Sequential International Joint-Ventures and the Option to Choose

The purpose of this study is to formalize the optimal choice of market entry strategy for an individual multinational enterprise (MNE) from a dynamic perspective. It is argued that incorporating a suitable treatment of irreversibility, uncertainty and flexibility related to a MNEs investment decision gives further insights to the expansion, dissolvement, and optimal timing of international joint ventures (IJVs). The evolutionary process of the value of the foreign direct investment can be interpreted as a compound complex chooser option. The results suggest that uncertainty, size of equity share and future investment/divestment opportunities play an important role when it comes to transit from export to the first phase of the foreign direct investment commitment. The paper underscores the importance of modeling the dynamics of market entry and helps to refine the application of real options in the alliance context by providing a closed-form solution in continuous time to valueForeign direct investment, multinational enterprise, sequential investments, entry mode, international joint venture, real options

The choice and timing of foreign market entry under uncertainty.

This papers considers the minimally required payoffs to different means of foreign direct investments (FDI), where the investment is irreversible and payoffs are uncertain. It is found that the critival profit level at which it is optimal to create a joint venture (JV) increases with (i) the share of the TNC in the JV, (ii) the uncertainty about the payoffs, and (iii) the difference in taxation between the TNC's government and the host country's government. Moreover, cooperative JVs will be formed sooner than non-cooperative JVs. Under non-cooperation, the optimal share of the MNE increases with uncertainty, and decreases with taxation. Under cooperation, the partners intend to minimize the share. The results obtained partially explain recent empirical findings on Chines JVs.Market entry; Investments; Investment; Optimal; Country; Cooperation;

Joint venture instability: a life cycle approach

Joint ventures represent one of the most fascinating developments in international business. In the last few decades, the rate of joint venture formation has accelerated dramatically. Nowadays joint ventures are much more widespread and occur in industries like telecommunications, biotechnology etc. At the same time, however, it must be noted that joint ventures are very unstable. In this paper we survey the phenomenon of joint venture instability. We draw on the relative recent theoretical literature on joint venture instability to provide a unified explanation of joint venture life-cycles, formation, as well as breakdown. Further, we do this for both research oriented, as well as production joint ventures.Joint ventures; formation; breakdown; synergy; moral hazard; learning

Export, Foreign Direct Investment, and Joint Ventures: Learning the Rival's Costs through Propinquity

We examine the role of cost uncertainty in a firm's choice between exporting and foreign investment in oligopolistic industry. We consider both foreign direct investment and an international joint venture, and allow country-specific and firm-specific cost uncertainty. Unlike exporting, either form of foreign investment exposes home and foreign firms to common country-specific cost shocks, implying a better knowledge of each other's country-specific shocks. Further, a joint venture allows the firms to learn each other's firm-specific cost. A firm's plant location decision depends on the interaction of these two effects, which depend on the type of competition and the substitutability of the firm's products.

A robust fuzzy possibilistic AHP approach for partner selection in international strategic alliance

The international strategic alliance is an inevitable solution for making competitive advantage and reducing the risk in today’s business environment. Partner selection is an important part in success of partnerships, and meanwhile it is a complicated decision because of various dimensions of the problem and inherent conflicts of stockholders. The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical approach to the problem of partner selection in international strategic alliances, which fulfills the gap between theories of inter-organizational relationships and quantitative models. Thus, a novel Robust Fuzzy Possibilistic AHP approach is proposed for combining the benefits of two complementary theories of inter-organizational relationships named, (1) Resource-based view, and (2) Transaction-cost theory and considering Fit theory as the perquisite of alliance success. The Robust Fuzzy Possibilistic AHP approach is a noveldevelopment of Interval-AHP technique employing robust formulation; aimed at handling the ambiguity of the problem and let the use of intervals as pairwise judgments. The proposed approach was compared with existing approaches, and the results show that it provides the best quality solutions in terms of minimum error degree. Moreover, the framework implemented in a case study and its applicability were discussed

The Dynamics of Research Joint Ventures: A Panel Data Analysis

The aim of this paper is to test the determinants of Research Joint Ventures’ (RJVs) group dynamics. We look at entry, exit and turbulence in RJVs that have been set up under the US National Cooperative Research Act, which allows for certain antitrust exemptions in order to stimulate firms to cooperate in R&D. Accounting for unobserved project characteristics and controlling for inter-RJV interactions and industry effects, the Tobit panel regressions show the importance of group and time features for an RJV’s evolution. We further identify an average RJV’s long-term equilibrium size and assess its determining factors. Ours is a first attempt to produce robust stylized facts about cooperational short- and long-term dynamics, an important but neglected dimension in research cooperations

Entrepreneurship and the Theory of Taxation

Taxation theory rarely takes entrepreneurship into consideration. We discuss how this omission affects conclusions derived from standard models of capital taxation when applied to entrepreneurial income. Some of the defining features of entrepreneurship often omitted by standard capital taxation theory are incorporated into the analysis. This includes the lack of a well-functioning external market for entrepreneurial effort, limited access to external capital and the complementarities between entrepreneurial effort, entrepre-neurial innovation and capital investment. Because of these constraints, the entrepreneurial project is tied to the individual owner-manager. Unlike the typical passive portfolio investor assumed in cost of capital models the entrepreneur is unable to decouple savings decisions from investment decisions, and due to the comple-mentarities in production makes a joint decision on the supply of effort and capital. The returns from success-ful entrepreneurial ventures thus cannot be readily divided into labor and capital income, in stark contrast to what is assumed in standard taxation theory. When unique attributes of entrepreneurship are taken into account, some major conclusions of capital taxation models no longer hold, including the neutrality of capital taxation in owner-managed firms. These results are particularly important for the Nordic system of dual taxation, the theoretical foundation of which relies on the ability to neatly separate capital income from the labor income of the self-employed.Capital Income Taxation; Dual Income Taxation; Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Institutions; Labor Supply; New Firm Creation; Optimal Factor Taxes; Taxation; Tax Policy

Implications of Technological Uncertainty on Firm Outsourcing Decisions

Outsourcing inherently considers what activity needs to reside within a given firm. The difficulty of exchanges between firms in the face of uncertainty affects where work on developing and producing new products is performed. Theory is developed and explored using a case study that explains firm sourcing decisions as a response to uncertainty within the context of industry structure and related transaction costs. Viewing outsourcing broadly results in a better delineation of outsourcing options. Implications for management research and practice are identified

Hybrid Modes of Organization. Alliances, Joint Ventures, Networks, and Other 'Strange' Animals

The central message conveyed in this chapter is that there is a whole class of economic organizations that contribute substantially to what Coase (1992) called "the institutional structure of production". These arrangements fall neither under pure market relationships nor within 'firm boundaries'. They have multiplied because they are viewed as efficient in dealing with knowledge-based activities, solving hold-up problems, and reducing contractual hazards. They have properties of their own that deserve theoretical attention and empirical investigation.Hybrids, Alliances, Joint Ventures, organization theory, transaction costs, incomplete contracts