Does business group affiliation help firms achieve superior performance during industrial downturns? An empirical examination

Does affiliation with a business group enhance a firm's performance? What is the potential effect of this affiliation especially in declining economic periods? The literature provides contradictory results on this proposition. In this study, the authors explore the role of business group affiliation as a firm-specific factor and its impact in different environments, adding to our understanding of the firm-growth phenomenon. The empirical context is a large sample of firms registered in the United Kingdom, drawn from the FAME database. The analysis provides evidence for significant impact of business group affiliations on firm growth, especially during adverse economic conditions. However, the business group–firm growth relationship is moderated by firm-specific characteristics (e.g. firm size), and group specific characteristics (e.g. type of ownership and country of origin). Regarding the latter, it is specifically revealed that the impact of group affiliation is not uniform across all countries, a possibility that has been ignored in the international business literature. Among its contributions, this research introduces a novel typology of firms in growing and declining industries. The proposed typology enables us to advance propositions with respect to varying trajectories of business affiliations for firms of different size and nationality/region of origin of business groups

Emerging themes in international business research

This study is motivated by two research questions: (1) Which recent contributions have been driving the research agenda in international business? (2) Which emerging themes in the literature are likely to set the stage for future work? To examine these questions, the study examined scholarly work in international business over the time period 1996–2006 in six leading international business journals (Journal of International Business Studies, Management International Review, Journal of World Business, International Marketing Review, Journal of International Marketing, and International Business Review). Next, a Delphi study of the most prolific authors in these journals over the same time period was conducted to delineate a future research agenda in international business. Addressing these two research questions provides us with a more complete understanding of the progress made to date in international business research, and provides a glimpse of the future. Journal of International Business Studies (2008) 39, 1220–1235. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400412