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This paper aims to link location choice and ownership structure to the debate on the multinationality–performance relationship.

This paper draws on a panel data set that covers 1,321 emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) and includes 4,227 observations from 44 emerging economies between 2004 and, 2013.

The empirical results find that multinationality has a positive effect on EMNEs’ performance, and that this positive effect is larger for their investments in developed countries than in developing countries. The study also finds that this positive effect of foreign operation in developed countries switch to negative at higher levels of multinationality for privately owned EMNEs than for state-owned EMNEs.

This paper provides new empirical evidence to support an institutional perspective of the internationalisation of EMNEs that are investing in developed countries, contributing to the multinationality-performance literature, highlighting the importance of foreign direct investment location decision and ownership structure.

This paper aims to provide an assessment of how the widespread adoption of new digital technologies (i.e. the Internet of things, big data and analytics, robotic systems and additive manufacturing) might affect the location and organisation of activities within global value chains (GVCs).

The approach in this paper is to review various sources about the potential adoption and impact of the new digital technologies (commonly known collectively as Industry 4.0), to contrast these technologies with existing technologies, and to consider how the new technologies might lead to new configurations involving suppliers, firms and customers.

The authors report that the new digital technologies have considerable potential to disrupt how and where activities are located and organised within GVCs), and who captures the value-added within those chains. They also report that Industry 4.0 is still in its infancy, but that its effects are already having an impact upon the nature of competition and corporate strategies in many industries.

In particular, the authors draw attention to the potential cyber-risks and implications for the privacy of individuals, and hence, the need for regulation.

This is the first published paper to consider the likely separate and joint impacts of the new digital technologies on the practice and theory of international business.

Many manufacturing firms (e.g. Apple and Nike) now outsource some or all of their manufacturing activities to independent suppliers rather than continuing to undertake them in-house. Clearly these firms perceive this externalisation of production to be a performance-enhancing strategy, but what are the performance consequences in practice? In this chapter, we review and critique the extant academic literature on the performance consequences of manufacturing outsourcing, and note that the empirical findings have yielded mixed results. We argue that outsourcing has potential impacts upon a number of ‘performance’ outcomes, including inter alia financial performance, productivity/efficiency, sales/market share, costs of production, business performance and innovation. We further argue that many of the empirical studies have flawed designs, and make a series of methodological recommendations to guide future empirical work.

To provide a theoretical explanation of why outsourcing relationships are inherently dynamic, in that the dependence of each party upon the other inevitably changes over time and thus so too will the power asymmetries between the parties.

Our approach is theoretical and draws upon insights from resource dependence theory, transaction cost economics, and the resource-based view of the firm, to focus on the power asymmetries between the focal firm undertaking the outsourcing and its suppliers. We illustrate our arguments using a longitudinal case study of the evolving relationship between Apple and the Foxconn Technology Group.

For supplier firms, the message is to upgrade, develop distinctive resources and capabilities, and diversify the customer base. Otherwise, suppliers will forever be condemned to low operating margins and the threat of being replaced by cheaper, more agile rivals. For focal firms, the message is not to rest on your laurels. The potency of isolating mechanisms may well dissipate, suppliers will no doubt strive to lessen their positions of dependence and competitors will inevitably emerge, with the result that once-profitable outsourcing arrangements may quickly erode.

We highlight the crucial role played by isolating mechanisms to underpin power asymmetries in outsourcing relationships, and thus enable focal firms to appropriate the rents from externalized value chain activities. We argue that the efficacy of many isolating mechanisms will tend to dissipate over time as competitors emerge to imitate successful strategies and products, and as resource and capability asymmetries erode.

An increasing number of consumer goods are being produced in industries which may be characterised as “buyer‐driven” commodity chains, where the various stages of production are undertaken by different firms (often in different countries) and where the lead role(s), both in establishing and coordinating, the chain, are taken by large retailers and/or brand‐name merchandisers in the countries of the final markets. Often these lead firms do not own any production facilities, but simply manage all the elements of their production and trade networks. The purpose of this paper is to explain the conditions under which the retailers/merchandisers are able to outsource, or externalise, production activities in this way whilst still retaining control over the activities within the commodity chain.

The approach is theoretical, and the evidence provided is purely anecdotal.

The main argument is that it is the retailers/merchandisers' possession of “brand name capital” or privileged access to customers that enables them to externalise production to independent suppliers whilst leveraging their control to obtain lower costs and higher profits.

The implications of this process of externalisation are far‐reaching, and include new opportunities for local firms in developing countries to engage in world markets, changes to the international division of labour, and new patterns of trade.

The paper adopts a different perspective on the phenomenon of outsourcing, with important implications for policy‐makers in both home and host economies.

This paper aims to examine the pricing effects of risks conditional on market situations.

The model used to test for the conditional pricing effects of risks is a modified version of Pettengill et al.'s cross‐sectional regression model, based on Hong Kong equity data.

The paper postulates a five‐factor asset pricing model, which hypothesizes that five risk factors are relevant in the pricing of equity stocks, namely beta, size, book‐to‐market equity, market leverage, and share price, but conditional on market situations, i.e. whether the market is up or down.

The findings enrich our understanding of capital market behaviour, and should prove helpful to investors and corporate managers in both their domestic and international financial decisions.

This study yields important results on a Chinese market, which lend support to the conditional risk pricing hypotheses originally developed in the US, implying that conditional risk pricing is applicable not only in the US market but also in other markets around the globe.