Marc van Essen, Pursey P.M.A.R. Heugens, Patricio Duran, Sabrina F. Saleh, Steve Sauerwald, Hans van Oosterhout and En Xie
The purpose of this study is to investigate how concentrated owners add value to Asian firms. While prior research suggests that relational owners (i.e., business groups, top…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate how concentrated owners add value to Asian firms. While prior research suggests that relational owners (i.e., business groups, top management team, board, government, banks, families, and corporation) may help firms fill institutional voids, this study proposes that it is transactional owners (i.e., foreign and institutional investors) lacking this ability who contribute most to firm performance. As these owners frequently hail from contexts with well-developed corporate governance traditions, they tend to have experience with the design and implementation of such governance practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This study involves a meta-analysis covering 276 studies from 17 Asian countries.
Findings
This study shows that transactional owners impose effective governance practices such as separating the chief executive officer (CEO) and Chair roles and assuring board independence. These practices promote decisions benefiting all shareholders, such as preventing diversification and financial over-leveraging.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the comparative corporate governance literature by showing that implementing internal governance practices helps improve firm performance in Asia. It also contributes to the owner identity literature by opening the black box of how transactional and relational owners differentially affect firms’ strategic behavior. Overall, this study yields a more nuanced understanding of what transactional owners contribute to Asian firms.
Details
Keywords
Michael Carney, Marc Van Essen, Saul Estrin and Daniel Shapiro
The purpose of this paper is to examine two prominent perspectives on business group functioning, institutional void (IV) and entrenchment/exploitation (EE), that make different…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine two prominent perspectives on business group functioning, institutional void (IV) and entrenchment/exploitation (EE), that make different predictions about the effect of business group (BG) on the economy. The authors examine the effects of BG prevalence in an economy and its effect on macroeconomic outcomes including foreign direct inward and outward investment, innovation and development of the financial sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors build a unique database by extracting estimates of BG prevalence for multiple countries between 1978 and 2012 from the existing literature and use this to test conflicting predictions derived from the IV and EE perspectives, respectively.
Findings
The authors find no consistent evidence that BG prevalence diminishes over time with economic development as IVs diminish, which is predicted by the IV perspective. Instead, the long-term persistence of BGs in many countries appears to be more consistent with the EE perspective. However, this study also finds no support for the perspective that high levels of BG prevalence are negatively associated with country-level indicators and determinants of economic development and competitiveness, as suggested by that perspective.
Originality/value
The authors conclude that there is no robust support for either the IV or the EE perspective and highlight the need for more contextualized theorizing about the evolution of BGs.
Details
Keywords
Ettore Spadafora, Kwabena Aboah Addo, Tatiana Kostova, Makafui Kwame Kumodzie-Dussey, Ezekiel Leo, Valentina Marano and Marc van Essen
Despite agency theory and resource dependence theory suggesting that – albeit through different mechanisms – board independence positively influences firm internationalization…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite agency theory and resource dependence theory suggesting that – albeit through different mechanisms – board independence positively influences firm internationalization, empirical evidence on this relationship has been mixed and inconclusive. Based on this, the purpose of the present study is twofold: first, to analyze and synthesize the existing empirical literature and, second, to develop new theoretical insights on the effect of board independence on firm internationalization.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used advanced meta-analytic techniques that allowed them, first, to synthesize the existing empirical literature on the board independence–firm internationalization relationship and, second, to examine the effect of several contingencies on such relationship. This study relies on data from 87 primary studies (published and unpublished) carried out in multiple academic fields in the period 1998–2021 and covering 49 countries.
Findings
The results confirm the established agency and resource-dependence arguments, suggesting that higher board independence is associated with greater firm internationalization. Moreover, the results show that the focal relationship is moderated by home-country formal and informal institutional factors, and in particular, the legal protection of minority shareholders and family business legitimacy. The authors do not find evidence that CEO duality and board size moderate the focal relationship or that board independence has a stronger effect on breadth than on depth of internationalization.
Originality/value
This study lies at the intersection of the literatures on corporate governance and firm internationalization and on comparative corporate governance of the multinational firm, shedding further light on the role played by institutional environments in determining the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms.
Details
Keywords
The developments in the use of computer systems in libraries from 1966 to date have been great. This report, written to coincide with the twenty‐first anniversary of the…
Abstract
The developments in the use of computer systems in libraries from 1966 to date have been great. This report, written to coincide with the twenty‐first anniversary of the publication of Program, looks at some of these developments, in Britain, in North America, and in other countries. It traces the history of library automation from the early experimental systems through to the co‐operative systems, the locally developed systems, the mini‐ and microcomputer‐based and stand‐alone integrated systems that are available today.
Michael Day, Rachel Heery and Andy Powell
This paper reviews BIBLINK, an EC funded project that is attempting to create links between national bibliographic agencies and the publishers of electronic resources. The project…
Abstract
This paper reviews BIBLINK, an EC funded project that is attempting to create links between national bibliographic agencies and the publishers of electronic resources. The project focuses on the flow of information, primarily in the form of metadata, between publishers and national libraries. The paper argues that in the digital information environment, the role of national bibliographic agencies will become increasingly dependent upon the generation of electronic links between publishers and other agents in the bibliographic chain. Related work carried out by the Library of Congress with regard to its Electronic CIP Program is described. The core of the paper outlines studies produced by the BIBLINK project as background to the production of a demonstrator that will attempt to establish some of these links. This research includes studies of metadata formats in use and an investigation of the potential for format conversion, including an outline of the BIBLINK Core metadata elements and comments on their potential conversion into UNIMARC. BIBLINK studies on digital identifiers and authentication are also outlined.
Details
Keywords
VINE is a Very Informal Newsletter produced three times a year by the Information Officer for Library Automation and financed by the British Library Research & Development…
Abstract
VINE is a Very Informal Newsletter produced three times a year by the Information Officer for Library Automation and financed by the British Library Research & Development Department. It is issued free of charge on request to interested librarians, systems staff and library college lecturers. VINE'S objective is to provice an up‐to‐date picture of work being done in U.K. library automation which has not been reported elsewhere.
The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online…
Abstract
The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:
Union catalogues form the main instrument of interlending in the Netherlands. The most important ones are maintained by the Royal Library in The Hague, the Technical University at…
Abstract
Union catalogues form the main instrument of interlending in the Netherlands. The most important ones are maintained by the Royal Library in The Hague, the Technical University at Delft, and the Library of the Agricultural University at Wageningen. On‐line library automation will have an increasing impact on interlending, and the challenge is being met by these libraries by setting up an on‐line catalogue of serials, monographs and conference publications combined with an on‐line system for handling interlibrary loan requests developed by the Project for Integrated Catalogue Automation (PICA). The first phase — the serials system — came on‐line in May 1983, and it is hoped the monograph system will be in operation by early 1986.
Marc Eulerich, Anna Eulerich and Benjamin Fligge
This study examines the strategy–performance relationship within publicly traded German firms. Strategic management literature provides several strategic frameworks that offer…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the strategy–performance relationship within publicly traded German firms. Strategic management literature provides several strategic frameworks that offer guidance on promising strategies. However, given major changes, such as globalization, managers wonder whether strategic frameworks are still applicable.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employ principal component analysis (PCA) to measure competitive strategy and analyze a sample of 6,037 firm-years among 651 firms between 2000 and 2019.
Findings
While the authors find evidence for the existence of efficiency-based strategies, differentiation-based strategies and mixed strategies, only differentiation-based strategies are positively related to performance.
Originality/value
The study’s results contribute to the discourse on the strategy–performance relationship, as they provide insights into promising strategies that are of interest to researchers and practitioners. Further, the authors introduce a new measure of competitive strategy based on PCA.