Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Multinational Enterprises (multinational + enterprises)
Selected AbstractsCorporate Governance and International Location Decisions of Multinational EnterprisesCORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 6 2007Lammertjan Dam This paper analyses international location decisions of corporations based on corporate governance considerations. Using firm level data on 540 Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) with 44,149 subsidiaries in 188 countries, we test whether firms with relatively good governance standards are more often located in countries with a weak governance system. We find empirical support for this hypothesis, especially for those corporations present in low-income countries. [source] Profitability differences between MNE subsidiaries and domestic firms: The case of the food industry in GreeceAGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2004George Anastassopoulos This report analyzes determinants of profitability differences between subsidiaries of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) and Domestic Enterprises (DMEs) in the Greek food industry using company level data. Previous studies have tested the hypothesis that ownership-specific advantages are a major determinant of performance differences. This study analyzes the processed food sector (SIC = 20), using a panel data set for 75 firms and 5 years. The model is evaluated using a random effects model. The results indicate that the determinants of profitability differ between MNEs subsidiaries and DMEs. MNEs' profitability depends on their market share, knowledge, and experience of the local market; training intensity; and product differentiation through the use of technological inputs from abroad and local advertising. DMEs' profitability depends on their market share and product differentiation, through local advertising and local R&D. Size has a negative effect on profitability for both groups of companies. Even after allowing for all of these determinants of profitability, ownership has an independent effect on profitability (namely higher for MNE subsidiaries than DMEs). [EconLit citations: F23, L66, L69]. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 20: 45,60, 2004. [source] Host country nationals as socializing agents: a social identity approachJOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, Issue 3 2007Soo Min Toh A major challenge facing Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) is finding ways to increase the success rates of managers assigned overseas. Our paper draws upon social identity theory to develop a model that focuses on the role of host country nationals (HCNs) in determining the adjustment of expatriate managers. Specifically, our model proposes attributes of the expatriate and the HCN that can increase the salience of national identity and outgroup categorization of expatriates by the HCNs. We also suggest how outgroup categorization interacts with a number of situational factors to influence the role of HCNs as socializing agents for expatriate newcomers. Finally, we propose that the socializing behaviors HCNs may display or withhold from the expatriate will affect the adjustment of the expatriate. Our model highlights the often-overlooked partners in the expatriate adjustment process and emphasizes the need for MNEs to be cognizant of the social dynamics between HCNs and expatriates in the host location. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The integration of corporate governance in corporate social responsibility disclosuresCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2010Ans Kolk Abstract In recent years, not only has attention to corporate governance increased but also the notion has broadened considerably, and started to cover some aspects traditionally seen as being part of corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR, corporate governance and their interlink seem particularly relevant for multinational enterprises (MNEs), which, due to their activities in multiple contexts around the world and concomitant visibility, generally face higher demands to be transparent and disclose information about such issues. Insights into whether and in which cases disclosures on the two topics actually merge has been very limited, however. This paper analyses to what extent corporate governance has become integrated in MNEs' disclosure practices on CSR. Based on an analysis of CSR reporting of Fortune Global 250 companies, findings show that more than half of them have a separate corporate governance section in their CSR report and/or explicitly link corporate governance and CSR issues. We also found that MNEs that disclose information on a wider variety of social and environmental issues and frame CSR with a focus on internal issues are more inclined to integrate corporate governance into their CSR reporting. This integration seems to be a global phenomenon that cuts across countries and sectors. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Fluctuating Rounds of Inward Investment in Peripheral Regions: Semiconductors in the North East of EnglandECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2007Stuart Dawley Abstract: This article extends economic geography research on foreign direct investment episodes by developing a historically grounded understanding of the socio-institutional relations that shape and constrain different rounds of (dis)investment by multinational enterprises (MNEs) within a host region. Sensitive to the roles of contextuality, path dependency, and contingency, it argues that the temporal and spatial dynamics of volatile MNE (dis)investment are best tackled using a conceptual framework that accords a full and active role to the agency of the firm and its interrelations with the geographically variable socioinstitutional contexts that produce, regulate, and mediate investment decisions. The framework is used to interpret the brief but fluctuating history of the semiconductor fabrication industry in North Tyneside in the old industrial region of North East England. Within each investment episode, the empirical findings reveal the pivotal power and agency of the corporation in shaping and connecting processes across a variety of scales, places, and times. Contrasting corporate strategies illustrate the dynamic and contingent ways in which home and host national institutional contexts matter in mediating and regulating MNE investment decisions. [source] Geography of Production Linkages in the Irish and Scottish Microcomputer Industry: The Role of LogisticsECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2005Chris van Egeraat Abstract: The economic crisis of the mid-1970s marked the transition from the traditional Fordist mode of industrial organization to one of time-based competition (TBC). It has been postulated that the rise of TBC will lead to an increase in local and regional production linkages. Part of the argument is that the associated search for logistical efficiency and the adoption of the just-in-time (JIT) principles will lead to closer buyer-supplier proximity. In this article, we test the relevance of this idea in a case study of the microcomputer hardware industry in Ireland and Scotland. Most of the data were collected during multiple interviews with subsidiaries of all global microcomputer assemblers with operations in one of the two countries. The study shows that rather than sourcing locally or regionally, the assemblers import the vast majority of their material inputs from regions outside Ireland and Britain, notably from the Far East, and that the inbound logistics pipelines of most components involve inventories, often hubbed in local warehouses. Such supply systems have been interpreted as pseudo-JIT, suboptimal inbound logistics systems that are organized on traditional Fordist principles. We argue that the logistics systems and the geography of the supply linkages should not be interpreted this way. Inbound inventories were tightly managed, leading to modest target buffer levels and high shipment frequencies. Even under JIT supply, the geographic configuration of production linkages and the details of logistics systems remain highly dependent on a range of contextual conditions and component characteristics. The findings of this study suggest that a strategy of building integrated vertical production clusters around subsidiaries of multinational enterprises is no longer suitable for Ireland and Scotland, at least not in the context of the microcomputer industry. [source] Capital Versus the Districts: A Tale of One Multinational Company's Attempt to Disembed ItselfECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2004N. A. Phelps Abstract: The process of international economic integration in which multinational enterprises (MNEs) play a significant orchestrating role is a contradictory one of a space of flows, on the one hand, and a space of places, on the other hand. It is this contradiction that produces a variegated landscape of relations within and among MNEs and a whole range of territorially rooted organizations and institutions. As a result, interest in global production networks, as part of a broader relational turn in economic geography, has sought to highlight and uncover these webs of relations within which MNEs are embedded. In reviewing this literature, we emphasize the economic imperatives underlying such relations or, rather, their political-economic nature and the discontinuities in industrial restructuring they can produce. We then present an empirical illustration of these points and some of the key concerns within the literature on global production networks. We consider a recent round of restructuring by Black & Decker Corporation, focusing on the politico-economic ramifications of closing one of two European factories. Our reading of the literature, coupled with our empirical findings, suggests the continuing tendency for international integration as a space of flows to eclipse the coherence of places. Localized points of resistance can moderate the powers exercised by MNEs internally and across a network of organizations, although there are limits to the transferability of such tactics of resistance. [source] Geographical Aspects of Food Industry FDI in the CEE Countries Geografische Aspekte ausländischer Direktinvestitionen (ADI) in der Lebensmittelindustrie in mittel- und osteuropäischen Ländern Les dimensions géographiques de l'IDE dans l'industrie alimentaire des pays d'Europe centrale et orientaleEUROCHOICES, Issue 1 2009Csaba Jansik Summary Geographical Aspects of Food Industry FDI in the CEE Countries Food industry FDI has favoured certain food processing sub-sectors over others and it has also been distributed rather unevenly in geographical terms both between countries and regionally within each country. As for the regional distribution, foreign investors have typically targeted locations with a relatively high density of consumers as opposed for instance to prioritising the proximity of agricultural raw materials. The capital city areas and their surrounding regions have attracted a much higher proportion of total food industry FDI than their contribution to agricultural and food processing output would warrant. FDI has contributed in many ways to the development of the regions and industries which have received capital inflows. There has been some levelling off in FDI between countries more recently, a trend driven by the tendency for multinational enterprises to shift their production capacity across national borders among their CEE subsidiaries in a search for greater economies of scale or cost savings. This realignment has helped certain branches of the food industry in some CEE countries perform better than others in competing for common EU food markets. Positive effects of the recent FDI inflows include rapid productivity improvements and enhancement of food export volumes. L'IDE dans l'industrie alimentaire a privilégié certains sous-secteurs de la transformation alimentaire plutôt que d'autres et sa répartition géographique, à la fois entre pays et entre régions au sein d'un même pays, a été plutôt inégale. En termes de répartition régionale, les investisseurs étrangers ont typiquement ciblé des zones où la densité des consommateurs est assez élevée plutôt que de donner, par exemple, la prioritéà la proximité des produits agricoles primaires. Les capitales et les régions qui les entourent ont attiré une proportion bien plus grande de l'ensemble de l'IDE dans l'industrie alimentaire que ce que leur contribution à la production agricole et alimentaire représenterait. L'IDE a contribué de maintes façons au développement des régions et des industries qui ont reçu des capitaux. Une certaine égalisation de l'IDE s'est produite plus récemment entre pays, ce phénomène étant entraîné par la tendance des entreprises multinationales à transférer leur capacité de production d'un pays à l'autre entre leurs filiales d'Europe centrale et orientale, à la recherche d'économies d'échelle et de coûts. Ce rééquilibrage a aidé certaines branches de l'industrie alimentaire de certains pays d'Europe centrale et orientale à réussir mieux que d'autres dans la compétition sur les marchés alimentaires de l'UE. Parmi les effets positifs des entrées de capitaux d'IDE récentes, figurent des améliorations rapides de la productivité et la croissance en volume des exportations de produits alimentaires. Ausländische Direktinvestitionen (ADI) in der Lebensmittelindustrie haben sich auf bestimmte Teilsektoren konzentriert. Außerdem ist die Konzentration der ADI sowohl geografisch zwischen den Ländern als auch den Regionen einzelner Länder ungleich. Bei der regionalen Konzentration haben die ausländischen Investoren ihre Wahl nicht etwa anhand der Entfernung zu landwirtschaftlichen Rohstoffen getroffen, sondern Orte mit einer relativ hohen Kundendichte bevorzugt. Auf die Hauptstadtregionen entfiel ein viel größerer Anteil an den gesamten ADI als es ihre Beteiligung an der Produktionsmenge in Landwirtschaft und Lebensmittelverarbeitung rechtfertigen würde. ADI haben in vielerlei Hinsicht zur Entwicklung der Regionen und Industrien beigetragen, die einen Kapitalzufluss erfahren haben. In letzter Zeit wurden ADI zwischen den Ländern etwas weniger konzentriert, da multinationale Unternehmen danach streben, ihre Produktionskapazitäten länderübergreifend auf ihre MOE-Tochtergesellschaften zu verlagern, um Skaleneffekte und Kosteneinsparungen besser nutzen zu können. Durch diese Neuorientierung konnten sich bestimmte Lebensmittelindustriezweige in einigen MOEL gegenüber anderen im Wettbewerb um die gemeinsamen Lebensmittelmärkte der EU behaupten. Zu den positiven Auswirkungen von ADI-Zuflüssen zählen eine rasche Steigerung der Produktivität sowie größere Mengen an Lebensmittelexporten. [source] Swimming against the tide: Outward staffing flows from multinational subsidiariesHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2010David G. Collings Abstract Studying the flows of parent country nationals in multinational enterprises (MNEs) to subsidiary operations has a relatively long tradition. Studying flows of subsidiary employees to other subsidiaries, as third country nationals, and to the corporate headquarters, as inpatriates, however, has empirically much less pedigree. Drawing on a large-scale empirical study of MNEs in Ireland, this paper provides a benchmark of outward flows of international assignees from the Irish subsidiaries of foreign-owned MNEs to both corporate headquarters and other worldwide operations. Building on insights from the resource-based view and neo-institutional theory, we develop and test a theoretical model to explain outward staffing flows. The results show that almost half of all MNEs use some form of outward staffing flows from their Irish operations. Although the impact of specific variables in explaining inter-organization variation differs between the utilization of inpatriate and third country national assignments, overall we find that a number of headquarters, subsidiary, structural, and human resource systems factors emerge as strong predictors of outward staffing flows. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Multinational Firm Knowledge, Use of Expatriates, and Foreign Subsidiary PerformanceJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 1 2010Yulin Fang abstract The impact of knowledge transfer on foreign subsidiary performance has been a major focus of research on knowledge management in multinational enterprises (MNEs). By integrating the knowledge-based view and the expatriation literature, this study examines the relationship between a multinational firm's knowledge (i.e. marketing and technological knowledge), its use of expatriates, and the performance of its foreign subsidiaries. We conceptualize that expatriates play a contingent role in facilitating the transfer and redeployment of a parent firm's knowledge to its subsidiary, depending on the location specificity of the organizational knowledge being transferred and the time of transfer. Our analysis of 1660 foreign subsidiaries of Japanese firms over a 15-year period indicates that the number of expatriates relative to the total number of subsidiary employees (1) strengthened the effect of a parent firm's technological knowledge (with low location specificity) on subsidiary performance in the short term, but (2) weakened the impact of the parent firm's marketing knowledge (with high location specificity) on subsidiary performance in the long term. We also found that the expatriates' influence on knowledge transfer eventually disappeared. The implications for knowledge transfer research and the expatriate management literature are discussed. [source] Governing Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition in MNEs: Aligning Interests and Cognition Under Uncertainty*JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 7 2007Volker Mahnke abstract Entrepreneurial activities contribute to the innovativeness and performance of subsidiaries and their parent multinational enterprises (MNEs). Though a strong multinational presence can spur the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities, it also creates uncertainty that complicates the alignment of cognition and interest in the governance of MNEs' multi-level entrepreneurial activities. We integrate economic and behavioural approaches to identify communicative, behavioural, and value uncertainties encountered in the MNEs' opportunity recognition phase. In addition, we discuss key contingencies that influence solutions to these uncertainties through delegation of authority, provision of incentives, promotion rules, and use of clan structures. [source] Corporate political action in China and America: a comparative perspectiveJOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Issue 2 2006Yongqiang Gao Corporate political action (CPA) is always an interesting topic for management scholars since 1980s. There are a large plenty of literatures from different disciplines focus on this topic. But till now, studies on this topic are almost conducted under the Western culture and taking the Western countries as objective, very few studies are conducted in non-Western countries, and specifically, the CPA in China is nearly untouched. Due to the differences of culture and political economy between China and the West, CPA in China may be very different from the West's. This article discusses the similarities and differences of CPA in China and America. The result shows that due to the differences in culture and political economical system between China and America, CPA in China is very different from America. This study will help to understand the CPA in China for outsiders, especially for Americans. It also helps multinational enterprises (MNEs) in China to take suitable political actions to support their interests. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The Hazard Rate of Foreign Direct Investment: A Structural Estimation of a Real-option Model,OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS, Issue 5 2006Enrico Pennings Abstract The hazard rate of investment is derived within a real-option model, and its properties are analysed so as to directly study the relation between uncertainty and investment. Maximum likelihood estimates of the hazard are calculated using a sample of multinational enterprises (MNEs) that invested in Central and Eastern Europe over the period 1990,98. Employing a standard, non-parametric specification of the hazard, our measure of uncertainty has a negative effect on investment, but the reduced-form model is unable to control for nonlinearities in the relationship. The structural estimation of the option-based hazard is instead able to account for the nonlinearities and exhibits a significant value of waiting, although the latter is independent of our measure of uncertainty. This finding supports the existence of alternative channels through which uncertainty can affect investment. [source] The influence of foreign direct investment on contracting confidence in developing countriesREGULATION & GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2008John S. Ahlquist Abstract This paper examines whether foreign direct investment (FDI) influences confidence in commercial contracts in developing countries. While the research on how host countries' policy environments encourage FDI inflows has flourished, scholars have paid less attention to how the policy environment and local actors' beliefs might, in turn, be affected by FDI. This is surprising because multinational enterprises are well-recognized political and economic actors across the world. We expect that their increasing economic salience will influence the policy environments in which they function. By employing an innovative measure of property rights protection , contract-intensive money , we examine how foreign direct investment influences host countries' contract-intensive money ratio in a large panel time series of both developed and developing countries from 1980 to 2002. Our analysis suggests that higher levels of FDI inflows are associated with greater confidence in commercial contracts and, by extension, the protection of property rights in developing countries. [source] FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: CHANGING LOCATION-SPECIFIC ADVANTAGES AS SIGNALS OF COMPETITIVENESSTHE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 3 2009Frank L. BARTELS F21; R3; P42; F23 This paper uses longitudinal factor analysis of location-specific advantages that are relevant to the foreign direct investment decisions of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to signal changes in location competitiveness. A total of 1,216 responses by MNEs to a survey in 15 SSA countries are analyzed. We find that, first, over a three-year period (2002,5), MNEs perceive a positive change in the market-servicing environment in SSA. Second, MNEs find negative changes in SSA regarding the availability of input factors and characteristics of market demand. [source] Economic Insecurity and the Globalization of ProductionAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 4 2004Kenneth Scheve A central question in the international and comparative political economy literatures on globalization is whether economic integration increases worker insecurity in advanced economies. Previous research has focused on the role of international trade and has failed to produce convincing evidence that such a link exists. In this article, we argue that globalization increases worker insecurity, but that foreign direct investment (FDI) by multinational enterprises (MNEs) is the key aspect of integration generating risk. FDI by MNEs increases firms' elasticity of demand for labor. More-elastic labor demands, in turn, raise the volatility of wages and employment, all of which tends to make workers feel less secure. We present new empirical evidence, based on the analysis of panel data from Great Britain collected from 1991 to 1999, that FDI activity in the industries in which individuals work is positively correlated with individual perceptions of economic insecurity. This correlation holds in analyses accounting for individual-specific effects and a wide variety of control variables. [source] OVERSEAS R&D ACTIVITIES AND HOME PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM JAPANESE FIRM-LEVEL DATA,THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2008YASUYUKI TODO This paper investigates the impact of overseas subsidiaries' R&D activities on the productivity growth of parent firms using firm-level data for Japanese multinational enterprises. Based on survey responses, we classify each overseas subsidiary's R&D as either ,innovative R&D,' which we hypothesize is likely to lead to the acquisition of foreign knowledge, or ,adaptive R&D,' which is more likely to lead to adaptation to local conditions. We find that overseas innovative R&D raises the parent firm's productivity growth, while adaptive R&D has no such effect. In addition, overseas innovative R&D does not improve the rate of return on home R&D. [source] Interlocking directorships and trans-national linkages within the British Empire, 1900,1930AREA, Issue 2 2005Mark Brayshay Recent research has highlighted the value of employing the idea of networks to describe the interrelatedness of today's globalizing economy. Networks facilitate flows of knowledge, ideas, managerial techniques and capital between firms both within and across political borders. This paper argues that the reconstruction of social connections through which information is created, given value and exchanged is fundamental to an understanding of not only contemporary but also historical patterns of economic globalization. We focus on the networks of the capitalist elite running 12 major multinational enterprises, active across British imperial territories, between c.1900 and c.1930. An examination is made of the economic and spatial interlocks between firms created by board members who were multiple directors. Social underpinnings of multiple directorates are examined by exploring the common, overlapping social spheres within which individuals engaged. A clearer grasp of the ways in which corporate activity operated in the early 1900s can provide a better understanding of the social context of global economic operations. [source] Firm Productivity and Foreign Direct Investment into Non-core Activities,ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 3 2009Andrzej Cie F23 As foreign direct investment (FDI) often originates from multinational enterprises (MNEs) with non-core activities and not single-product firms, as MNE theory typically suggests, we hypothesize that such firms are more productive than MNEs without non-core activities as well as non-MNE firms. We test this hypothesis using Kolmogorov,Smirnov stochastic dominance Tests and Japanese firm-level productivity and FDI data for the period 1985,2001. We find that both manufacturing and service multinational firms with non-core foreign investments stochastically dominate firms without non-core activities. We also find cost-complementarities between certain core and non-core FDI activities that span both manufacturing and service affiliates. [source] | |||||||||||||