Thunderbird International Business Review

Publisher:: Wiley
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 1096-4762

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Making sense of the kaleidoscopic image that is international business
China's emerging businesses: The next generation of global corporations?
A growing number of Chinese businesses that are not well known outside China are going global, taking market share from incumbents worldwide. These businesses sustain rapid to hyper‐growth over considerable periods, allowing them to scale up quickly. They have strong market share in the domestic Chinese market, which serves as a platform for internationalization. Their strategies for entering new markets derive from their domestic business models, which they have been able to adapt to conditions in other countries. These businesses represent a fast‐growing cohort of emerging global corporations that will be major international competitors in the near future. This article helps businesses and analysts to identify China's emerging businesses. It offers insight into their strategies for growth and emergence.
Impact of gender on use of wasta among human resources management practitioners
The practice of wasta dominates all aspects of Arabs' lives; it is a parallel inegalitarian system that categorizes people according to their connections. One of the epicenters of wasta is human resources management (HRM). This article studies the concept of wasta in the Arab world by examining its use in HRM according to gender, in the case of the Jordanian public sector. Results obtained from 27 semi‐structured interviews of HR managers indicate that though wasta is an important feature of HRM in general, there is a notable discrepancy between male and female employees, with the former displaying higher tendencies for using wasta than the latter. An explanation for this finding is the prevalent masculine nature of Jordanian society, which entails social caveats related to the traditional role of women. Professional determinants, such as gendered job segregation and variance in qualifications, also affect men's and women's access to wasta.
R&D investment around the world: Effects of ownership and performance‐based cultural contexts
This study examines how ownership by different types of shareholders affects firm‐level research and development (R&D) investment. Integrating agency and resource dependence theories, we predict that up to a certain level, firm ownership by banks, corporations, governments, and insiders will positively relate to R&D investment. However, as ownership continues to increase, these shareholders shift their focus to personal wealth concerns, which makes owners more conservative towards R&D investment, resulting in reductions of R&D investment. Applying an institution‐based view, we expect the norms associated with performance‐based national cultures to moderate the curvilinear relationships between ownership and R&D investment. We test our hypotheses with a sample of 11,262 firms from 35 countries and find that ownership by banks, corporations, and governments has a curvilinear inverted U‐shaped relationship with R&D investment. Further, operating in a performance‐based culture enhances the effects for corporation and government ownership. Our findings contribute unique insights about what drives the important strategic activity of investing in R&D.
Regulatory institutional distance and the United States multinational corporations' research and development investment decisions
Research and development (R&D) investment of multinational corporations (MNCs), as a part of MNCs' foreign direct investment (FDI) decision, has been studied for both the importance of the location for the MNC's strategy, and for the host country's benefits from the spillover effects of investment in R&D. The R&D investment decision is often influenced by the macroeconomic environment and the institutional framework of the host country. In this article, we argue that it is not just the level of regulatory institutions in the host country but also the regulatory institutional distance between the home and host countries that influences the R&D investment decision. We use the R&D expenditure data of U.S. majority owned firms' affiliates in various countries to analyze two things. First, we study the effect of regulatory institutional distance on the decision to invest in R&D in the host country. Second, we analyze if the regulatory institutional distance influences the intensity of R&D expenditure. We find significant empirical support for our hypotheses that underscores the importance of regulations for attracting R&D investments from MNCs.
Effects of predeparture and postarrival cross‐cultural trainings on expatriates adjustment: A study of Chinese expatriates in Nigeria
The increase in economic globalization has created a need for multinational corporations to use expatriates to manage their foreign subsidiaries. Expatriate employees face many challenges that they can meet successfully only if they are well prepared through sound cross‐cultural training. In this exploratory study, we investigated the effects of cross‐cultural training on Chinese expatriates in Nigeria. We mainly focused on the relationship between predeparture and postarrival cross‐cultural training. In this study, we surveyed 198 Chinese expatriates in Nigeria and found that both predeparture and postarrival training have significant and positive influences on Chinese expatriates' adjustment. Additionally, our results demonstrated that language training and previous overseas experience also have positive effects on Chinese expatriates' adjustment in Nigeria. The implications of these findings are also discussed.
Opportunity novelty, improvisation and network adaptation in the internationalization of Swedish SMEs
By deviating from previous ways of working and improvising new solutions to problems in the internationalization process, small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) will increase the likelihood of developing novel international opportunities. In this way, for instance, unforeseen customer demand, rather than following a specific plan, may govern market choice. Such novel opportunities, in turn, are likely to require network adaptation in order for the firm to reach an insidership position in the international business network. By integrating international opportunity theory with theories on improvisational behavior, three hypotheses are developed between the constructs of international opportunity novelty, improvisation, and network adaptation. The hypotheses were tested with Structural Equation Modelling on 258 realized international opportunities developed by Swedish SMEs (European Union definition: number of employees 10–250) and were observed through on‐site visits. It is revealed that improvisation increases the degree of international opportunity novelty as well as the need for network adaptation. The degree of novelty of realized international opportunities positively influences the need for adaptation to a foreign network. Novelty can be seen as a proxy for opportunity's wealth‐creating potential, and developing improvisation capabilities seems to be a way to increase the novelty of international opportunities developed. Managers that are risk averse and therefore refrain from improvisation risk missing valuable novel opportunities.
Performance effects of interaction between multicultural managers and multicultural team members: Evidence from elite football competitions
Multicultural employees are an important organizational demographic and a subject of increasing interest in the literature on international management; however, few studies assess how multiculturals affect team performance. We first collect individual performance data for 442 individuals from 20 teams led by monocultural and multicultural managers. We then collect team‐level performance data for 269 teams with varying proportions of multicultural individuals. The results confirm that multicultural individuals performed better in teams with multicultural managers and that teams led by multicultural managers outperformed teams with the same percentage of multicultural individuals led by monocultural managers.
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