| Centers of Excellence in Multinational Corporations |
| | Birkinshaw, Julian | London Business School | Jbirkinshaw@lbs.ac.uk | (44)-171-262-5050 |
| | Ensign, Prescott C. | U. of Western Ontario | sensign@ivey.uwo.ca | (519)-661-3296 |
| | Frost, Tony S. | U. of Western Ontario, Ivey School of Business | tfrost@ivey.uwo.ca | (519)-661-4136 |
| | This paper seeks to understand the antecedents and consequences of "centers of excellence" in multinational firms. We define a center of excellence as a set of capabilities possessed by a particular organizational unit that has been explicitly recognized by the firm as an important source of value creation, with the intention that these capabilities be leveraged by and/or disseminated to other parts of the firm. Our overarching argument is that centers of excellence are the outcome of an evolutionary, path dependent process that is shaped by conditions in the subsidiary's local external environment as well as by conditions internal to the firm. Based on this argument, we develop and test a set of specific hypotheses using data obtained from a survey of 99 foreign units in Canada. Results are linked to on-going debates about the nature and evolution of the multinational enterprise. |
| | Keywords: Center of Excellence,; Multinational Corporation, ; Foreign Subsidiary |
| Diversification strategy, keiretsu affiliation, and capital structure in Japanese multinational enterprises |
| | Geringer, John Michael | California Poytechnic U. | mgering@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu | 805.756.1755 |
| | Olsen, David M. | U. of Utah | mgtdmo@business.utah.edu | 801-581-6083 |
| | Capital structure has become an important topic of study in strategic management. Yet, essentially all of the strategic management research has examined issues of capital structure using data on Anglo-American companies. This study provides a replication with extension of research on the relationship between capital structure and strategy, specifically diversification strategy, using data on large Japanese multinational enterprises. Diversification strategy was found to have only a limited relationship with capital structure for the Japanese sample firms, in contrast with prior research on samples of American and Australian firms. Keiretsu affiliation, however, had an important relationship with capital structure in the sample firms. In contrast with recent research using samples from other national contexts, our study's results were relatively robust across alternative operationalizations of key variables. Importantly, the relationships among diversification strategy, keiretsu affiliation, and capital structure exhibited variation across time periods, a consideration not addressed in prior studies. Theoretical and methodological implications of the study's findings are discussed. |
| | Keywords: strategy; capital structure; Japan |
| Self-Regulation and the Sanctuary Strategy: Competitive Advantage through Domestic Cooperation by Japanese Firms |
| | Schaede, Ulrike | U. of California | uschaede@ucsd.edu | (619)-534-2357 |
| | In a "sanctuary strategy", a firm uses restraints to competition in its
home market to create a profit cushion which allows it to compete
forcefully in foreign markets. This paper argues that self-regulation
by industry associations in Japan is an important domestic prerequisite of
a successful sanctuary strategy. By studying self-regulation and
cooperation within Japanese industry associations, we identify
predictors of a sanctuary strategy and study one example of the
competitive effects of cooperation among companies. The paper builds on
a data set containing 455 Japanese industry associations to, first, test
standard notions of cooperation and collusion as suggested by the
economics of industrial organization, adapted to the context of industry
associations. Next, the paper develops new hypotheses to analyze whether
internal features of industry association organization predict the
likelihood of self-regulation. The paper concludes that as self-regulation
increases in Japan, so may the sanctuary strategies employed by Japanese firms.
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| | Keywords: industry associations; corporate strategy; Japan |
| Influence of industry and firm-level effects on global of strategy: A variance components analysis |
| | Mauri, Alfredo J. | Baruch College/City U. of New York | alfredo_mauri@baruch.cuny.edu | (212)-802-6921 |
| | Matherne, Brett P. | Georgia State U. | mgtbpmx@gsu.edu | (404)-651-2884 |
| | The study of industry and firm effects on global strategy is important from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. Theoretically the predictions based on the industrial organization literature suggest the convergence of global industries toward similar patterns of competitors, whereas the resource-based view of the firm proposes the persistence of firm heterogeneity. More over, several empirical studies in globalization have selected the industry as primary unit of analysis, implicitly assuming that competitors are homogeneous. This paper focuses on the influence of industry and firm-level effects on two dimensions of a company's global strategy. The first dimension considers to the degree of
internationalization of a company's operations and the second dimension refers its level of global integration. Statistical results from a sample of 119 U.S. companies in 31 four-digit SIC industries using variance components suggest that both dimensions of global strategy are primarily influenced by firm- rather than industry-level factors. These results underscore the role of competitive diversity in global industries and the importance of studying global strategy at the firm level. |
| | Keywords: Globalization; Industry effects; Firm effects |
| Institutional Pressures, Strategic Responses, and Foreign Subsidiary Performance |
| | Xu, Deyin | York U. | dxu@bus.yorku.ca | (416) -661-7865 |
| | This article extended institutional theory to the international setting. Hypotheses were proposed linking institutional influences of the host and home countries to a set of strategic and structural variables of the MNE. A new dimension, institutional distance, was developed to measure variations in institutional environment and was used to predict strategic behavior of the foreign subsidiary. Performance implications were also discussed based on this dimension, which point to a new way of global competition. Finally, a general model was presented integrating all hypotheses contained in the article. |
| | Keywords: International Management; Institutional Theory; Global Strategy |