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Our study proposes a resource environment view (REV) of competitive advantage by unpacking the environmental origins of a firm’s competitive advantage. The key tenet of the REV is that the heterogeneity and imperfect mobility of strategic factor markets and institutions across countries explain how firms based in different countries would likely both create and sustain a competitive advantage. In particular, our study introduces the notion of “the paradox of environmental embeddedness.” The paradox lies in the fact that the same environmental conditions – in terms of strategic factor markets and institutions – that enable firms to create a competitive advantage can paradoxically also create a situation in which it is more difficult for these firms to sustain an advantage. Another important aspect of our study is that, to enhance our understanding of how firms manage the paradox of environmental embeddedness, our study specifies the resource environmental conditions under which firms’ internal and external resource-oriented strategies – that is, the development of dynamic capabilities and interventions in the country resource environment – are more beneficial when managing the environmental paradox. Overall, our theorizing has important implications for strategic management theory and practice.

This chapter examines China’s corporate governance and accounting environment that shapes the adoption of internationally acceptable principles and standards. Specifically, it examines international influences, including supranational organizations; foreign investors and international accounting firms; domestic institutional influences, including the political system, economic system, legal system, and cultural system; and accounting infrastructure. China’s convergence is driven by desired efficiency of the corporate sector and legitimacy of participating in the global market. Influenced heavily by international forces in the context of globalization, corporate governance and accounting practices are increasingly becoming in line with internationally acceptable standards and codes. While convergence assists China in obtaining legitimacy, improving efficiency is likely to be adversely affected given that corporate governance and accounting in China operate in an environment that differs considerably from those of Anglo-American countries. An examination of the corporate governance and accounting environment in China suggests heavy government involvement within underdeveloped institutions. While the Chinese government has made impressive progress in developing the corporate governance and accounting environment for the market economy, China’s unique institutional setting is likely to affect how the imported concepts are interpreted and implemented.

Do multinational enterprises evolve differently in emerging and developed economies? Although one camp argues that emerging economy multinationals are different from their developed country counterparts owing to the underdeveloped institutions in their home countries, another camp counters that they are the same and the existing international business theories can fully explain their strategies. A third camp suggests a more nuanced perspective by finding value in both approaches. In this introductory chapter, we review this debate and offer new perspectives on how to extend existing theories by accounting for four specific aspects of the home country institutional environments of emerging economies: breadth, depth, timing, and duration of exposure to institutional development. We then discuss how the chapters in this volume extend these ideas.

Research suggests that context matters for MNEs’ international business strategy. MNEs’ strategies vary when different intertwined contexts interact with each other. While International Business scholars understand well the influence of the institutional environments on firms’ international strategies and operations, some contextual differences are less understood as is the case involving African countries and firms. In this study we investigate how different institutional contexts and legitimacy challenges combine to impact ownership strategic choices of African firms in their cross-border acquisitions (CBAs). Specifically, we study the influence of the host country institutional development and two institutional dimension distances: administrative distance and knowledge distance. Methodologically, we use a sample of 314 CBAs made by acquirers from 24 African countries in 71 host countries worldwide to test a number of theoretically driven hypotheses. This study contributes to our understanding of how foreign investors from less institutionally developed countries that are more likely to face higher legitimacy barriers use ownership strategies to achieve legitimacy abroad.

In the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) contemporary business environment intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) play a central role. Their objective is to align member countries for collective global problem solving activities under the guidance of the organization. They aim at providing global stability and security through the creation of supranational institutions. While political sciences have studied IGOs from a global political perspective, little is known about the influence of these IGOs and their supranational institutions on country institutional environments and business environments. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to understand how IGOs influence these national institutional environments, especially considering the countries’ development levels. By using regime and institutional theory we are able to conceptualize the relation of supranational and national institutions within the differently developed countries. We identify two interconnected factors that impact this analysis, the strength of the national institutional environment of member countries and their power in the IGO. Using these factors, we identify a clash and misalignment of national and supranational institutions in emerging countries, which is leading to enhanced VUCA business environments. We provide an exemplary case that discusses institutional schisms created by the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) influence in Argentina. Moreover, the impact of IGOs is significant in least developed countries and has little to no impact in highly developed countries.

Purpose: This chapter analyzes several indicators of financial inclusion in Nigeria.

Method: This chapter uses trend analyses to examine the indicators of financial inclusion in Nigeria.

Findings: The findings reveal that people with a secondary education and unemployed people had higher levels of debit card ownership, higher levels of account ownership of any type, and higher levels of account ownership in a financial institution. Borrowings from family or friends decreased during the period. The level of savings and borrowings was higher for adults with at least a secondary education while the level of savings, using a savings club or persons outside the family, decreased among females, poor people and among people with a primary education. Credit card ownership was low among unemployed people, while credit card ownership was much higher among employed people, the richest people and among people with at least a secondary education. Finally, borrowings and savings using family, friends, or saving clubs significantly contributed to economic growth than borrowings and savings through financial institutions.

Implications: It shows that Nigerian authorities should increase the number of formal account ownership by removing obstacles such as income and education bias and gender discrimination in the delivery and use of financial services.

Originality: Recent studies in the literature have investigated financial inclusion in developing economies, but little attention has been paid on the determinants and challenges of financial inclusion in Nigeria. This chapter aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive understanding and analysis of financial inclusion in Nigeria.

Multinational corporations (MNCs) utilize corporate social responsibility (CSR) to govern their global economic activities. Yet CSR adoption is influenced by institutional diversity of both home and host countries. This article uses neoinstitutional and comparative capitalism theories to understand how CSR is shaped by different forms of stakeholder salience in diverse institutional contexts. Using data on labor rights CSR adoption by 629 European MNCs, our empirical results indicate that CSR complements institutionalized stakeholder power in home countries, but substitutes for its absence in host countries. Hence, CSR may paradoxically legitimate MNC behavior given both the presence and absence of stakeholder rights.

This chapter investigates whether, and if so, how particular firms in a transition economy are involved in bribery. Built on pressure theories, we explain how the direct effects of firm characteristics and contextual characteristics determine firm bribery behavior. Entrepreneurs make choices based on perceptions of a specific pressure due to organizational characteristics (internal pressures) or due to context (external pressures). The relationship between firm characteristics, context, and bribery was estimated using unique data from a survey of 606 Vietnamese entrepreneurs. We controlled for various entrepreneurial, organizational, and industrial characteristics. The exploratory findings support firm attributes hypotheses, which is a negative relationship between firm size and bribery and a nonmonotonic U-shaped relationship between firm age and bribery. Besides, the effects of context on bribery are also found. Specifically, the result supports a positive relationship between competition and bribery and a negative relationship between the quality of the government and bribery.

Organisational resilience is a strategic resource within the contingencies of organising in Small and Micro businesses (SMEs). In this regard, the notion of resilient human capital in propelling a resilient organisation has come to dominate the contemporary discourse on the performance of SMEs. Drawing on human capital theory as a meta-theoretical lens, we examine the cumulative effect of managerial training on managers’ performance in the context of relatively underdeveloped institutions and markets. Employing a quantitative research methodology, data for our empirical inquiry comes from a survey of 506 Ghanaian SMEs operating in diverse sectors of the economy. Following SMEs being at the convergence point of resource constraint, we show why some firm managers are more likely to exhibit managerial resilience than those in other firms. Our data evidence suggests that targeted managerial training, in practice, has the potential to strengthen organisational resilience. Nevertheless, the content, efficiency and frequency of the training received, we argue, accounts for the differential performance of managers within the contingencies of everyday organising. We conclude by delineating some relevant implications of our study for the theory and practice of managerial resilience nurturing in organising.

Purpose – This study develops a theoretical argument that social networks are embedded in the macro-level institutional environment. From the perspective of institutional embeddedness, I investigate the changing patterns and implications of social networks in job search and job earnings after China's overhaul of its employment system in the mid-1990s.Methodology/approach – The empirical evidence is drawn from 2003 Chinese General Social Survey data. I conduct statistical analyses to examine the roles of networks in job search and earning disparity by comparing two groups who obtained the job before and after the emerging labor market in urban China, respectively.Findings –Social networks have become much more popular in job search in the emerging labor market. Use of social networks in job search has also become more differentiated across job positions and employment organizations. While managerial status of the key helper and direct ties yield greater returns to employee earnings, strong indirect ties make less contribution to job earnings in the emerging labor market than that under the state-dominated employment system.Research implications – The findings suggest that we should analyze the concrete institutional environment to appreciate the roles of social networks in job search and social inequality.Originality/value – This study highlights that institutions are the key factor to shape the patterns and significance of social networks. As institutions evolve, network patterns and their significance can change accordingly.