Search results

The need for the improved implementation of information technology (IT) has been identified in both empirical and highly structured research studies as being critical to effective innovation and development at an industry and enterprise level. This need is greater in the construction industry as it has been relatively slow to embrace the full potential of IT‐based technologies. In an attempt to understand why the construction industry lags other industries in the uptake and effective implementation of IT, this study reports on an investigation of the Australian construction industry, which identifies the impediments or barriers to IT implementation and the most effective coping strategies to overcome them. A questionnaire‐based research approach was adopted for this purpose and a total of 134 valid survey responses were received from various architectural, engineering and construction professionals. The questionnaire was designed to identify perceptions of the most significant barriers to IT implementation and to determine the most “practical” and “effective” corresponding coping strategies to mitigate their effects at three decision‐making levels: Industry; Organization; and Project.

The present study develops an international joint venture (IJV) partner selection framework to explain the choice between state-owned or privately owned local partners in the context of emerging economies. We suggest that once an IJV is selected as the mode of entry, a multinational enterprise's strategic motivations – that is, efficiency seeking, market seeking and knowledge seeking – will influence its choice of IJV partner type: state-owned enterprise or privately owned firm. We argue that liability of foreignness and rule of law moderate the multinational enterprise's selection of IJV partner type.

We develop a framework that explains the role of knowledge resources in the formation of international strategic alliances by multinational corporations. The focus is on the value and uniqueness of knowledge resources and two types of learning international strategic alliances, exploratory and exploitative. Also, we explain how the institutional environment – a host country's property and contractual rights, rule of law and the institutional distance between the countries of the partnering firms – affects the attractiveness of these two forms of alliances.

This study draws upon the interorganizational imitation theory and endorsement literatures to explain the entry mode decisions of emerging-market firms (EMFs) into developed markets. Specifically, the study argues that EMFs entering developed markets pay differential attention to the prior actions of reference groups – by type of country of origin (whom to follow?) and by entry mode (how to imitate?). We test our hypotheses with a sample of 591 entries by EMFs investing in the United States over a 10-year period. The results support an isomorphism-based framework with different influences across reference groups by country of origin and entry mode. We find a dominant form of isomorphism, even after controlling for transaction costs and resource-based explanations.

The costs of doing business abroad (CDBA) is a well-known concept in the international business literature, measuring the disadvantages or additional costs borne by multinational enterprises (MNEs) that are not borne by local firms in a host country. Recently, international management scholars have introduced a second concept, liability of foreignness (LOF). There is confusion in the two literatures as to the relationship between CBDA and LOF, as evidenced in a recent special issue on liability of foreignness (Journal of International Management, 2002). We argue that LOF stresses the social costs of doing business abroad, whereas CDBA includes both economic and social costs. The social costs arise from the unfamiliarity, relational, and discriminatory hazards that foreign firms face over and above those faced by local firms in the host country. Because the economic costs are well understood and can be anticipated, LOF becomes the core strategic issue for MNE managers. We argue that the key driver behind LOF is the institutional distance (cognitive, normative, and regulatory) between the home and host countries, and explore the ways in which institutional distance can affect LOF. We operationalize our arguments by showing how institutional distance and liability of foreignness can provide an alternative explanation for the MNE’s ownership strategy when going abroad.

Many studies of control and international joint venture (IJV) performance have focused on ownership and management control. We develop a conceptual framework to explain how strategies affect the relationship between management control and joint venture performance. Specifically, we focus on serving the host-country customer and extending the life cycle of the foreign partner's products. Using a sample of Sino–U.S. and Sino–Japanese joint ventures, we found that serving the host-country customer strengthens the positive relationship between management control by the foreign partner and IJV performance. However, extending the product life cycle of the foreign partner's products weakens the positive relationship between management control by the foreign partner and IJV performance. We discuss the performance implications of dealing with both strategies and reveal a complex relationship between equity ownership, management control, and IJV performance.

This study explores the applicability of the resource‐based view at the organizational unit level by investigating why resource utilization, as measured by efficiency, might differ within a firm. Using a downstream petroleum firm as the context for this study, the data envelopment analysis framework is applied to examine resource input congestion of its DCs (i.e. distribution centers). The study also provides a more granular analysis by decomposing distribution efficiency into managerial, scale, and programmatic efficiency, and examines the impact of corporate‐level decision making by including non‐discretionary variables. The analysis identifies opportunities to improve efficiency at the organizational unit level, using alternative views of the operational problem. The approach also provides practicing managers with an objective means to evaluate performance at the level of the organizational unit. Both the efficiency view and the managerial performance view are discussed simultaneously from a strategic view of firm resources.

Ruth V. Aguilera is an associate professor and a Fellow at the Center for Professional Responsibility for Business and Society at the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She also holds courtesy appointments at the School of Labor and Employment Relations, the College of Law and the Department of Sociology at Illinois. She received MA and PhD degrees in Sociology from Harvard University. Her research interests fall at the intersection of economic sociology and international business, specifically in the fields of comparative corporate governance, foreign location choices and corporate social responsibility. She has published in the leading journals in International Business and Management. Dr. Aguilera currently serves as a member of an associate editor of Corporate Governance: International Review and is a member of the Editorial Boards of the following peer reviewed top tier journals: Academy of Management Perspectives, Global Strategy Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Management International Review, Organization Studies and Strategic Management Journal. She also serves in the board of IMDEA Social Sciences (Madrid) and CSR IMPACT Project (Brussels).