved to support the internationalisation of real estate involvements in Europe. The need to address the information costs and new information requirements necessitated by internationalisation has been a key driver of institutional formation. Both regulatory and informal barriers to internationalisation have also been important drivers of the evolution of new institutional arrangements to support internationalisation. Taken collectively the new institutional arrangement identified should be viewed as a significant step change in the structure of European real estate markets. Broad market evidence points to the success of these arrangements.

The paper provides the first systematic account of the evolution of new institutional arrangements to support the internationalisation of real estate involvements in Europe. It identifies the key drivers of institutional formation and provides a sketch of the key characteristics of the institutions which have evolved.

The application of real options theory to international strategy has surged in recent years. However, it is still a relatively new and loosely defined field, and there are several constraints on practical applications of this powerful theory. To move forward this field, the paper first provides a systematic analysis of theoretical and empirical contributions of real options theory to three critical issues in international strategy: (1) valuing multinational networks, (2) assessing market entry modes, and (3) evaluating market entry timing. The paper further suggests that future studies can focus on a refined treatment of uncertainty and the development of a dynamic theory in international strategy. Five testable propositions are developed in these directions.

Using munificence, real options and ambidexterity theories, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the differential between home and host market environmental conditions affects US international franchising expansion.

The authors used firm-level panel data for 151 US-based franchising firms, from Bond’s Guide for Franchise Opportunities, for the years 1994-2008 plus macroeconomic data on the environment, to explain the probability of franchising.

The paper finds that the differential in economic growth and economic uncertainty impacts franchisors’ desire to expand abroad on a continual basis.

Researchers in international franchising should not only focus on host market environmental variables (pull factors), but also on conditions in the home market (push factors).

The paper adds to environmental explanations of international franchising by focusing on the differential in munificence and uncertainty between home and host countries.

The purpose of this research is to examine the extent to which UK universities' achal international achievements match their strategic intent on internationalization.

Both factor analysis and cluster analysis were applied on data collected from HESA (2001), and on the data collected from the mission statements of 117 universities by the use of the content analysis technique.

The study shows that 74 per cent of UK universities' mission statements include international dimensions. In addition, 48 per cent of these universities are internationally active. Four groups of (international action – international mission) matrixes have been reached. These groups are “international winners group, international actors group, international speakers group, and international losers group”.

This analysis is limited to only four variables taken in a single year 2001. Therefore, future research in this area is encouraged to employ more variables related to internationalization and to apply the analysis on longitudinal bases in order to get results that cover larger range of international aspects and allow observing the matrix development overtime.

The study finishes with a location model which can be used as an important tool by university managers in conducting their international business. This model can also be employed in various sectors other than the higher education sector.

The paper is the first classification carried out amongst UK universities in terms of internationalization. It is also the first of its kind in the higher education management literature in terms of both; the comprehensiveness in dealing with all the three phases of the strategy of internationalization and the nature of data it uses for this purpose.

It has been claimed that Born Globals are incompatible with the Uppsala model, which is based on the firm having a maximum tolerable risk level. This assumption was used to explain observed incremental commitments, with further commitments being made as experiential learning reduces the level of risk faced. This study aims to show that adding a consideration of the role of expected value, including the effects of resource constraints, can reconcile the Born Global and internationalisation process literatures.

The theoretical arguments are supported by mathematical modelling of a firm pursuing expected value based on subjective beliefs.

While the effects of risk and expected value coincide when firms limit their downside risks by taking an incremental approach to commitments, other factors impacting on expected value can shift the balance of incentives towards earlier and more rapid internationalisation. For instance, some firms are specialised and have high costs of R&D, and so need to achieve early and rapid growth but face small home markets. While resource constraints can lead a firm to expand for some time in its home market before internationalising, the effect can be reversed in the case of the finance constraint for some firms.

The study shows how Born Global and internationalisation process literatures can be reconciled through a consideration of the effects of expected value on internationalisation decisions. It also provides a novel theoretical analysis of Born Globals.

The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between environmental activities and consumer engagement on firm performance according to supply-and-demand perceptions, and further examines the moderating role of internationalization to demonstrate the effects of environmental activities more comprehensively.

Three panel regression models have been used. In total, 510 environmental activities and consumers’ negative engagement collected from the official Facebook brand page are analyzed to examine the study’s models for a period of 13-years (2008–2020). The findings persist when this study compares the estimates resulted from different econometrics methods.

The study’s results indicate an insignificant effect of environmental activities and consumer engagement on firm performance, respectively, while the interaction effect on firm performance is significant and negative. However, when internationalization plays the moderating role, this study provides new evidence that such negativity impact is no longer effective in the lodging industry as firms expand internationally.

This study offers strategic insights to managers who are concerned about the detrimental effect of negative consumer engagement that the firm-consumer relationship mitigates the negativity bias in negative engagement. Hotels should actively implement internationalization as a key strategy while practicing environmental activities with integrity.

Despite the importance of green management in the social networking service context, little is known about its effect and value on firm performance. This study provides new evidence for the real effectiveness of internationalization by demonstrating its role in the lodging industry.