Organizational Networking in UK Biotechnology Clusters

Differences in growth patterns between regional clusters are often attributed to the extent to which they benefit from agglomeration, defined as the advantages that derive from being proximately located with other companies and institutions in the same industry. Foremost among these supply‐side externalities are the knowledge ‘spillover’ effects that can result from firms interacting extensively in both horizontal (complementary equivalent firms) and vertical (value chain) directions. The paper presents evidence from two surveys, one national and one regionally based, of networking patterns in UK biotechnology, focusing on how firms engage with other small firms, with large pharmaceuticals, and with research centres, and how far these interactions are regional, national or international in character. It suggests that where companies do collaborate, there is a tendency for the intensity of activity to increase as the location of the partner moves from the local to the international space. We evaluate the obvious interpretation that local linkages may be satisfactory for idea generation and early product development, but that national and international connections are more important for manufacturing, marketing and distribution activities. However, we conclude that a broader set of largely industry factors account for the networking patterns – namely, the science‐technology base, research funding, firms' business models, and competitor strategies in evolving markets – and that these matter more to clustered UK biotechnology firms than the cluster itself. These findings suggest a rethinking of cluster policy and the theoretical basis for clusters.     

Neo-Marshallian Clusters and Global Networks: The Linkages of Media Firms in Central London

This paper examines the nature of the external linkages of firms in the media cluster of Central London, and draws implications for the competitive advantages that firms in clusters develop. The analysis suggests that although these firms are strongly embedded in the local cluster and rely heavily on resources and processes available locally, they also maintain linkages that extend well beyond the local cluster. We argue that firms need to identify a successful balance between localised sources of interaction and those residing at wider geographic areas, and to establish linkages at these different geographic scales in order for them to compete successfully.     

Clustering of small agro-processing firms in Indonesia

Small-scale industries in Indonesia provide more than 65% of total manufacturing employment. Sixty-three percent of small-scale firm employment is in firms that are clustered. A cluster is defined statistically in Indonesia as at least 20 firms in a village. For some agro-processing industries, such as bamboo plaiting, clustering does not involve interaction among firms; for others, notably the furniture industry, clustering firms make joint marketing efforts, subcontract each other, and share large orders. This article uses two recent case studies in the agro-processing sector—the furniture and the palm sugar industries—in Central Java. We argue that the target market of the industry (local or international) influences the nature of the contracts and other forms of interaction in the clusters. Targeting an international market requires formal contracts, more focus on marketing, and separate roles for finishing firms and subcontracting firms. Policy should be directed at enabling clusters to shift to the international market by improving contract enforcement regulations, vocational training, and providing opportunities for group lending.     

基于企业学习策略的集群持续创新机制及实证研究

由于集群网络的复杂性,集群创新机制的研究目前较为缺乏,有限的研究也往往假设集群企业具有同质性.本文提出,集群企业依据其在集群网络中的位置采用不同的学习策略,领导型企业更加侧重于探索式学习,跟随型企业更加侧重于利用式学习,两者的分工和异质性互动构成了集群持续创新的内在机理.本文在个体和企业层次双重学习研究的基础上,结合集群特有的组织条件,提出集群双重学习的机制,据此将集群企业进行分类,并建立集群中企业学习的理论模型,接着选取国内某地化工产业集群的236家企业作为样本,运用结构方程模型对集群中企业进行分类检验和比较研究.研究结果表明,集群中不同类型企业的学习策略存在差异,集群网络的作用是产生这一差异的可能原因;集群中不同类型企业的学习策略具有互补性,有利于企业间互动和集群的持续创新.     

跨国企业嵌入集群下链与链竞争动态网络模型分析

在产业集群背景下,跨国企业携技术领先优势进入集群,经历从竞争嵌入(斯坦伯格博弈)到融合均衡(古诺博弈)两阶段。基于此,本文研究集群原有供应链在跨国企业嵌入后,形成原供应链与新供应链之间相互竞争,以及最终达到集群整体网络动态均衡的变化过程,通过利用变分不等式和动态博弈方法,建立起考虑汇率下的链与链动态竞争网络模型,并给出相应的算法。通过实例发现,在第一阶段原有集群供应链能保持较高的消费者满意度,且市场占有率高于跨国企业供应链;在第二阶段,跨国企业供应链的市场占有率则反超。更重要的是,在第二阶段集群市场整体销量和整体利润总和均高于第一阶段。     

International venture capital research: From cross-country comparisons to crossing borders

Venture capital (VC) has become an international phenomenon, and VC firms are a specific kind of service firm whose characteristics have distinctive implications for international behaviour. There is now a disparate body of research on international aspects of VC across a number of disciplines comprising finance, economics, strategy, entrepreneurship, international business and economic geography. A novel aspect of this paper is that we review and synthesize this disparate literature. A number of research gaps and limitations in the theoretical and methodological approaches involved in previous studies are identified and suggestions made for further research. We show that the vast majority of the literature relates to cross-country comparisons; that is, macro-level comparisons of VC industries across different countries and micro-level comparisons of VC behaviour across countries. From our review of the literature, we argue that an under-researched area concerns the influence of institutional contexts, especially the role of social networks and cultures. Furthermore, our review of the literature indicates that there is a major research gap in relation to work dealing with the crossing of country borders by VC firms. We suggest that resource-based, capabilities, institutional and network theories may be offer insights to further our understanding of the behaviour of VC firms in this area.     

Randomization Tests Under an Approximate Symmetry Assumption

This paper develops a theory of randomization tests under an approximate symmetry assumption. Randomization tests provide a general means of constructing tests that control size in finite samples whenever the distribution of the observed data exhibits symmetry under the null hypothesis. Here, by exhibits symmetry we mean that the distribution remains invariant under a group of transformations. In this paper, we provide conditions under which the same construction can be used to construct tests that asymptotically control the probability of a false rejection whenever the distribution of the observed data exhibits approximate symmetry in the sense that the limiting distribution of a function of the data exhibits symmetry under the null hypothesis. An important application of this idea is in settings where the data may be grouped into a fixed number of “clusters” with a large number of observations within each cluster. In such settings, we show that the distribution of the observed data satisfies our approximate symmetry requirement under weak assumptions. In particular, our results allow for the clusters to be heterogeneous and also have dependence not only within each cluster, but also across clusters. This approach enjoys several advantages over other approaches in these settings.     

Proactive international strategies of cluster SMEs

In this conceptual paper, proactive international strategies of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the cluster context are discussed. The majority of cluster SMEs assume passive roles as network participants in the process of internationalisation. However, a smaller fraction adopts proactive strategies to foreign expansion acting as leaders of networks. SMEs as network leaders are embedded in the source clusters and dependent on local networks that provide them with complementary resources. We assert that this mutual dependence between a firm's resources and the development of industrial agglomeration should be reflected in the strategic options that SMEs adopt when going international. This paper contributes by synthesising and evaluating a comprehensive range of SME-strategic options and by proposing the proactive competitive strategies of SMEs in the international arena that are both feasible and effective. The feasibility of adopting a specific strategy means the suitability for this group of companies, considering their characteristics. The evaluation of the effectiveness of each strategy was performed according to the objectives of avoiding lock-in and of protecting and developing the core competencies embedded in cluster networks. We address the research gap in evaluating the outcomes of SME international strategies and in synthesising a comprehensive range of cluster SMEs' strategic options.     

International alliance commitment and performance of small and medium-size enterprises: The mediating role of process control

Improving alliance performance is a critical issue that both managers and researchers have attempted to resolve. Recently scholars have suggested that firms can use alliance commitment and process controls to improve alliance performance. Yet research has only found weak support for these direct effects. In this paper we examine the mediating role of process controls on the relationship between alliance commitment and alliance performance. When tested on samples of SMEs we find support for our theoretical predictions. We then discuss the managerial implications of using commitment and process controls in SME international alliances.     

The Role of Cluster Presence and Quality Certification in Internationalization and Performance of Offshore Service Providers

Offshore Service Providers (OSPs) have been a subject of research for several years now. However, there is little known about what drives the internationalization of OSPs. In this paper, we combine insights from economic geography and institutional view to investigate cluster presence and quality certification as the drivers of OSP internationalization and their performance. We hypothesize the facilitating role these two factors play in driving the performance of internationalized firms. We test our hypotheses using data from Indian software firms between 1992 and 2002. We find a positive effect of certification on OSP internationalization. Although certification contributes negatively to OSP performance, it positively moderates the performance effect of OSP internationalization. Cluster presence was found to drive OSP's overall performance, but has no effect on internationalization. Through our findings, we contribute towards the literature on OSP internationalization.     

Additive Manufacturing and Production Internationalization: An Internalization Perspective

Additive manufacturing (AM) has been touted as a transformative technology that alters the way production is organized across geographical and organizational boundaries, yet little is known what this means for firms' internationalization of production. In this paper, we take an internalization theory perspective to hypothesize how the adoption of AM technology influences a firm's propensity to have an international production subsidiary, the number of foreign production subsidiaries that it operates, and the number of countries in which it has foreign production subsidiaries. To test our hypotheses, we rely on European Patent Office data to identify firms with AM-related patents and match this information to firm-level data of international production subsidiary networks from Bureau Van Dijk. Using both propensity score matching and zero-inflated negative binomial regressions, we find that AM firms are more likely to have a foreign production subsidiary than non-AM firms and operate them in more countries. We find partial evidence that AM firms have more foreign production subsidiaries than non-AM firms, in particular as compared to comparable innovative firms.     

Internationalization from Central and Eastern Europe: A systematic literature review

Economic transition in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has led to a dramatic increase in CEE firms' participation in international markets. This applies to different types of firms – from large emerging market multinationals to small international new ventures. In this paper, we systematically review the research on CEE outward internationalization, which we define as internationalization of CEE-based firms in the form of exporting or FDI, and contribute to literature by providing a complete picture of the state of the art and outlining potential avenues for future research. We find that while the CEE region has been described as a fruitful ground for developing new and testing existing theories, it heavily loads on the latter. We suggest that greater reliance on theories and concepts from the field of entrepreneurship and a stronger focus on internationalization decision processes might further enrich our understanding of internationalization from CEE.     

FDI and Technology as Levering Factors of Competitiveness in Developing Countries

Technology creation and absorption are two relevant processes that affect the role that multinational enterprises (MNE) may play in the competitiveness improvement of the developing economies. The importance of internal factors in local contexts, the increasing integration in the industrial international value chain and the access of firms from these countries to diverse external learning sources, constitute a suitable framework for the analysis of competitiveness shift. In this paper, we study how the integration of firms from developing countries in sophisticated high-tech markets can be defined by the combined action of MNE and the ability for technology absorption and creation. Our empirical analysis with panel data shows how the different dimensions of internal and external factors affect international competitiveness in high-tech industries.     

Untangling the commonalities and differences between domestic cross-regional experience and international experience in shaping speed of internationalization

Prior studies have paid attention to the influence of domestic experience on internationalization, for which domestic experience primarily refers to the accumulation of internationalization knowledge from industrial peers or partners at home. We argue that the commonalities and differences between international experience and domestic cross-regional experience have not been fully incorporated in previous frameworks in the literature. Thus, in untangling the commonalities, we purposively differentiate domestic experience into two dimensions, i.e., repetition-based experience and diversity-based experience, to investigate the contingent role of making domestic cross-regional investments in shaping the relationship between international experience and the speed of internationalization. We expect that these two dimensions of domestic experience will moderate the relationship between international experience and the speed of internationalization in a different way. More specifically, repetition-based experience has a negative moderating effect while diversity-based experience has a positive moderating effect. Further, considering the differences between international investments and domestic investments, we expect that the joint impacts of international experience and domestic cross-regional experience on internationalization speed are contingent on whether firms have sufficient resources to support multiple learning or whether institutions between the home country and foreign country is similar enough for cross-context application. We expect that financial slack and institutional distance between prior foreign entries' country and the home country play significant three-way moderating roles in setting boundaries for the relationship between domestic experience and international experience. Based on the analysis of 302 Chinese publicly listed firms from 2001 to 2014, the dynamic panel data regression results support our hypotheses. Overall, our simultaneous consideration of commonalities and differences between domestic investments and international investments sheds light on how MNCs learn from both international and domestic investments to speed up their foreign expansions.     

Modelling the effects of institutional support and international knowledge on competitive capabilities and international performance: Evidence from an emerging economy

This paper explores the process through which institutional support initiatives contribute to the international performance of firms from the small open economy of Malaysia. We examine both direct and indirect causal effects of institutional support (informational, training, trade mobility and financial aid-related support) on internationalization. We develop a model to address how institutional support initiatives affect the performance of export-oriented or so-called born global firms. From a survey of 250 firms from Malaysia, an emerging Southeast Asian market, we find that government support initiatives do not have significant impacts on firm performance unless examined based on processes of government support initiatives, international knowledge, commitment, competitive capabilities, and international performance. Government support initiatives play a critical role in export-oriented firms from small open economies (SMOPECs) in emerging markets by contributing to a number of contextual deficits that determine the international performance of a firm. This study provides guidelines for policy makers and business owners on how institutional support can facilitate the accumulation of knowledge about international markets, enhance commitment to exports and help firms gain competitive capabilities in the export market for greater success in international markets.     

Enhancing the learning advantages of newness: The role of internal social capital in the international performance of young entrepreneurial firms

In this paper, we draw on social capital theory to explore the role of internal social exchanges in contributing to the international performance of young entrepreneurial firms. We argue that internal social capital embedded within young ventures helps them cultivate international learning effort pertaining to the effective alignment of resources and activities related to their international growth. The empirical analysis, based on a sample of 150 young internationalizing SMEs from India, demonstrates both direct and indirect effects of internal social capital on international performance. Whereas previous research focuses on the importance of social networks with external actors, our study emphasizes internal social capital linked to the underlying learning advantages of newness and opportunity capture and contributes to the literature on early and rapid internationalization.     

Distribution system choice in a service industry: An analysis of international insurance firms operating in the United States

Service firms play an increasingly important role in the global economy. However, the internationalization strategies of such firms, and especially their distribution system choices, have been underexplored in the international management literature. One specific service industry that has internationalized rapidly in recent years is the insurance industry. This paper examines the determinants and performance implications of the choice by international insurance firms between two rival distribution systems: direct writing and independent sales agents. Drawing on the transaction cost theory-based literature on resource commitment, control, and risk, we develop hypotheses on the determinants of the choice between these two distribution systems and on the performance implications of this choice for insurance firms. Analyzing a sample of 168 distribution entries into the United States by insurance firms from six foreign countries over the 1992–2000 period, we find that cultural distance has a U-shaped effect on the probability of direct writing, and that an insurer's intangible assets have a positive effect on this probability. We also find that the direct writing system performs better in terms of profitability, but that the independent agency system performs better in terms of market share growth.     

The Impact of Stakeholder Management on Corporate International Diversification

This article explores the relationship between stakeholder management and international diversification. We differentiate between strengths and concerns in stakeholder management to demonstrate the differential effects of the two aspects of stakeholder management. Previous research on stakeholder theory often focuses on the importance of stakeholder relations, trying to build a business case of relational capital that results from strong stakeholder management. Such a relational approach, however, overlooks the process of managing stakeholders, a process that allows firms with strengths in stakeholder management to develop an important capability of managing tensions. In this study, we argue that this capability, an inherent part of stakeholder management, can be critical when firms face increased complexity during the process of international diversification. We therefore propose that strengths in stakeholder management are positively related to international diversification, while concerns in stakeholder management are negatively related to international diversification. Using panel data for 169 US multinational firms over a 10‐year period, we find support that strengths in stakeholder management facilitate international diversification. We discuss the contributions of our findings to stakeholder theory and international business research.     

Liability of ecosystem integration and internationalisation of digital firms

The widespread emergence of digital firms has important implications for international business theory. In this paper, we argue that because of systematic cross-industry differences in the local ecosystems digital firms need to develop in foreign markets, they will face differential costs and challenges of what we term liability of ecosystem integration (LoEI). The nature of the LoEI differs from both traditional concepts of the liability of foreignness (LoF) and the liability of outsidership (LoO). Rather than reflecting the need to overcome economic or psychic distance by learning about the host country (as with LoF) or investing in relationship-specific knowledge (as with LoO), overcoming LoEI requires investments in catalysing the co-development of a local ecosystem involving users, complementors and institutional actors specific to each business. We show how the level of LoEI a firm faces depends on the characteristics of its industry and its business model along three dimensions: the level of integration with local users, complementors, and institutions. These characteristics impact both firm's success in internationalisation and the level of concentration in the global market.