Session Summary

Session Number:399
Session ID:S164
Session Title:Performance of Multi-business and Multinational Firms: Why Does Theory Converge but Results Diverge?
Short Title:Performance and MNCs
Session Type:Division Symposium
Hotel:Hyatt West
Floor:LL2
Room:Regency Ball A(S)
Time:Tuesday, August 10, 1999 10:30 AM - 11:50 AM

Sponsors

BPS  (Ming-Jer Chen)BPS99@wharton.upenn.edu (215) 898-0018 

General People

Chair Anand, Jaideep  U. of Michigan jayanand@umich.edu (734) 764-2310 
Discussant Mitchell, Will  U. of Michigan wmitchel@umich.edu (734)-764-1230 

Submissions

When and Why are Cross-border Acquisitions Profitable? An Empirical Analysis of the Sources of Value Creation in Foreign Acquisitions of US Firms 
Presenter Seth, Anju  U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign aseth@commerce.cba.uiuc.edu (217) 333-3522 
Why Firm Diversify: Internalization vs Agency Behavior 
Presenter Yeung, Bernard  U. of Michigan byeung@umich.edu (734) 763-6391 
Diversification and the Role of Center in Multi-business Firms 
Presenter Markides, Costas  London Business School c.markides@lbs.lon.ac.uk (+44) 071-262-5050, 3519 
The Internal Governance of Multi-Business vs Multinational Scope 
Presenter Gupta, Anil  U. of Maryland agupta@rhsmith.umd.edu (301) 405-2221 

Abstract

The strategy and international business literatures have explained multi-business and multinational firms by a converging combination of capabilities-based perspectives and transaction costs economics. These explanations emphasize that firms expand to internalize the transactions in intangible assets of the firm because they cannot effectively trade the assets in external markets. The empirical literature concludes that while multinationality tends to associate with positive performance, diversification often associates with negative performance. This panel examines this symmetry in the theoretical explanations and the asymmetry in empirical results. Possible avenues to enrich the core theories are explored with a sequence of new empirical results and theoretical deductions.