Jakob Müllner, Igor Filatotchev and Thomas Lindner
The purpose of this paper is to bridge the disciplinary divide between international finance and international business (IB) to realign academic research with business reality in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to bridge the disciplinary divide between international finance and international business (IB) to realign academic research with business reality in which strategy and finance align to determine firms’ success or failures.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors discuss theoretical differences between the fields of international finance and IB strategy that caused the fields to develop in isolation with little fertilization across disciplines. The authors review scarce interdisciplinary contributions between the fields. Finally, the authors identify complementarities that suggest fruitful avenues for future research.
Findings
The authors find a persistent disconnect between finance and strategy/IB literature that can be explained by fundamentally different aims and assumptions about the markets. While finance theory seeks to explain typical effects under functioning markets, strategy and IB theories focus inherently on exceptional effects and market inefficiencies.
Research limitations/implications
The fundamental theoretical differences that isolate finance and strategy/IB create avenues for interdisciplinary research that harness the complementarities of the two disciplines. These include strategic aspects of capital structure, internal capital market inefficiencies, corporate governance, capital market liability of foreignness and institutional aspects of financial management.
Practical implications
With this paper, the authors not only bring academic researchers in finance and strategy closer to corporate practice. The theoretical discussion also challenges the functional blind spots of practitioners and encourages more holistic decision-making.
Social implications
Challenging market functioning and recognizing market inefficiencies using strategy and IB foundations connects financial economics with non-market topics such as environment, society and governance or impact investing.
Originality/value
The value and originality of the paper come from the qualitative, epistemological approach to study and analyse the divide between international finance and strategy/IB scholarship.
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Jakob Müllner and Igor Filatotchev
In this chapter, the authors review emerging literature on multidimensional, information age-related phenomena across different disciplines to derive common themes and topics. The…
Abstract
In this chapter, the authors review emerging literature on multidimensional, information age-related phenomena across different disciplines to derive common themes and topics. The authors then proceed to analyse recent developments in these fields to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the most disruptive challenges for multinational companies (MNCs) competing in the modern information age. These challenges include more efficient peer-to-peer communication between stakeholders, crowd-organisation, globalisation of value chains and the need to organise knowledge resources. The aim of the chapter is not to review all age research, but to identify fundamental uncertainties for MNCs and discuss strategies of tackling such information age phenomena from an international business perspective.
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Visalakshy Sasikala, Venkataraman Sankaranarayanan, Deepak Dhayanithy and Geetha Mohan
This paper aims to critically examine how dual-listed multinational enterprises (MNEs) that are embedded across multiple national contexts interact with other actors to shape the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to critically examine how dual-listed multinational enterprises (MNEs) that are embedded across multiple national contexts interact with other actors to shape the diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) narrative, outcomes and the associated dynamics of social change in the mining industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use data from the publicly available sustainability reports of two global mining conglomerates with dual-listing structure, Rio Tinto and Anglo American, alongside prevalent DEI regulations in the UK, Australia and South Africa to understand how DEI discourse and practice and the corresponding role of key actors have evolved since 2015. The authors combine a case study approach with topic modelling and qualitative content analysis to critically analyse the linkage between actors’ stated posture and actions in their DEI field and their impact upon various exchange relationships within the mining industry exchange field over the period 2015–2021.
Findings
The analysis revealed three broad phases of evolution in the DEI involvement of the MNEs emphasizing on diversity, equality and inclusion, respectively. Both firms progressed at a different pace across the three phases highlighting the need for a systemic perspective when addressing DEI concerns.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the earliest to adopt an issue and exchange field perspective towards examining the complexity of DEI. Taking a critical performative stance, the authors argue that for improving convergence between MNEs’ DEI rhetoric and reality and to advance DEI in new ways organizations and policymakers must devise structural interventions in the DEI field that substantively impact MNEs’ industry exchange field relationships.