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This study examines how the characteristics of innovation knowledge exchanged among affiliate firms affect the ownership strategies adopted for their foreign subsidiaries.

This study employs a cross-classified multilevel model to examine a sample of 185 Korean manufacturing affiliates derived from 49 Chaebols engaged in international diversification, along with their 1,110 foreign manufacturing subsidiaries.

While exploratory innovation knowledge exchange lowers the affiliate's level of ownership in its foreign subsidiary, exploitative innovation knowledge exchange rather increases the affiliate's level of ownership in its foreign subsidiary.

This study advances the literature on intrafirm knowledge exchange by highlighting it as a determinant of ownership strategies. The study further shows that the characteristics of knowledge exchanged at the affiliate level not only determine the ownership structure but also have the potential to shape the direction in which the subsidiary develops its competencies.

This study has practical implications for the managers of business group affiliates. The results suggest that managers should adapt their ownership strategies according to the type of knowledge exchanged at the affiliate level to achieve a balanced and synergistic effect on intraorganizational knowledge exchange.

Previous studies have extensively explored the performance implications related to knowledge exchange. However, there is a notable gap in understanding the mechanisms through which the value of knowledge transferred within an affiliate is realized. To address this gap, this study focuses on ownership strategy as a crucial factor and empirically examines how the characteristics of innovation knowledge exchanged among affiliate firms influence the ownership strategies adopted for their foreign subsidiaries. By investigating this relationship, this study provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics of knowledge exchange and its effect on ownership decisions within business group affiliates.

The purpose of this perspective paper is to answer the question of why some multinational corporations (MNCs) do not evolve and fail to avoid retrogression by natural selection in international business (IB) and to introduce eight papers selected for this special issue.

The authors conceptually discuss the reasons for MNC failure by illustrating key motivations behind foreign direct investment (FDI) undertaken by MNCs based on internalization theory, the OLI paradigm and the OILL (i.e. OLI plus the learning motivation) paradigm. Then, the authors develop an evolutionary perspective to explore the survival of the fittest in the global markets and the natural selection of MNCs.

The eight papers selected for this special issue expand the authors’ understanding of globalized organizations' challenges, evolution and decline as well as offering a distinct opportunity to reconsider diverse extant theories about MNCs by suggesting an extension that accounts for the rise of various globalized organizations particularly in and from emerging markets.

Despite increased numbers of MNCs, which struggle to survive and are faced with great risk of failure, the authors’ understanding of them still remains in infancy. While scholars have investigated diverse topics related to MNCs, existing studies have developed theories predominantly emphasizing MNC success. Thus, conventional theories in IB such as internalization theory and the OLI paradigm may not be sufficiently applicable to explain the phenomenon of MNC failure (i.e. MNC decline). Based on authors’ discussions, the authors believe this is an appropriate time to refine mainstream IB theories by concurrently considering both evolution and retrogression.

The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge sharing with external partners within the China context, demonstrating that paternalistic leadership combined with the resulting reciprocal relations between leaders and employees are accountable for knowledge transfer with external partners based on social exchange.

This study collected data at two time-points and obtained 391 usable observations for hypothesis testing using questionnaire surveys administered to the managers of major Chinese companies.

Empirical analysis of employees at major Chinese firms shows that paternalistic leadership may encourage perceived reciprocal support from employees that results in smooth knowledge sharing with outsiders in the form of voluntary helping behaviors.

This study expects that both scholars and practitioners will gain answers on how to best encourage employees into contributing toward relationships with external stakeholders within the China context. One valuable point in this study is demonstrating that Chinese firms’ benevolent leadership promotes human relationships and thereby long-term relationships with alliance partners, while their moral leadership promotes ethical trust between alliance partners. These factors may accordingly further increase knowledge sharing opportunities with external partners.

This study investigates the psychological adoption of technology in relation to employees' mental beliefs about using technology in their workplace, because it is necessary to investigate the direct and indirect effects of information systems (IS) on employees' work-related results that underpin creativity and engagement.

Using a cross-sectional design, data were collected from 153 human resource (HR) employees who used human resource information systems (HRIS) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia.

The results show that effective acceptance and adoption of an HRIS enables HR employees and management in SMEs to be creative, balanced and engaged. Facilitating conditions and task-technology fit positively affect the behavioral intention to accept and adopt an HRIS. Additionally, organizational citizenship behavior moderates the relationship between the behavioral intention to accept and adopt an HRIS and employee creativity.

This study significantly advances the fields of human resource management and IS by elucidating the factors influencing employees' adoption of technology. In an effort to address a research gap in existing research, it introduces a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, which precedes the psychological adoption process by individuals. Furthermore, it offers both empirical and theoretical insights into the interplay between technology adoption factors and their subsequent impact on work-related outcomes.

This study examines the impact of situational and stable animosities on quality evaluation and purchase intention while also testing the moderating effects of within- and cross-country cultural distance. It focuses on the case of the US THAAD missile defense system deployment in South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and investigates how the resulting Chinese consumers' animosity affects their quality evaluation of, and purchase intention toward, Korean cosmetics.

This study utilizes a quantitative approach based on a survey and structural equation modeling. The sample comprises 376 Chinese consumers from 19 Chinese regions.

The results indicate that both stable and situational animosities are negatively associated with purchase intention toward Korean cosmetics. However, their effects on quality evaluation are different. While stable animosity is negatively related to product quality evaluation, situational animosity has no such negative association. Finally, the cultural distance between Chinese regions and Korea strengthens the negative relationship between stable and situational animosities and purchase intention.

The study contributes by better unraveling the effects of stable and situational animosities on perceived product quality. The empirical context is unique because it allows the authors to investigate the relationship between Chinese antagonism toward the THAAD deployment in Korea and Chinese consumers' stable and situational animosities in terms of their quality evaluation of, and purchase intention toward, imported Korean cosmetics. Hence, this study contributes to the literature on consumer animosity by empirically testing the moderating effect of within- and cross-country cultural distance on the relationship between stable and situational animosities and purchase intention.

The study has relevant practical implications, notably for Korean exporters' marketing management and within- and cross-cultural management. The results suggest that countermeasures are needed because Chinese consumers' stable and situational animosities are negatively related to their purchase intention toward Korean cosmetics. Moreover, the findings provide the insight that when foreign firms export culture-sensitive products to a large, multicultural country, their managers should pay attention to within- and cross-cultural differences simultaneously.

Previous studies have shown that the effects of animosity on product evaluation and purchase intention differ depending on the animosity dimension, product type, country and the situation causing animosity, among others. However, the existing literature on animosity has neglected the reality that within-cultural differences in a single large emerging market are relevant to explaining the concept of animosity and its effect on the purchase intention toward culture-sensitive products. Furthermore, none of the animosity studies have touched on the important moderating role of within- and cross-cultural differences between a large and multicultural importing country and a brand's home country in this manner. Therefore, the study fills this gap by empirically examining whether different moderating effects of stable and situational animosities exist for a specific conflict situation caused by a military issue and investigates the causes of these different effects.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of technological diversification (TD) on enterprise innovation performance, meanwhile focusing on the moderating effects of various organizational slack (i.e. absorbed and unabsorbed slack) and ownership types (i.e. state-owned or privately-owned) in the context of Chinese listed firms.

This study formulates five hypotheses based on organization and agency theories. Our empirical analysis employs a fixed-effect regression estimator with a unique panel dataset of Chinese-listed manufacturing firms and 13,566 firm-year observations over 9 years from 2012 to 2020.

Our findings show that an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between TD and innovation performance, varying with different types of organizational slack and ownership. In state-owned enterprises (SOEs), unabsorbed slack negatively moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship; however, in privately-owned enterprises (POEs), this relationship is positively moderated. Although absorbed slack has negative moderating effects in both SOEs and POEs, its impact is only significant for POEs.

Our results imply that organizational slack has a contrasting impact on the relationship between TD and innovation performance when the type of ownership varies. Therefore, the managers that intend to achieve optimal innovation performance through TD should understand how organizational slack can be leveraged.

This study contributes to the existing literature by applying the relationship between TD and innovative performance to the transition economy, as well as examining the double-edged sword impact of state ownership on firm innovation performance.

This paper aims to investigate the multi-faceted impact of host country risks on the success of private participation in infrastructure projects. The authors make a distinction between exogenous and endogenous risks, differentiating those that are completely beyond the control of the firm from those in which firms might exert some degree of influence to reduce the negative repercussions.

Drawing on logistic regression analyses, the authors analyze a sample of 10,350 private participation in infrastructure projects in 126 countries from 1997 to 2014.

The authors find that higher levels of exogenous risk are associated with a lower probability of project success, whereas they find no significant effect for endogenous risk.

By pointing to this differential effect, this study makes a contribution to the current debate in the literature on private participation projects.

The objective of this paper is to determine whether international entry‐order strategies by Korean chaebols affect the exit of their foreign subsidiaries.

The sample consists of a set of 61 parent firms and their 500 foreign subsidiaries. The sample includes 27 Korean business groups, called chaebols, and spans 51 markets, during the period from 1999 to 2004. The study employs resource‐ and knowledge‐based views, and is based on the Cox's proportional hazard model.

This study leads to two main findings: in the context of Korean business groups, latecomers in international markets have greater survival rates than pioneers do because latecomers have stronger resource commitments; and, nonetheless, if chaebol pioneers have greater competitive advantages than chaebol latecomers, the pioneers' subsidiaries have better survival rates than do those of latecomers.

The analysis advances order‐of‐entry research by exploring the international order‐of‐entry strategies of chaebol multinationals and their impact on international exit and the interrelationship between the order‐of‐entry and core competencies of chaebol multinationals.

Through a literature review, we found four potential research topics that are rarely studied in the extant literature, i.e. the missing link between web site quality and flow, an integrative relationships between web site quality, flow, customer satisfaction, and relationship intention even though part of the integrative relationships have been investigated in the previous studies, those flow‐related consumer behaviors in C2C e‐marketplaces, and cross‐national studies on the flow‐related consumer behaviors in the East‐Asian domain. Thus, we attempted to explore the relationships between web site quality, flow, customer satisfaction, and relationship intention in Chinese and Korean C2C e‐marketplaces as well as their cross‐national similarities and differences.

In all, 212 Chinese and 219 Korean online shoppers were surveyed to conduct the above research agenda by structural equation modeling.

Web site quality had some effect on flow and satisfaction in both countries, but different results between the countries were found for the dimensions of web site quality. Flow has a positive impact on satisfaction, but the effect in China was greater than that in Korea. Both flow and satisfaction had a positive effect on relationship intention in the two countries.

There has been little research that addressed the above four research topics respectively or in combination. This study investigates the integrative model between web site quality and flow‐related consumer behaviors in C2C e‐marketplaces. The paper provides empirical evidence of online consumer behaviors in China and Korea, which will help global e‐commerce managers/practitioners in their development of strategies and tactics for the East‐Asian markets.

Foreign divestment of subsidiaries is a growing research field. The global increase in investments has led to more divestments. However, much about the processes and circumstances leading to foreign divestments (FDs) requires further investigation. This study aims to review and consolidate the existing literature on foreign divestment and identify avenues for future research.

This study performs a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of studies on FDs to highlight the traditional and emerging perspectives in the field. This work examines foreign divestment theories based on operations, human resources, finance and marketing business functions.

This study sets forth a basic foreign divestment framework and highlights potential research areas. Future studies should expand to emerging economies, explore complex relationships, distinguish foreign divestment types and identify the limits of various theories and perspectives.

This study discusses traditional theories such as economies of scale, portfolio adjustment, reverse eclectic, real options and transaction cost economies. This study also examines emerging perspectives: attention-based, behavioral, committedness, contingency, favoritism, flexibility, hysteresis, legitimation, network and resource-based views. This study uses traditional and emerging theories to explain foreign divestment decisions in different business functions.