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This study aims to examine the impact of home–host country distance on the cross-border mergers and acquisitions performance.

The results of this study are based on a final sample of 483 completed cross-border deals involving BRICS nation acquirers and targets spread across a set of 27 nations. While controlling for prior experience, among other factors, the impact of nine institutional distance dimensions on deal performance is examined. Cumulative abnormal returns calculated over the select event windows are used as a measure of deal performance.

The results of this study validate the explanatory power of cross-country distance and exhibit that financial and cultural distance exert a negative influence on deal performance, whereas political and global connectedness distance positively impacts performance. Interestingly, geographic distance is not found to be related to performance outcomes.

The results of this study caution against possible aggregation of the cross-country distance measure and point towards the need to acknowledge and analyse the multi-dimensional nature of distance.

The results of this study are expected to aid managers in devising internationalisation strategies and target selection, maximising their performance and shareholder wealth.

This study contributes to the knowledge of internationalisation and cross-country distance. It presents as one of the first to investigate the impact of institutional distance on deal performance using a substantially large multi-country emerging market data set.

The study aims to shed light on cross-country comparisons of brand engagement in self-concept (BESC) among consumers from European countries and to link presumed differences with country-level economic growth and materialism. This study contributes to the literature on the customer–brand relationship and provides implications for international branding strategies.

This observation study explored levels of BESC in three European countries. Questionnaire data were collected from consumers of Austria (N = 302), Italy (N = 431) and Poland (N = 410) with the purpose to make cross-country comparisons of BESC among consumers.

The results provide evidence for partial scalar invariance of the BESC scale. Cross-country comparisons of latent means reveal that Polish consumers score higher on BESC than consumers from Austria and Italy. Moreover, Austrian consumers score higher on BESC than Italian consumers.

Culture as a contextual factor of BESC should be studied further. The findings should be replicated with non-convenience samples in additional cultural contexts to improve the generalizability of data. Structural equation modeling could be used to investigate psychological drivers of BESC differences.

The findings coming from the cross-country comparisons of BESC are of practical relevance to marketing managers: they should tailor their branding and communication strategies accordingly.

So far, the understanding of cross-cultural and cross-country differences in consumer–brand relationships has remained limited. This study adopts a rigorous approach to cross-cultural research enriching the literature on BESC from a cross-country perspective.

Illicit trade is pervasive in many nations and may be influenced by the level of national IQ. The current interdisciplinary paper aims to study the association between national intelligence and illicit trade across nations.

The illicit trade index scores for 84 countries, developed by the Economics Intelligence Unit, are used to measure the dependent variable. The independent variable is national intelligence, while economic development, unemployment and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are the control variables. Two-level hierarchical linear models (HLMs) are used to empirically test the above-mentioned association.

The empirical results suggest that the higher the degree of national intelligence, the lower is the degree of illicit trade across nations. In addition, economic development, unemployment and national culture play an important role in explaining cross-country differences in illicit trade.

Regulatory authorities should find the results of this cross-national research useful in evaluating the likelihood of illicit trade from a cognitive perspective, and in implementing reforms to curb this type of economic crimes.

This interdisciplinary study makes novel contributions to the literature on economic and financial crimes. First, for the first time to the best of the authors’ knowledge, an association between national intelligence and illicit trade is examined. A second original contribution of this study compared to earlier research is related to the use of two-level HLMs. Third, the investigation of the association between intelligence and illicit trade takes a new control variable into consideration, i.e. unemployment, a variable which is found to have a significant effect on illicit trade and that has not been used directly in relationship with illicit trade so far.

The purpose of this paper is to study the cross‐country relation between initial levels of infant‐, child‐ and maternal‐mortality and their rates of decline so as to see whether the so‐called Matthew effect or the inverse‐care principle operates relative to these three important health indicators.

Data on the three variables for a large number of countries covering several periods between 1950 and 2007 are considered. Signs and significance of correlations between initial levels and the rates of decline over the period, and of coefficients of initial levels in regressions of rates of decline on the initial level, are studied.

First, in a broad global context, higher initial levels of mortality are associated with significantly lower rates of decline in each of the three indicators for every period, thus providing strong support to the operation of the inverse‐care principle and the Matthew effect. Second, the high‐income countries (and transition economies) deviate from the global pattern. Third, following Hart's suggestion, the parametric contrast between the high income and the developing groups may be interpreted as indicative of stronger government intervention in the healthcare sector in high‐income countries. Fourth, the contrast may thus indicate the desirability of greater government intervention in provision of healthcare in developing countries. Fifth, operation of the inverse‐care principle and the Matthew effect is observed even in the absence of high‐HIV prevalence. Sixth, the observed negative covariation between initial mortality and its rate of decline implies cross‐country divergence in these core indicators of health.

First, this is the only study to investigate the operation of the inverse‐care principle relative to infant mortality for such a large number of countries and such a long period. Second, it is also the only study to extend the investigation to child‐mortality and maternal‐mortality, which are heavily emphasized in the millennium development goals. Third, the patterns are studied not only merely for the entire set of countries, but also for several subgroups. Fourth, the observed parametric contrasts are interpreted as possibly reflecting the importance of government intervention in the healthcare sector in mitigating the operation of the inverse‐care phenomenon. Fifth, an effort is made to factor out the role of HIV so as to show that the pattern is not significantly altered by high prevalence of HIV in poor countries. Sixth, the implied cross‐country divergence in these important health variables is suggestive of the need for caution in interpreting the conclusions stated by some scholars about convergence in several quality‐of‐life indicators. Last, contrary to what some scholars have suggested, not merely does it not seem to be the case that the inverse‐care proposition relative to infant mortality is observed only in exceptional cases, but the reported evidence suggests that the proposition holds globally over long periods even for child‐ and maternal‐mortality.

This purpose of this study is to examine the association between earnings management (accruals earnings management (AEM) and/or real activities manipulation (RAM)) and firm underperformance following seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) using cross-country data.

The study applies ordinary least squares regression analyses to a sample of 11,764 observations on firms from 22 countries over the period from 2005 to 2017. The methods include weighted least squares regression, sub-sampling approach and alternative measures of firm performance, earnings management and legal regime for robustness tests as well as a two-stage least squares instrumental variable (IV) approach to address endogeneity concerns.

The results suggest that RAM has a greater negative impact on post-SEO performance than AEM. The result is economically significant for RAM only. The results also reveal that the negative impact of earnings management, in particular RAM, on post-SEO performance is greater in countries with a strong legal regime than in other countries.

Earnings management around SEOs has important implications for investors, regulators and policymakers. The study suggests that policymakers should improve the current legal conditions to promote fairness in the equity market.

The results from the cross-country data support earlier results from single-country studies on the impact of earnings management on post-SEO performance. The study also provides new evidence on the variation in the impact of earnings management according to the strength of the legal regime operating in a country.

This paper aims to investigate the relation between gender and accounting conservatism in banking industry using cross-countries study.

The study use cross-country data in banking industry. Sample of the study consists of 202 banks from 24 countries in the period 2016–2017.

The result of the study indicates that banks that operate in high masculine society are less conservative than banks that operate in low masculine society (feminine).

This research suggests that investors could consider investing in a country that has low masculinity (feminine) because it is more concerned with the protection of other society members through conservative choice as a protection from misleading decisions made based on too optimistic financial report.

Prior studies have found that productivity gains associated with information technology (IT) adoption, measured at either the firm‐ or aggregate‐economy levels, differ between developed and developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to extend prior cross‐country research to the interfirm IT capabilities and relationship‐level.

A two‐country comparative study is conducted: the USA, a developed country; and Thailand, a developing country. The measurement constructs for the interfirm IT capabilities and performance are derived from the existing literature. Data are collected from IT managers who oversee interfirm relationships as follows: 68 from the US firms; 107 from Thai firms. Several statistical tools are used to test the developed hypotheses, including correlation, regression, and t‐test analysis.

The important results of the paper indicate the following: IT technical capabilities are positively associated with interfirm performance across two countries. However, IT personnel IT capabilities had a positive relationship with interfirm performance only in Thai firms. Also, Thai firms realize higher innovation performance as a result of IT adoption than the US firms.

This is an exploratory study as it is based on data from only two countries. Thus, a new causal theory about interfirm relationship‐level performance is not sought. The future research needs include data collection from more countries and longitudinal analyses of trends based on advances in IT capabilities in different countries.

In today's networked global economy, many organizations have value chains that involve interfirm relationships. This paper is the first attempt to explore productivity gains associated with IT adoption, measured at interfirm relationship‐level, based on cross‐country comparative analysis.

The purpose of this study is to identify segments in the Gen Z population (born between 1996 and 2010) in Europe, the USA and Australia, based on brand- and lifestyle-related variables and perceptions about their online activities. This study explores how these segments differ and provide insights into cross-country similarities and differences.

An online survey was conducted with 4,304 participants, and cluster analysis and analysis of variance were used to identify and profile Gen Z segments in each of three geographical areas.

Five segments in Europe and four segments in the USA and in Australia were identified. Segments differ in terms of the importance they attach to exclusivity, inclusivity and sustainability of brands, how Gen Z members perceive money issues and stand in life and how they perceive their online activities. Similar segments are found in the three geographical areas.

This study proposes a conceptual and analytical approach for exploring intra-cohort diversity. Future research can apply this approach to different generational cohorts and use it to study intra-cohort diversity in other parts of the world.

This study provides input for marketing practitioners to create better focused and more effective campaigns.

Cross-country generational cohort research is scarce, and especially intra-cohort diversity is under-researched. This study offers a deep and fine-grained insight into the diversity of the Gen Z cohort across three geographical areas, based on representative samples in these areas.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of female labour force participation (FLFP) in the access and usage of formal financial services by women.

The study uses cross-country data from 107 countries. The study uses multivariate regression (OLS) to explain the impact of FLFP on the financial inclusion variables. The study also accounted for different groups of country-level control variables. Instrumental variables regression is also used in the study to consider for endogeneity issues.

The results show that FLFP has significant influence on all of the financial inclusion variables used in the study. The role of financial literacy is prominent in determining women's access to sophisticated financial services such as debit card and credit card. Improving financial infrastructure of an economy facilitates greater access to formal account by women

From policymakers’ perspective, women should be motivated to enter labour market for better financial inclusion.

More opportunities for women to enter formal employment encourages female participation in labour market and benefits women and the economy.

This paper is the first of its kind to study the influence of FLFP on indicators of financial inclusion of women. The study extended the scope of access to financial services by considering access to bank account, debit card and credit card. The study also analysed use of financial services through digital platforms by women.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze collaboration networks and their patterns among higher education institutions (HEIs) in Chile and the Latin American region. This will provide evidence to educational managements in order to properly allocate their efforts to improve collaboration.

This quantitative study examines collaboration using a social network analysis (SNA) approach. The main source used to quantify collaboration is co-authorship of scholarly publications retrieved from the Web of Science scientific search engine.

The paper provides evidence that there is a low collaboration rate within-country as well cross-country among HEIs in Latin America. The collaboration network in Chile is highly dependent on two institutions; Pontificia Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile. These institutions are considered leaders of opinion and knowledge facilitators. The density of the whole network is relatively low; only 5 percent of the potential connections exist in the current network.

The main limitation of this paper is that it does not take into account other possible collaborative efforts such as books, manuscripts, or other types of collaboration that do not result in tangible documents. However, co-authorship based on publications has been considered to be a good estimator of collaboration.

Collaboration is critical to promote research and increase its capacity. The approach presented in this study is helpful for educational managers in charge of allocating resources to effectively have an impact on collaboration. Decision makers will benefit from the evidence-based results generated by the SNA framework.

An understanding of the current status of research collaboration in Latin America allows researchers to detect the main areas of opportunity, which in turn serve to improve future decision making in this area.