Mimicry, Knowledge Spillover and Expatriate Assignment Strategy in Overseas Subsidiaries

Based on neo-institutional theory and knowledge spillover, we argue that the probability of a firm assigning an expatriate manager to a foreign subsidiary is influenced by a combination of mimicry and knowledge spillover from any existing expatriate community in the foreign location. The expatriate community's influence is hypothesized to be weaker when the firm's ownership share in its foreign subsidiary is greater but stronger when the cultural distance between a firm's home country and the foreign host country is greater. Data on 95,156 foreign-invested manufacturing ventures in China is used to test these predictions. The findings show an inverted U-shaped relationship between the assignment of expatriates and the number of expatriates previously sent to the same location by prior foreign investors. This relationship is shown to be moderated by subsidiary ownership, but not by the cultural distance between the investor's home country and the host country. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Before Exit: Three Essays on Business Exit in Politically and Economically Adverse Environments

This dissertation re-conceptualizes the exit phenomenon in management research by focusing on what precedes exit in times of political and economic turbulence, when firms and entrepreneurs are forced to contemplate unwanted exit as they face multiple threats in their home country. The three essays of this thesis collectively highlight the inadequacy of theories that conceptualize exit as a sudden and complete cessation of activity by showing that exit is an adaptive process that unfolds over time, and across parts of given entities. The first essay contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial exit by exploring how entrepreneurs proactively respond to political and economic turmoil at home that threatens the continuation of their ventures. Relying on the accounts of 27 entrepreneurs, the study inductively reveals two adaptation mechanisms—temporal and partial—that revise the entrepreneur-venture relationship in the aftermath of traumatic events. The second essay adopts a longitudinal and comparative case analysis of 12 firms to explore how adversity at home influences firms’ internationalization paths. The study shows how firms sequentially replace resources, values, and opportunities no longer available in their home market with alternatives that they seek and find in foreign contexts. The essay contributes to the literatures on institutional arbitrage and relocation by revealing how firms identify complementary institutional contexts in international markets, and progressively transition to greener pastures. The third essay is a systematic review of the exit literatures in strategy, international business, and entrepreneurship. The review develops a framework to organize 90 articles that have been systematically coded, and outlines relevant decisions, actions, and processes that may precede exit. The analysis highlights the partiality and temporality of exit as focal dimensions for future research and theorizing on exit in various management disciplines

Outcome-based imitation in family firms’ international market entry decisions

This study examines the effects of family involvement on international market entry. Bridging theories of interorganizational imitation with the notion of socioemotional wealth protection, we argue that family-managed firms are more likely to act as “intuitive statisticians,” using the internationalization outcomes of industry peers to determine when to internationalize. An event history analysis of 2427 manufacturing firms supports this position. Family-managed firms’ likelihood to internationalize increases as prior entrants’ performance mean and variance increase. Ultimately, our study demonstrates that this imitation strategy enables family-managed firms to reduce risk and endure longer in broached international markets

Barriers to IT Exit

All organizational information systems will at some point in time be decommissioned. Yet, current IS research is predominantly focused on the adoption and implementation of an information system. It pays scarce attention to the final phase of a working IT system and the substantial theoretical implications of its decommissioning. This research in progress draws on the broader notion of ‘exit’ and ‘barriers to exit’ to position the decommissioning of working IT systems in a wider theoretical framework. It seeks to develop a sound conceptualization of IT exit and its barriers by analyzing the exit literature from related business disciplines. The conceptualization identifies IT exit as multi-phased longitudinal process with extensible transition points. This refined understanding will provide the basis for an impending empirical investigation that identifies specific IT-specific barriers to exit and their impact on individual phases in the IT exit journey. The steps of this forthcoming investigation are outlined

Imitation of Management Practices in Supply Networks: Relational and Environmental Effects

This study investigates the imitative use of management practices across a multitier supply network. Although imitation may take the form of any management practice, operationally, we focus on whether the buyer’s control practices used with first-tier suppliers results in similar control practices being used by these first-tier suppliers with the second-tier suppliers. Drawing on institutional theory, we identify relational context (i.e., affective commitment) and environmental context (i.e., environmental uncertainty) as two important factors influencing the extent to which such imitation takes place. Using unique survey data of vertically linked supply chain triads, we generally find support for the occurrence of imitation and more so in cases of high affective commitment. The results regarding environmental uncertainty further reveal selectivity in imitative behavior, calling attention to the level of deliberateness in imitation decisions in supply networks. Besides contributing to theory on imitative behaviors in the supply chain, this study also generates practical implications on the spread of management practices across multiple tiers

Imitation of management practices in supply networks : relational and environmental effects

This study investigates the imitative use of management practices across a multitier supply network. Although imitation may take the form of any management practice, operationally, we focus on whether the buyer's control practices used with first-tier suppliers results in similar control practices being used by these first-tier suppliers with the second-tier suppliers. Drawing on institutional theory, we identify relational context (i.e., affective commitment) and environmental context (i.e., environmental uncertainty) as two important factors influencing the extent to which such imitation takes place. Using unique survey data of vertically linked supply chain triads, we generally find support for the occurrence of imitation and more so in cases of high affective commitment. The results regarding environmental uncertainty further reveal selectivity in imitative behavior, calling attention to the level of deliberateness in imitation decisions in supply networks. Besides contributing to theory on imitative behaviors in the supply chain, this study also generates practical implications on the spread of management practices across multiple tiers

Keeping up with the neighbors : The role of cluster identity in internationalization

This paper explores the implications of the collective identity of a regional cluster on firms’ internationalization. Prior research has established the value of cluster “insidership” through access to knowledge and resources. Through a longitudinal study, we find that cluster identity, through distinct identity claims, provides imperatives and shapes the motivation of firms to internationalize. These imperatives, we argue, stem from cluster identity seen as defined features of regional collectives, extending reference theory to encompass the role of social cues from similar firms located geographically close. The imperatives are particularly salient in the early stages of firms’ internationalization, adding the role of cluster identity to explain the differences between inexperienced and experienced firms in internationalization. Keywords: Cluster identity; Internationalization; Multinational enterprise; Longitudinal study.acceptedVersio

조직 퇴출 의사결정에서의 경험 학습과 사회적 학습 영향에 관한 연구

학위논문 (석사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 경영학과 경영학전공, 2016. 8. 이경묵.This study examines how organizations private information obtained from performance feedback is moderated by social learning mechanisms. Building on inferential learning and market categorization literatures, my theory suggests that even when organizations experience multiple performance failures, they are not likely to exit the market when a substantial number of peers have entered the industry. On the contrary, they are more likely to exit the market when a relatively large number of peers have exited. The latter relationship is weakened when the average number of industries with which exiting peers engage is greater. This is because decision makers regard the exits of those who are involved in diverse categories as involuntary actions rather than signaling a negative market situation, and they rely less on such signals. I test my theory using longitudinal data on the exit decisions of 1,405 U.S. private venture capital firms from 1987 to 2014.INTRODUCTION 1 RESEARCH SETTING 9 Ecology of the Venture Capital industry 9 Firm Exit in the VC Industry 12 THEORY AND HYPOTHESES 14 Firm Exit 14 Performance Aspirations and Firm Exit 16 Inferential Strategy and Firm Exit 19 The Role of Multiple Category Membership as a Signal 25 METHODS 29 Data and Sample 29 Measures 29 Model Specification 35 RESULTS 37 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 41 REFERENCES 46 ABSTRACT IN KOREAN 59Maste

Red Queen competitive imitation in the U.K. mobile phone industry

This paper uses Red Queen competition theory to examine competitive imitation. We conceptualize imitative actions by a focal firm and its rivals along two dimensions: imitation scope, which describes the extent to which a firm imitates a wide range (as opposed to a narrow range) of new product technologies introduced by rivals; and imitation speed, namely the pace at which it imitates these technologies. We argue that focal firm imitation scope and imitation speed drive performance, as well as imitation scope and speed decisions by rivals, which in turn influence focal firm performance. We also argue that the impact of this self-reinforcing Red Queen process on firms’ actions and performance is contingent on levels of product technology heterogeneity—defined as the extent to which the industry has multiple designs, resulting in product variety. We test our hypotheses using imitative actions by mobile phone vendors and their sales performance in the U.K. from 1997 to 2008