Impact of ownership change on plant practice-performance dynamics: A longitudinal multiple case study

Abstract

Purpose

Ownership change has been an overlooked contingency factor in past plant level practice-performance studies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of ownership changes to practice-performance dynamics by longitudinally following the same 23 manufacturing sites from year 1993 to 2010.

Design/methodology/approach

Interview data of the made in Finland – study are used for presenting different paths of plant development in the long term. Both narratives and descriptive statistics are used to support the analysis.

Findings

The findings suggest that the benefits of long-term domestic ownership may in fact exceed the positive knowledge spill-over effects that derive from foreign acquisitions. Foreign acquirers seem to “cherry-pick” well-performing sites. Also it seems that the likelihood of inferior performance and plant shutdowns may increase due to foreign acquisitions.

Research limitations/implications

Due to the exploratory nature of the study the sample size did not allow for testing statistical significance of the results.

Originality/value

The exploratory findings of the study open new avenues of theory development for practice-performance studies, and corroborate research in other disciplines such as economics and corporate governance.

Citation

Hallavo, V., Toivanen, J., Kuula, M. and Putkiranta, A. (2016), "Impact of ownership change on plant practice-performance dynamics: A longitudinal multiple case study", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 23 No. 5, pp. 1363-1380. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-05-2014-0049