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This chapter measures financial integration in 10 industries over 4 different periods. We use two robust measures of integration: (i) the Pukthuanthong and Roll (2009)’s multi-factor R-square and (ii) the Volosovych (2011)’s integration index. Both measures, based on PCA, indicate that the difference between the level of integration over the period 2009–2012 (“Post-Lehman” era) and the level of integration over the period 1994–1998 (“Post-Liberalizations” era) is relatively high. In addition, the level of financial integration across international equity markets decreased during the late 1990s. This suggests that de jure integration does not necessarily improve de facto integration. Overall, our findings give rise to a “diversification benefits-insurance benefits trade-off.”

This paper studies the moderating effect of industry structure on strategy-performance relationships in international markets.

We have carried out a survey among a sample of German, Norwegian and Singaporean small and medium sized firms, and test – using structural equation modelling (EQS) – four hypotheses founded in industrial organisation,

We find that industry structure indeed matters. The general picture is that cautious internationalisation strategies are more effective in fragmented industries than in concentrated industries. Also, with somewhat more nuance, global marketing strategies – such as standardisation and integration – seem by and large to be more effective in concentrated industries than in fragmented industries.

The operationalisation of industry structure in an international context is challenging and we have deviated from the traditional Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. This may be a limitation but we also consider it a strength, given the weaknesses of this index in an international setting. The study is cross-sectional and should ideally follow each firm over time, again a challenging endeavour.

Despite a considerable amount of studies on strategy – performance relationships in international markets, there is no general agreement on the topic. We argue that a contingency approach needs to be taken, and that industry structure is one important factor not yet analysed.

Although research on channel integration has evolved into a major stream in literature in international marketing, channel integration in new product export remains unexamined. Drawing on transaction cost analysis, organizational capability, and marketing control perspectives, the authors develop a conceptual model of channel integration in new product export. They further test the model using data collected from the computer software industry. The findings indicate that both channel integration and new product competitive advantage exert positive impacts on product market performance in foreign markets. The results regarding asset specificity, country risk, and firm size offer interesting insights about the linkage between these antecedents and channel integration.

The present study has two objectives. First, one is to clarify the terms, “co-movement” and “co-integration” in the context of stock market indices. Second, to investigate empirically, whether an emerging stock market index represented by Nifty has moved together with DJI and N225 during the study period and whether they are co-integrated or not. This chapter tries to search out an answer for co-movement and co-integration staying within the theoretical framework through an extensive review of the literature. Moreover, the present study is unique because it tries to focus mostly on the pros and cons of financial integration and trade liberalization and the contributing factors responsible for trade and financial integrations leading to co-movement and co-integration among the countries considered in this study. India is taken as a proxy for an emerging economy. Furthermore, this chapter considers America and Japan as proxies for the developed countries around the globe and a significant country among the APAC nations, respectively. The empirical results reveal that not only three indices are highly correlated but they also possess a co-integrating relationship. This establishes the fact that neither is there any scope of international diversification in the short run nor in the long run. However, the Granger causality test results point out the fact that Nifty granger causes DJI and N225 during the study period.

The study investigates the interdependence of the stock markets between the following countries Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and the advanced stock markets of Australia, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States. Using data from 1994 to 2003 the paper employs both correlation, causality and cointegration analysis to describe the behaviour of the above stock market indices over the period pre and post the 1997 Asian Financial Crises. The paper investigates both the short- and long-run relationships between the Asian markets and the markets of selected advanced industrial countries.

This chapter investigates the relative magnitude of the benefits of global diversification from the viewpoint of domestic investors in various countries by forming time-rolling efficient frontiers. To enhance feasibility of asset allocation strategies, the constraints of short-sales and over-weighting investments are taken into account. The empirical results suggest that local investors in less developed countries, particularly in Latin America, East Asia, and Southern Europe, comparatively benefit more from global diversification. Investors in the countries of civic-law origin tend to benefit more from global investment than the ones in the common-law states. Although the global market has become more integrated over the past decades, diversification benefits for domestic investors declined but did not vanish. The results of this chapter are useful for asset management professionals to determine target markets to promote the sales of international funds.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the possible portfolio diversification opportunities between Asian Islamic market and other regions’ Islamic markets; namely USA, Europe, and BRIC. This study makes the initial attempt to fill in the gaps of previous studies by focusing on the proxies of global Islamic markets to identify the correlations among those selected markets by employing the recent econometric methodologies such as multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic–dynamic conditional correlations (MGARCH–DCC), maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform (MODWT), and the continuous wavelet transform (CWT). By utilizing the MGARCH-DCC, this chapter tries to identify the strength of the time-varying correlation among the markets. However, to see the time-scale-dependent nature of these mentioned correlations, the authors utilized CWT. For robustness, the authors have applied MODWT methodology as well. The findings tend to indicate that the Asian investors have better portfolio diversification opportunities with the US markets, followed by the European markets. BRIC markets do not offer any portfolio diversification benefits, which may be explained partly by the fact that the Asian markets cover partially the same countries of BRIC markets, namely India and China. Considering the time horizon dimension, the results narrow down the portfolio diversification opportunities only to the short-term investment horizons. The very short-run investors (up to eight days only) can benefit through portfolio diversification, especially in the US and European markets. The above-mentioned results have policy implications for the Asian Islamic investors (e.g., Portfolio Management and Strategic Investment Management).

There is increasing recognition that a marketing, customer-based perspective in merger and acquisition (M&A) processes is needed. However, there is still limited information about how customers experience an acquisition and whether merging firms perceive their customers as assets to trade or as stakeholders to engage. In this chapter, the authors aim to contribute to this knowledge gap by developing a research agenda that incorporates a customer-based perspective in the investigation of M&A. The authors achieve this aim by reviewing 40 articles published in economic, marketing and management journals that examine customer and marketing issues in M&As. By engaging with existing studies and their hidden assumptions and drawing inspiration from current trends in the analysis of consumer behavior, the authors suggest four research avenues to inform future studies and to increase our understanding of M&As from the customer perspective.

Since the introduction of product certification in the 1980s, fair trade has grown apart from its social justice roots and the focus has steadily shifted away from calls for institutional market reform, corporate accountability, and fair prices, and toward a celebratory embrace of poverty alleviation and income growth through market integration and business partnerships. This paper examines fair trade's narratives of poverty and partnerships, focusing on the brand communication strategies employed by influential fair trade organizations and businesses. These are compared with how fair trade coffee producers in southern Mexico understand and practice partnership, demonstrating some of the ways in which the latter resist narrative framings which position them as entrepreneurial businesspeople first and cooperativistas second. The business partnerships between coffee buyers and producers are highly asymmetrical, and the partnerships that matter most for the Oaxacan coffee farmers are not with global businesses and certifiers, but instead with each other and their producer organizations. These relationships did not originate with fair trade, although, they are, in part, sustained by this system which supports democratically organized producer groups, the sharing of technical and market information, and communal management of the fair trade premium. In contrast to the organizations that certify and market their products, the paper demonstrates how farmers regard their precarious economic circumstances as an issue of social justice to be addressed through increased state support rather than market empowerment. The analytical juxtaposition of farmers' attitudes with fair trade organizational priorities contributes to the expanding literature examining how fair trade policies are experienced on the ground.

The history and prospects of European integration are both fascinating and exciting. Analysts of every aspect of this process, including its cultural, economic, financial, historical, political, and social dimensions, should recall that its main rationale remains as it has always been, to permanently end conflict and to secure peace and prosperity for all Europeans. As the European Union's (EU's) own website (see http://europa.eu.int) points out Europe has been the scene of many and frequent bloody wars throughout the centuries. In the 75-year period between 1870 and 1945, for example, France and Germany fought each other three times with huge loss of life. The history of modern European integration commenced in earnest with the realization in the early 1950s that the best way to prevent future conflict is to secure more economic and political integration. This led to the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, followed shortly by the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. Since then, the process of integration and enlargement has progressed at varying speeds, but always moving forwards. In 1967, the founding institutions of the EEC were merged to form today's European Commission (EC), the Council of Ministers, and the European Parliament. The members of the European Parliament were initially chosen by the member governments of the EEC, but direct elections commenced in 1979, and have continued every 5 years since then. The Treaty of Maastricht created the EU in 1992 and established the process of economic and monetary union (EMU) that culminated in the introduction of the euro in 12 of the 15 Member States in 2002.