Does innovation lead to global orientation? Empirical evidence from a sample of Italian firms

This paper analyses the relationship between innovation at firm and industry level, and the global vs regional strategy of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Based on data from a sample of large Italian manufacturing firms, the analysis shows that technological assets affect a firm’s ability to overcome the liability of (regional) foreignness: the extent to which MNEs can exploit their firm-specific technological advantages is greater within their home region, but they also exploit them outside it. Furthermore, the results show that a firm’s foreign (outside the home country) and global sales (outside the home region) are higher, the greater the technology intensity of the industry in which they operate. These findings suggest that, although MNEs tend to operate regionally rather than globally, their strategic orientation is contingent upon firm- and industry-specific factors. Managers need to take the potential for globally exploiting R&D investments into account, even if it may not be equally successful within and outside the home region, and may be constrained by a number of inter-regional barriers.     

Global operations strategy: Coordinating manufacturing networks

This paper presents a concept that describes how companies can manage their international operations so as to facilitate the coordination of their manufacturing networks. The research presented originates from a model that was developed at the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson in the mid-1990s, but has since then been further elaborated. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is to show how Ericsson Radio Systems incorporated the recent research on manufacturing networks found in literature in their global operations strategy, and to present the conceptual model that was the result of these efforts. The conceptual model described in this paper focuses on the blending of cost competitiveness, flexibility, and innovativeness; a combination termed the “transnational solution” in the literature. In addition to a literature review on manufacturing networks and global operations and the proposed conceptual model, the paper also contains a case illustration showing how Ericsson has implemented a version of the conceptual model so that their global operations strategy realizes the transnational solution.     

Transnational Board Interlocks as a Source of Non‐experiential Knowledge for the Firm in Foreign Markets

Board interlocks between firms headquartered in different countries are increasing. We contribute to the understanding of this practice by investigating the transnational interlocks formed by the 100 largest British firms between 2011 and 2014. We explore the association between different attributes of a firm's internationalization process, namely performance, structural and attitudinal, and the extent of the firm's engagement in transnational interlocks. We posit that the value of transnational interlocks as a non‐experiential source of knowledge will vary according to which of these three attributes becomes more prominent as the firm internationalizes. We do not find a significant relationship between the performance and structural attributes of internationalization, as measured by the firm's percentage of foreign sales and assets, respectively, and increased engagement in transnational interlocks. We do, however, find an inverted U‐shaped relationship between the attitudinal attribute of internationalization, represented by the psychic dispersion of the firm's foreign operations, and the firm's number of transnational interlocks. This non‐linear relationship reveals both a natural boundary for the firm's capacity to engage in transnational interlocks and a reduced willingness to engage in such ties once a certain degree of attitudinal internationalization has been reached.     

Local, regional, or global? Geographic orientation and relative financial performance of emerging market multinational enterprises

We extend the regional/global strategies literature by analyzing the relative performance of emerging market (EM) multinational enterprises (MNEs) based on their geographic orientation. We develop a framework showing that firms adopt three geographic orientations—local, regional, and global—and test our framework with the market penetration strategies (sales) of 701 MNEs from 28 EMs during 2000–2006. Our analysis shows that distinguishing among these three geographic segments is important, as not all of these geographic segments enhance firms’ financial performance relative to their industry: a combination of local and global orientations enhances while regional orientation reduces the relative financial performance of EM MNEs.     

不允许卖空下证券投资组合的区间二次规划问题

本文基于经典的Markowitz均值-方差模型,针对市场上不允许卖空的情况,提出了证券投资组合的区间二次规划模型,通过应用区间数排序方法(区间序关系、区间可能度和区间可接受度),给出了两种证券投资组合的区间非线性优化的数学转化模型,从而将不确定性证券投资组合模型转化为确定性的证券投资组合二次规划模型进行求解,并对由本文给出的三种求解方法与传统方法进行了比较。     

The international scale and scope of European multinationals

This study analyzes the international scale and scope of European multinational enterprises (MNEs). By using five widely used multinationality measures and the corresponding five measures for intra-regional activities, the results confirm that the European MNEs focus on their home region market rather than the global market. No evidence exists that European MNEs focus on global markets or were becoming geographically diversified during 2000–2006. Additionally, this study suggests that scale and entropy measures, which are based on sales and assets, are better than scope measures, which are based on country counts. Simple country and subsidiary counts wrongly guide researchers to conclude that the MNEs are more dispersed than they really are.     

Regional strategy and the demise of globalization

The controversy over globalization and its implications for strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs) would disappear if authors would look at the evidence. Both aggregate data and firm-level data indicate that globalization is a myth however defined. Instead, the world's business is mainly conducted within the triad economic blocks of the European Union (EU), North America, and Asia. MNEs perform internationally, but the vast majority has an average of 80% of their sales within their home region of the triad. Professors of international business need to refocus from global strategy towards new thinking about triad strategy.     

Regional integration and the regional risk paradox

How does regional economic integration affect the risk exposure of multinational enterprises (MNEs)? Investigating firm regionalization patterns, I uncover evidence of the regional risk paradox: as MNEs regionalize to exploit the lower risk environment offered by regional economic integration initiatives, they ultimately increase their regional risk exposure by deepening their commitment and embeddedness in regional business networks. Informed by the Theory of the Regional Multinationals and by theories of regional integration, I employ a social network lens to investigate the evolving structure of business relationships in regions governed by different regional integration frameworks. I then explore the implications of these evolving relationship network structures on the transformation of regional business risk. I find that moderately integrated regions lower transaction costs to moderately low levels, thus encouraging moderate MNE regionalization. This leads to moderate MNE embeddedness in loosely coupled regional business networks and a moderate increase in regional risk. By contrast, deeply integrated regions lower regional administrative distance to very low levels and encourage intense MNE regionalization. This leads to deep MNE embeddedness in tightly coupled regional business networks and a significant increase in regional risk.     

跨国公司在华独资倾向成因分析:基于股权结构战略的视角

经过20多年的对外开放 ,跨国公司在华企业得到了长足的发展。考察20多年来跨国公司在华企业的股权结构变动趋势 ,可以清晰地发现 ,其独资倾向日益明显。本文在借鉴国内外学者关于跨国公司股权结构战略的研究成果基础上 ,在东道国为新兴市场经济国家前提下 ,提出了一个跨国公司股权结构战略两阶段演进模型 ,揭示了跨国公司在华独资倾向增强的深层原因 ,是追求股权结构战略改进的预期收益。     

International Strategy and Knowledge Creation: The Advantage of Foreignness and Liability of Concentration

International business scholars increasingly emphasize regional strategies based on an optimal location of downstream sales. There has been less scholarly attention, however, to the relationship between international strategy and upstream knowledge creation including R&D. Building on contemporary strategic management theory and the knowledge‐based view we remedy this. The viability of home‐regional or bi‐regional strategies is based on common assumptions that imply negative consequences of distance and foreignness for downstream sales and marketing and benefits from agglomeration for upstream knowledge creation activities including R&D. In contrast, we propose that upstream knowledge creation, radical innovation in particular, rather gains from distance and foreignness and from being dispersed, suggesting the effectiveness of a global strategy. Based on the resource‐based view and recent research on the economics of strategic opportunities and competitive advantage, we provide theoretical explanations for this. We demonstrate how a global multinational corporation is uniquely equipped with knowledge extensity including heterogeneous social‐identity frames in multiple sub‐units. Thanks to arbitrage advantages between the sub‐units’ separate and often locally embedded knowledge, a global multinational corporation can address complex interdependences and interactions between knowledge sets required for knowledge creation. This suggests that maximum exploration capabilities are made possible by a global rather than a home‐regional or bi‐regional strategy.     

A Note on Return on Foreign Assets and Foreign Presence for UK Multinationals*

Within the context of the international business literature on multinationality and performance we develop new data on the foreign presence and performance of large UK multinational enterprises (MNEs). There are 32 UK MNEs for which we can obtain data on both their degree of multinationality (measured by the ratio of foreign to total (F/T) sales) and their performance. Here, in addition to the traditional overall performance of the firm, shown as return on total assets, we use new data on the return on foreign assets (ROFA). We conduct analytical work to show the positioning of the UK MNEs in the ROFA and F/T sales space and provide regression results showing a linear relationship between multinationality and performance, using the new ROFA metric.     

聚合制造与区域知识创新战略实施研究

本文研究聚合制造对区域知识创新战略三种构成维度的实施作用。提出区域创新环境演化目标模式,分析聚合制造对其目标模式选择和实施过程的作用;分析聚合制造的资源诱导功能,探讨其对区域知识资源配置优化的作用。从聚合制造对知识创新链的作用来分析其对区域知识创新共性路径的形成作用。     

最优交易策略问题的动态求解方法

资产配置包括资产在空间和时间上的配置。现代投资组合理论为资产在空间上的配置提供了比较完备的模型和应用框架,但是资产在时间上的配置问题,学者们的研究甚少。资产在时间上的配置的核心问题是在不同时间对不同资产做出合理的买进、持有和卖出决策,即交易策略设计。本文应用动态规划的原理,分别讨论了存在和不存在最大交易次数限制的情况下,基于总收益率最大的交易策略的求解算法,并利用香港股票市场的数据进行实例分析。本文提出的算法是关于交易的时间跨度和资产数量的多项式算法,计算量和存储空间不因二者的增大而过度增大,在解决大规模问题时也是非常有效的。     

Intra-regional sales,product diversity,and the performance of merchandising multinationals

This study examines the relationship between intra-regional sales, product diversity, and performance of 45 merchandising firms using data from 1997 to 2003. The interaction effects between product diversity and intra-regional sales on performance are explored, using a curvilinear relationship. The analysis integrates three main theories, namely the resource-based view, transaction costs, and organization learning theory. The models measuring a firm's performance by return on assets (ROA) and return on sales (ROS) show that at high levels of intra-regional sales, small levels of product diversity can generate greater return to a firm but high levels of product diversity may hurt a firm's performance. Higher levels of intra-regional sales tend to improve a firm's performance and enhance the impact of product diversity on performance.     

Asset Markets With Heterogeneous Information

This paper studies competitive equilibria of economies where assets are heterogeneous and traders have heterogeneous information about them. Markets are defined by a price and a procedure for clearing trades, and any asset can, in principle, be traded in any market. Buyers can use their information to impose acceptance rules which specify which assets they are willing to trade in each market. The set of markets where trade takes place is derived endogenously. The model can be applied to find conditions under which these economies feature fire sales, contagion, and flights to quality.     

产能有限的供应商主导的双渠道分销策略研究

在供应商产能有限的背景下,研究供应商的最优分配策略和双渠道分销的问题。根据期望利润最大化建立供应商渠道分配模型,依据纳什均衡确定供应商的最优定价、最优产能和最优分销策略。结果表明,在双渠道策略的情况下,供应商应该优先满足销售企业的销售量。若供应链的销售量恰好得到满足,供应商应该按最优产能生产。供应商的渠道选择与供应商产能、供应链各节点的盈利能力和生产成本有关。     

Stackelberg竞争下考虑消费者转移和平台差异的供应商运营策略

考虑消费者转移和平台差异对需求的影响,构建不同渠道结构和销售契约下的决策模型;基于水平和垂直Stackelberg博弈,获得8种情形下的最优决策。探究佣金率、平台差异和消费者转移率对均衡结果的影响,获得最优的销售契约和渠道配置策略。研究表明:代理模式可以降低产品的销售价格,提升销量;垄断市场中,平台更愿意采取转售模式,而供应商更偏好代理模式;竞争环境下,优势平台一定条件下总是更偏好转售模式,而竞争平台销售模式偏好随着佣金率逐渐变化;供应商的渠道选择与消费者转移量有关,当转移量较高时,供应商偏向双渠道结构,反之亦然。     

Antecedents and performance outcomes of global competence: An empirical investigation

We examine the role of commitment to supply chain management (CSCM) and information technology (IT) in the achievement of global competence (GC). Through an empirical examination of 667 manufacturing business units in the U.S., we confirm the importance of global competence using two objective measures of firm performance. We investigate the direct effects of CSCM and experience with IT on performance, in addition to their indirect effects through global competence. We show global competence to be linked directly to objective measures of sales, and indirectly to return on assets (ROA). Despite manufacturers’ hefty investments in IT, we find that experience with IT does not drive ROA directly, but only indirectly through global competence and sales.     

Recent books on HRD

Abstract

The growing potential and need for knowledge and information have had a profound impact on Korea as it strives to develop strategies for national human resource development (NHRD). Within Korea, one strategy for developing NHRD is through regional efforts. However, there is little research regarding regional HRD (RHRD), in spite of the importance of such a focus. This article explores directions and policy-making strategies for RHRD in Busan. 1 1 Busan is often written as Pusan in English, though Busan is preferred in Korea.      

基于产品相关性及研发创新下的销售方式偏好研究

针对零售商捆绑上游多个制造商产品的现状，考察了由两个制造商和一个零售商组成的供应链系统，制造商进行研发投资降低各自产品成本，零售商进行产品销售并选择分开销售还是捆绑销售。考虑制造商研发行为下，探究供应链成员对不同相关性产品销售方式的偏好。研究发现，（1）对于独立产品，系统成员不存在共同的偏好。（2）对于互补产品，并非"一绑就灵"，分开销售会成为系统成员的共同偏好，而非捆绑销售。（3）对于替代产品，并非不能捆绑，感知价值相差处于中间范围的低成本替代产品和感知价值相差较小的高成本替代产品均在捆绑销售下更有利可图。