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We combine insights from the strategic management and international business literatures in order to explore the moderating role of business group characteristics on the link between innovation and internationalization in the context of the pharmaceutical sector in India. We test our three hypotheses on a sample of 219 Indian pharmaceutical firms affiliated with business groups, over a five-year period (2005–2010) in a panel of 1,096 firm-year observations. Results indicate that, contrary to our contention, research expenditure is negatively associated with export intensity, implying that firms in the Indian pharmaceutical sector may face a trade-off between investing in innovation and international expansion. As expected, business group characteristics significantly impact the strength of the relationship between innovation and internationalization. Theoretical and practitioner implications are discussed.

High technology entrepreneurs have received increased attention over the past decade as it is now recognized that these entrepreneurs are able to build companies that generate high wage employment and high levels of wealth. While much anecdotal evidence has been offered as to who these entrepreneurs are, little is known about their early efforts to launch a high technology company. Based on the most recent data that specifically profiles nascent entrepreneurs throughout the United States, we extrapolate and discuss implications of our findings. Specifically, we identify who, where, when, and why these entrepreneurs are engaged in this important form of business launch. We conclude by suggesting how decision-makers and institutions can better facilitate and nurture the launch of high technology firms.

This research addresses the question of whether market competition influences a firm's implicit tax burden. Implicit taxes are defined as the pretax rate of return disadvantage earned on an investment that is taxed preferentially. The Scholes and Wolfson (1992) model predicts that implicit taxes will fully offset any benefit from preferential tax treatment leading to no benefit from lower explicit taxes; however, their theory assumes perfect market competition. This chapter relaxes the assumption of perfect market competition and finds that firms in industries with lower competition bear lower implicit taxes and firms in industries with higher competition bear higher implicit taxes. These findings are consistent with monopoly and oligopoly behavior predictions where firms in less competitive industries have greater price setting power and can retain more of their tax savings while market forces in competitive industries force companies to pass along any savings to customers (Mason, 1939). Furthermore, these findings answer the call in the literature for more research on determinants of cross-sectional variation in implicit taxes (Shackelford & Shevlin, 2001).

Entrepreneurship is a form of empowerment as it provides a way for individuals to pursue their dreams. The generation of ideas is at the heart of entrepreneurship and involves assessing new opportunities. Recognizing gaps in the marketplace that new products, services or processes can fill is central to the idea of entrepreneurship. There are many different types of entrepreneurship including social, technological, sport and international that provide a way for ideas to enter the marketplace. This chapter focuses on the way entrepreneurship empowers people and provides a way for novel ideas to gain momentum. By taking a knowledge spillover and ecosystems perspective, the chapter highlights the way entrepreneurship gives strength to those with a creative idea. Thereby, acting as a form of empowerment, entrepreneurship provides a way for practitioners and researchers to make a positive contribution to society.

This chapter aims to determine the financial performance impacts of environmental strategies. The chapter builds upon a sample of firms operating in Belgium and includes both domestic firms and affiliates of foreign multinational enterprises. It appears that an environmental leadership approach is associated with an increase in financial performance, much in line with the mainstream literature on this subject. The surprising result is that a clear linkage can be established between environmental strategy and financial performance for Belgium-based companies, but not for affiliates of foreign multinational enterprises. In contrast, the industry growth rate does not appear to affect the linkages between environmental leadership and financial performance.

This article posits that the effect of political hazards on the choice of market entry mode varies across multinational firms based on the extent to which they face expropriation hazards from their potential joint-venture partners in the host country (the level of contractual hazards). As political hazards increase, the multinational faces an increasing threat of opportunistic expropriation by the government. Partnering with host-country firms that possess a comparative advantage in interactions with the host-country government can safeguard against this hazard. However, as contractual hazards increase, the potential benefit to the joint-venture partner of manipulating the political system for its own benefit at the expense of the multinational increases as well, thereby diminishing the hazard-mitigating benefit of forming a joint venture. A two-stage bivariate probit estimation technique is used to test these hypotheses on a sample of 3,389 overseas manufacturing operations by 461 firms in 112 countries.

This chapter focuses on the empirical research on the resource-based view of the firm (RBV), and its main purpose is to analyse the use of mixed methods in this perspective. The recent advance of the RBV has posed new challenges, and the issue need not be quantitative versus qualitative methods, but rather how to combine the strengths of each in a mixed methods approach. This study carries out a literature review about the use of mixed methods in the RBV and provides an examination of opportunities and challenges associated with the application of mixed methods in order to improve RBV research. Moreover, the chapter seeks to introduce mixed methods research in order to familiarize to strategic management and the RBV scholars about this type of research and its terminology, procedures, designs and purposes.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effect of culture on innovation within the workplace. Special attention has been paid to Middle East and North Africa (MENA) culture features and their impact on employees’ adaptation to the innovation within their organizations.

Approach/methodology: To achieve this objective, a theoretical study has been carried out. Given its popularity in culture-related research, the Hofstede model has been used to understand the specificities of MENA region culture. An extensive literature review has been employed to investigate the relationship between culture and innovation in the workplace.

Findings: Based on the relevant literature, it can be said that the country’s culture has a considerable impact on how the employees adapt to the changes within the workplace. Some issues of Arab culture that managers should be aware of and suitable solutions have been underlined to improve the adoption of innovation within the organizations in Arab countries.

Research implications: This study contributes to knowledge regarding the association between innovation and culture within the workplace in the MENA region. Findings provide straightforward ways for managers to improve the adaptation of their employees to the growing innovation required by the global market.

Originality/value: This study is among the earliest to focus on the association between innovation and culture within the MENA region. In addition, it is among the rare studies, which explore the main issues of Arab culture that make the adaptation to innovation a complex phenomenon that requires further efforts from managers for successful innovation performance. The limitations, as well as the future research pathways, have been mentioned at the end of this study.

Purpose – Marketers are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the financial return associated with marketing expenditures. Concurrently, more attempts at measuring return on investment from marketing as well as achieving other long-term goals such as building brand equity and increasing shareholder value have been made. As a result of this emphasis, the degree to which advertising budgets are spent efficiently and the impact of these expenditures on the bottom line are an important topic to study.

Methodology/approach – This study applies data envelopment analysis (DEA) to a group of large firms to assess the degree to which companies spend advertising dollars efficiently and to examine the impact of advertising efficiency on investor behavior and, ultimately, stock prices.

Findings – The analysis reveals that firms that advertise more efficiently are rewarded by investors by positive stock returns.

Research limitations/implications (if applicable) – The study is limited to large enterprises with strong brands within a time frame of only four years.

Practical implications (if applicable) – The results imply that it is advisable for marketing managers not to limit their focus to increasing market-based assets at any cost. The efficiency of their efforts can send a positive signal to investors and contribute to shareholder value enhancement.

Originality/value of the chapter – The chapter finds investors to pay attention not only to the effectiveness of advertising activities but also to their efficiency. The study also demonstrates how DEA and stock return response modeling can be combined to investigate the link between advertising efficiency and investor behavior.