Essays of strategic alliance portfolio configuration—Its performance properties, strategic antecedents and consequential effects on multinational firms' continuing foreign expansion

This dissertation focused on an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in today's global business environment—strategic alliance portfolio. Building on resource-based view, resource dependency theory and real options theory, this dissertation adopted a multi-dimensional perspective to examine the performance implications, strategic antecedents of alliance portfolio configuration, and its strategic effects on firms' decision-making on their continuing foreign expansion. The dissertation consisted of three interrelated essays, each of which dealt with a specific research question. In the first essay I applied a two-dimensional construct that embraces both alliance relations' and alliance partners' attributes to illustrate alliance portfolio configuration. Based on this framework, a longitudinal study was conducted attempting to explore the performance properties of alliance portfolio configuration. The results revealed that alliance diversity and partner diversity have different relative contributions to firms' economic performance. The relationship between alliance portfolio configuration and firm performance was shaped by degree of multinationality in a curvilinear pattern. The second essay attempted to identify the firm level driving forces of alliance portfolio configuration and how these forces interacting with firms' internationalization influence firms' strategic choices on alliance portfolio configuration. The empirical results indicated that past alliance experience, slack resource and firms' brand images are three critical determinants shaping alliance portfolios, but those shaping relationships are conditioned by firms' multinationality. The third essay primarily employed real options theory to build a conceptual framework, revealing how country-, alliance portfolio-, firm-, and industry level factors and their interactions influence firms' strategic decision-making on post-entry continuing expansion in foreign markets. The two empirical studies were resided in global hospitality and travel industries and use panel data to test the relevant theoretical models. Overall, the dissertation advanced and enriched the theoretical domain of alliance portfolio. It particularly shed valuable insights on three fundamental questions in the domain of alliance portfolio research, namely "if and how alliance portfolios contribute to firms' economic performance"; "what determines the appearance of alliance portfolios”; and "how alliance portfolios affect firms' strategic decision-making". This dissertation also extended the international business and strategic management research on service multinationals' foreign expansion and performance.

Managing International Hospitality

To understand today's hospitality industry, executives need to recognize its international dimension. In this, the first part of a two-part article on the international dimension of hospitality, the author considers the forces driving hospitality's internationalization, the advantages drawing foreign investment into the North American market, and the patterns of expansion of American firms in overseas markets. The article is excerpted from Introduction to Management in the Hospitality Industry, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1992.

Managing International Hospitality, Part II

The Spring 1992 issue of Hospitality Review featured Part I of this series on the impetus to internationalization of the hospitality industry, as well as the modes of overseas expansion by American firms. In Part 11, the author concludes with a look at the organization of overseas activities in their evolutionary stages and considers, as well, who some of the major international competitors to North American firms are in the international market and in North America. The article concludes with a brief consideration of opportunities for employment overseas.

The mediating effect of innovation on the relationship between corporate reputation and performance in U.S. firms

In recent years, corporate reputation has gained the attention of many scholars in the strategic management and related fields. There is a general consensus that higher corporate reputation is positively related to firm success or performance. However, the link is not always straightforward; as a result, it calls for researchers to dedicate their efforts to investigate the causes and effects of firm reputation and how it is related to performance. In this doctoral dissertation, innovation is suggested as a mediating variable in this relationship. Innovation is a critical factor for firm success and survival. Highly reputed firms are in a more advantageous position to attract critical resources for innovation such as human and financial capital. These firms face constant pressure from external stakeholders, e.g. the general public, or customers, to achieve and remain at high levels of innovativeness. As a result, firms are in constant search, internally or externally, for new technologies expanding their knowledge base. Consequently, these firms engage in firms acquisitions. In the dissertation, the author assesses the effects of domestic versus international acquisitions as well as related versus unrelated acquisitions on the level of innovativeness and performance. Building upon an established measure of firm-level degree of internationalization (DOI), the dissertation proposes a more detailed and enhanced measure for the firm's DOI. It is modeled as an interaction effect between corporate reputation and resources for innovation. More specifically, firms with higher levels of internationalization will have access to resources for innovation, i.e. human and financial capital, at a global scale. Additionally, the distance between firms and higher education institutions, i.e. universities, is considered as another interaction effect for the human capital attraction. The dissertation is built on two theoretical frameworks, the resource-based view of the firm and institutional theory. It studies 211 U.S. firms using a longitudinal panel data structure from 2006 to 2012. It utilizes a linear dynamic panel data estimation methodology for its hypotheses analyses. Results confirm the hypotheses proposed in the study.

Foreign-born CEOs, country-specific skills, selection, and strategic consequences

In this dissertation, I first suggest an extension of the managerial rents model and more specifically the managerial skills typology that it offers. Building on research in international business, I propose adding country-specific skills (CSS) to this typology in addition to firm-specific, industry-specific, and generic skills. I define CSS as managers' abilities that are applicable and specific to a particular national institutional context. Such skills are distinct from the other three types identified and are likely to influence managers' performance and the performance of their firms. So if CSS are distinct skills, what are the implications for strategy and international business research? In an attempt to respond to this question, I conduct two empirical essays in which I examine the implications of this refinement of the typology of managerial skills for CEO selection and firms' mergers and acquisitions (M&A;) strategy. In the first empirical essay, I puzzle at the fact that although CSS constitute a barrier to high-level executive mobility across countries, there have been a growing number of foreign-born CEOs being appointed across the globe. Why are these individuals being selected for the post of CEO? Using information on the appointment of foreign-born and national CEOs from 2005 to 2010 among global 500 companies, I show that internationalization pressures help explain their selection and that two types of firms are likely to appoint foreign leaders: highly internationalized firms and firms that are likely to internationalize. In the second empirical essay, I examine the strategic implications of country-specific skills. Employing the same sample as the one used in the first empirical essay, I demonstrate that given that their mindset is likely to be less focused on firms' home market, foreign-born CEOs may be prone to institute more changes in firms' cross-border M&A; strategy than their domestic counterparts. I also theorize on the moderating influence of CEOs' insiderness.

The survival and stock performance of emerging country firms in the United States

Many firms from emerging markets flocked to developed countries at high cost with hopes of acquiring strategic assets that are difficult to obtain in home countries. Adequate research has focused on the motivations and strategies of emerging country firms' (ECFs') internationalization, while limited studies have explored their survival in advanced economies years after their venturing abroad. Due to the imprinting effect of home country institutions that inhibit their development outside their home market, ECFs are inclined to hire executives with international background and affiliate to world-wide organizations for the purpose of linking up with the global market, embracing multiple perspectives for strategic decisions, and absorbing the knowledge of foreign markets. However, the effects of such orientation on survival are under limited exploration. Motivated by the discussion above, I explore ECFs' survival and stock performance in a developed country (U.S.). Applying population ecology, signaling theory and institutional theory, the dissertation investigates the characteristics of ECFs that survived in the developed country (U.S.), tests the impacts of global orientation on their survival, and examines how global-oriented activities (i.e. joining United Nations Global Compact) affect their stock performance. The dissertation is structured in the form of three empirical essays. The first essay explores and compares different characteristics of ECFs and developed country firms (DCFs) that managed to survive in the U.S. The second essay proposes the concept of global orientation, and tests its influences on ECFs' survival. Employing signaling theory and institutional theory, the third essay investigates stock market reactions to announcements of United Nation Global Compact (UNGC) participation. The dissertation serves to explore the survival of ECFs in the developed country (U.S.) by comparison with DCFs, enriching traditional theories by testing non-traditional arguments in the context of ECFs' foreign operation, and better informing practitioners operating ECFs about ways of surviving in developed countries and improving stockholders' confidence in their future growth.

What does board capital really bring to the table? Exploring the effect of directors' human and social capital on effective governance during international expansion

What constitutes effective corporate governance? Which director characteristics render boards effective at positively influencing firm-level performance outcomes? This dissertation examines these questions by taking a multilevel, multidisciplinary approach to corporate governance. I explore the individual-, team-, and firm- level factors that enable directors to serve effectively as strategic resources during international expansion. I argue that directors' international experience improves their ability to serve as effective strategic consultants and resource providers to firms during the complex internationalization process. However, unlike prior research, which tends to assume that directors with the potential to provide important resources uniformly do so, I acknowledge contextual factors (i.e. board cohesiveness, strategic relevance of directors' experience) that affect their propensity to actually influence outcomes. I explore these issues in three essays: one review essay and two empirical essays.^ In the first empirical essay, I integrate resource dependence theory with insights from social-psychological research to explore the influence of board capital on firms' cross-border M&A performance. Using a sample of cross-border M&As completed by S&P 500 firms from 2004-2009, I find evidence that directors' depth of international experience is associated with superior pre-deal outcomes. This suggests that boards' deep, market-specific knowledge is valuable during the target selection phase. I further find that directors' breadth of international experience is associated with superior post-deal performance, suggesting that these directors' global mindset helps firms in the post-M&A integration phase. I also find that these relationships are positively moderated by board cohesiveness, measured by boards' internal social ties.^ In the second empirical essay, I explore the boundary conditions of international board capital by examining how the characteristics of firms' internationalization strategy moderate the relationship between board capital and firm performance. Using a panel of 377 S&P 500 firms observed from 2004-2011, I find that boards' depth of international experience and social capital are more important during early stages of internationalization, when firms tend to lack market knowledge and legitimacy in the host markets. On the other hand, I find that breadth of international experience has a stronger relationship with performance when firms' have higher scope of internationalization, when information-processing demands are higher.^

Foreign Language Education in Colombia: A Qualitative Study of Escuela Nueva

Since 2004 the Colombian Ministry of Education has been implementing the Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo (PNB) with the goal of having bilingual high school graduates in English and Spanish by 2019. However, implementation of the PNB has been criticized by English Language Teaching (ELT) specialists in the country who say, among other things, that the PNB introduced a discourse associated exclusively with bilingualism in English and Spanish. This study analyzed interviews with 15 participants of a public school of the Colombian Escuela Nueva, a successful model of community-based education that has begun a process of internationalization, regarding the participants’ perceptions of foreign language education and the policies of the PNB. Six students, five teachers, and four administrators were each interviewed twice using semi-structured interviews. To offer a critique of the PNB, this study tried to determine to what extent the school implemented the elements of Responsible ELT, a model developed by the researcher incorporating the concepts of hegemony of English, critical language-policy research, and resistance in ELT. Findings included the following: (a) students and teachers saw English as the universal language whereas most administrators saw English imposed due to political and economic reasons; (b) some teachers misinterpreted the 1994 General Law of Education mandating the teaching of a foreign language as a law mandating English; and (c) some teachers and administrators saw the PNB’s adoption of competence standards based on the Common European Framework of Reference for languages as beneficial whereas others saw it as arbitrary. Conclusions derived from this study of this Escuela Nueva school were: (a) most participants found the goal of the PNB unrealistic; (b) most teachers and administrators saw the policies of the PNB as top-down policies without assessment or continuity; and (c) teachers and administrators mentioned a disarticulation between elementary and high school ELT policies that may be discouraging students in public schools from learning English. Thus, this study suggests that the policies of the PNB may be contributing to English becoming a gatekeeper for higher education and employment thereby becoming a tool for sustaining inequality in Colombia.

Resource, Strategies, Location Determinants, And Host Country Location Choice By Emerging Market Firms

The extant literature had studied the determinants of the firms’ location decisions with help of host country characteristics and distances between home and host countries. Firm resources and its internationalization strategies had found limited attention in this literature. To address this gap, the research question in this dissertation was whether and how firms’ resources and internationalization strategies impacted the international location decisions of emerging market firms. To explore the research question, data were hand-collected from Indian software firms on their location decisions taken between April 2000 and March 2009. To analyze the multi-level longitudinal dataset, hierarchical linear modeling was used. The results showed that the internationalization strategies, namely market-seeking or labor-seeking had direct impact on firms’ location decision. This direct relationship was moderated by firm resource which, in case of Indian software firms, was the appraisal at CMMI level-5. Indian software firms located in developed countries with a market-seeking strategy and in emerging markets with a labor-seeking strategy. However, software firms with resource such as CMMI level-5 appraisal, when in a labor-seeking mode, were more likely to locate in a developed country over emerging market than firms without the appraisal. Software firms with CMMI level-5 appraisal, when in market-seeking mode, were more likely to locate in a developed country over an emerging market than firms without the appraisal. It was concluded that the internationalization strategies and resources of companies predicted their location choices, over and above the variables studied in the theoretical field of location determinants.

Internacionalização de empresas e o fechamento do capital : um estudo sobre a deslistagem no mercado brasileiro

This work contributes to the finance literature proposing to analyze the relationship between the degree of internationalization of Brazilian companies and the likelihood of delisting. Therefore, even though the internationalization as a differential, in the formulation of hypotheses and analysis of the relationship between the variables dealt with concepts and theories within the Corporate Governance, which is already established in theory when it comes to delisting. First, with a view to the theory of internalization, which gives competitive advantages to the company due the adoption internationalization strategy and in parallel to the positive effects that this strategy generates on firms performance, it was formulated an hypothesis that the degree of internationalization would be adversely related to the probability of delisting, mainly due to such benefits generated to the organization. In turn, as an alternative hypothesis of the research, it proposed a positive relationship between these variables, based on agency theory, according to which internationalization would contribute to delisting by increasing geographical separation between shareholders and managers and, consequently, agency conflicts and the difficulty of monitoring. For the achievement of objectives, as well as being included economic and financial variables and GC, it was proposed the analysis of periods of crisis, as the events of recent past of the Brazilian economy. Starting from a base model initially developed by Pour and Lasfer (2013), which later, the proxies of internationalization and crisis have been added also contemplating adjustments to the Brazilian context. The data collected include the period from 2006 to 2014 and information on active and inactive companies at Bovespa. As results, it was found negative significance between the degree of internationalization and the delisting decision, confirming the first hypothesis of the research and stating that the benefits generated by internationalization in the company generate it spreads and results that reduce the probability of delisting. By analyzing the results of control variables was still possible to observe that, even internationalization reducing the likelihood of delisting, by particular aspects of corporate governance in Brazil, such as the high ownership concentration, the benefits it generates contribute to delisting. Regarding the analysis in crisis, the consequences of the crisis of the US subprime in general market were more relevant that the occurrence of itself, unlike the Brazilian internal crisis of 2014, which was statistically significant for the analyzed event. For future researches it is suggested the expansion of database and individual treatment of the reasons adopted by a company when delisting decision.

Programa de licenciatura internacional na Universidade Federal de Uberlândia : limites e possibilidades

This research is the result of research at the level of Master of the Graduate Program in Education of the Federal University of Uberlândia – PPGED/UFU, inserted in the line of research "State Policy and Management in Education." Its object of study International Degree Programme – PLI established officially in 2010, the Higher Education Personnel Improvement Coordination – Capes, in particular the PLI at UFU. The overall objective is to describe and analyze the implications, while limits and possibilities of its implementation in UFU in the 2010-2012 period, from the context of the internationalization of higher education and educational policies in this area. They were used as data collection instruments, bibliographical, documentary research and semi-structured interview applied to the former rector of the UFU, managers, engineers, teachers and students participating in the PLI/UFU 2010-2012. For the data analysis, the theoretical and political aspects influencing policies for teacher training, as well as the legal PLI documents were considered. As a result, on the one hand, it was found that the PLI, in the context of UFU, gives opportunity to the participants the possibility of holding courses abroad, contributes to their personal and cultural background. On the other hand, the PLI would not be, in fact, academically contributing to improve vocational training as its main objective, but rather, for what happened in Portugal over the three issues considered, it would have contributed to reaffirm, among the students, political will to not act as teachers in the context of basic education.

Efeitos da internacionalização no desvio da estrutura de capital alvo e na velocidade de ajuste

This dissertation investigates the effects of internationalization in two gaps related to the capital structure that have not been discussed by the Brazilian literature yet. To this, were developed two independent sections. The first examined what the effects of internationalization on the deviation from the target capital structure. The second examined what the effects of internationalization on speed of adjustment (SOA) of the capital structure. It used data from Brazil, multinational and domestic companies, from 2006 to 2014. The results of the first analysis indicate that internationalization helps reduce the difference between the target and the current debt. That is, to the extent that the level of internationalization increases; whether only export or a combination of export, assets and employees abroad, the gap between the current structure and the target structure decreases. This reduction is given as a function of internationalization as a consequence of the upstream effect of the upstream-downstream hypothesis. Thus, as the Market Timing theory, it can be seen as an opportunity for adjustment of the capital structure, and with the reduction of deviation, there is also a reduction in the cost of capital of the firm. The result of the second analysis indicates that internationalization is able to significantly increase the speed adjustment, ensuring for the multinational a faster adjustment of its capital structure. Exports increase the SOA in 9 to 23%. And when also kept active assets and employees abroad the increase is 8 to 20%. In terms of time, while domestic company takes more than three years to reduce half of the deviation that has, while multinacional companies take on average one and a half year to reduce the same proportion of the deviation. The validity of the upstream-downstream hypothesis for the effect of internationalization in SOA was confirmed by comparing the results for US companies. Thus, the phenomenon of internationalization increases SOA when companies are from less stable markets, such as Brazil; and it has a less significcative effect when companies are derived from more stable markets, because they already have a high speed of adjustmennt. In addition, the adequacy analysis of the estimators also showed the model pooled OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) presents the highest quality in predicting the SOA than the system GMM (Generalized Method of Moments). For future studies it is suggested to analyze the effect of international event, by itself, and to validate the hypothesis using samples of different markets and the use of other estimators.

La inspección veterinaria en frontera: implicaciones y responsabilidades legales del veterinario oficial en frontera

A global world. One World. The world globalization is the defining characteristic of the world today and that has encouraged major transformations in the international order since the mid-twentieth century. It is an unstoppable force for change that manifests itself in every aspect of life but more evident in the increasing internationalization and economic integration. However, globalization as a process in which markets, laws and policies are denationalized, tend to the interrelation of populations and individuals for a common good and is eroding the traditional distinction between domestic and foreign affairs. In a globalized world there is not control over economic forces and we are under an increased pressure to manage threats of globalization itself. For all sectors involved in food and agriculture, the trend towards internationalization national market is a source of flexibility and a wider range of options. As a direct consequence of this, the diets are changing and on the shelves of urban markets in the wide world you can find a growing range of products previously unknown from many countries...

What Does Board Capital Really Bring to the Table? Exploring the Effect of Directors’ Human and Social Capital on Effective Governance During International Expansion

What constitutes effective corporate governance? Which director characteristics render boards effective at positively influencing firm-level performance outcomes? This dissertation examines these questions by taking a multilevel, multidisciplinary approach to corporate governance. I explore the individual-, team-, and firm- level factors that enable directors to serve effectively as strategic resources during international expansion. I argue that directors’ international experience improves their ability to serve as effective strategic consultants and resource providers to firms during the complex internationalization process. However, unlike prior research, which tends to assume that directors with the potential to provide important resources uniformly do so, I acknowledge contextual factors (i.e. board cohesiveness, strategic relevance of directors’ experience) that affect their propensity to actually influence outcomes. I explore these issues in three essays: one review essay and two empirical essays. In the first empirical essay, I integrate resource dependence theory with insights from social-psychological research to explore the influence of board capital on firms’ cross-border M&A performance. Using a sample of cross-border M&As completed by S&P 500 firms from 2004-2009, I find evidence that directors’ depth of international experience is associated with superior pre-deal outcomes. This suggests that boards’ deep, market-specific knowledge is valuable during the target selection phase. I further find that directors’ breadth of international experience is associated with superior post-deal performance, suggesting that these directors’ global mindset helps firms in the post-M&A integration phase. I also find that these relationships are positively moderated by board cohesiveness, measured by boards’ internal social ties. In the second empirical essay, I explore the boundary conditions of international board capital by examining how the characteristics of firms’ internationalization strategy moderate the relationship between board capital and firm performance. Using a panel of 377 S&P 500 firms observed from 2004-2011, I find that boards’ depth of international experience and social capital are more important during early stages of internationalization, when firms tend to lack market knowledge and legitimacy in the host markets. On the other hand, I find that breadth of international experience has a stronger relationship with performance when firms’ have higher scope of internationalization, when information-processing demands are higher.

Euphoria in financial markets: how Indian companies generate value in their cross-border acquisitions

In this paper, we investigate the effect of euphoria on returns derived by Indian companies in their cross-border acquisitions. Cognitive legitimacy generated at the country level facilitated firms in deriving higher value from internationalization. In addition, overoptimism after the legitimacy-building event led to euphoria in financial markets and short-term abnormal returns. Hence we argue that the springboard effect created by legitimacy is short-lived, as euphoria fades away over time. Using cross-border and domestic acquisitions by Indian companies during 1999-2009, and controlling for fundamental factors, both financial and non-financial, we find support for our euphoria hypothesis. Because of overoptimism, Indian companies experienced short-term abnormal returns in their cross-border acquisitions in the few years following the legitimation process, but not in later years.