What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

This book explores whether the world economy is breaking up into regional trading and currency blocs centred on the European Community, Japan and the United States. Frankel uses trade, investment and financial data to assess this issue. He concludes with an analysis of how trends in regional economic integration can be used as building blocks for a stronger multilateral system.

Regional Trading Blocs in the world economic system, reseñado por Antonio Ortiz-Mena L.N.

Globalization, Corporate Finance, and the Cost of Capital

In “Probing Theoretically into Central and Eastern Europe: Transactions, Resources, and Institutions,” we outlined the contributions of research in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to theoretical debates in business research. In this retrospective, we reflect upon the evolution of the field over the past decade. With the fading impact of CEE’s distinct shared history, we suggest that CEE best be analyzed as emerging economies, rather than as a distinct geographic entity. Emerging economy business research is converging on common themes and shared theoretical ideas, while identifying critical variations that constrain generalizations among and beyond emerging economies. This research thus highlights the need to develop a better understanding of the boundary conditions of scholarly theories of business knowledge. Over the past decade, the institution-based view has emerged from distinct intellectual traditions in institutional economics, organizational theory, and the analysis of business–government bargaining. Research in these converging lines of theorizing places contextual variations at the center of explanations of business phenomena around the world. We suggest that the institution-based view is evolving toward a paradigm, and offer suggestions on how to advance this research agenda further, in particular by exploring how firms engage with different sets of potentially conflicting institutions at multiple levels and locations.

/pdf/theoretical-foundations-of-emerging-economy-business-3r48fi98t8.pdf

Theoretical foundations of emerging economy business research

This article systematically reviews and critically examines 72 journal articles published (from 1980 to 2012) on the internationalization of family firms. Stemming from existing literature, core aspects and main gaps are identified. We aim to overcome the inconclusiveness of findings of previous research by offering an integrative theoretical model integrating the concept of socioemotional wealth with the revised Uppsala model. Our framework helps understand behaviors of internationalizing family firms by focusing on when and how they internationalize, especially related to risk attitudes, the role of knowledge and networks. Ultimately, we provide future research themes flowing from our suggested model.

The Internationalization of Family Firms: A Critical Review and Integrative Model

Do family firms benefit more from a regional or a global geographic scope? We suggest it depends on their family leadership type – family vs non-family leadership. We offer a nuanced view of agency and stewardship theories to hypothesize that family leaders are most beneficial when pursuing a regional strategy (i.e., high home-region focus (HRF)), whereas non-family leaders are more advantageous when pursing a global strategy (i.e., low HRF). Utilizing a sample of 202 Western European firms from 1996 to 2006, we find support for this central hypothesis. Thus family leadership influences the degree to which family firms benefit from HRF.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fjibs.2011.28.pdf

Home-region focus and performance of family firms: The role of family vs non-family leaders

We advance a dynamic institution-based view of the firm that extends the theory's current focus on scope of pro-market reforms (degree of market liberalization in a given year) to consider how speed of reforms (rate of market liberalization achieved over time) affects the performance of firms from transitioning economies. Utilizing a sample of public firms from Chinese provinces with varying reform speeds, we find that while scope of reforms positively impacts firm performance, speed of reforms detracts from firm performance. We further find that while family firms have an advantage in gradually reforming provinces, non-family firms have an advantage in rapidly reforming provinces. Thus, we extend the institution-based view across time (speed of reforms) and firms (family vs. non-family firms).

When do family firms have an advantage in transitioning economies? Toward a dynamic institution-based view

Despite the emerging consensus that most multinational enterprises (MNEs) are regional, systematic theory explaining regionalization is conspicuously absent, and empirical findings on its implications for MNE performance remain mixed. Drawing on internalization theory, we suggest that technological advantage and institutional diversity determine firms’ home-region orientation (HRO), and we posit a simultaneous relationship between HRO and performance. We apply insights from the firm heterogeneity literature of international trade to explain the influence of technology on HRO. We predict a negative and nonlinear impact of technological advantage on HRO driven by increasing returns logic, and a negative impact of institutional diversity on HRO driven by search and deliberation costs. We find empirical support for our model using simultaneous equations methodology on longitudinal data on Triad-based MNEs. Performance significantly reduces HRO, but HRO does not have a significant effect on performance.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fjibs.2012.33.pdf

Home-region orientation in international expansion strategies

We study the internationalization of digital service multinational enterprises (SMNCs), focusing on how digitalization alters internalization theory’s assumptions about the nature of firm-specific assets (FSAs) and the theory’s predictions about governance choices in cross-border transactions. We invoke Simon’s (Proc Am Philos Soc 106(6):467–482, 1962) near-decomposability concept to explain how digitalization enables two distinct types of FSAs – technology and human capital. Applying the ideas of modularity and skill complexity, we further distinguish between core versus peripheral technology FSAs and between generic versus advanced human capital FSAs. Building on the transferability and appropriability of these strategic assets, we theorize on the FSAs’ internalization propensity in the digital age. We propose that with rising digitalization, the network plays a dual role – as a governance mode and as a strategic resource. Integrating insights from network economics, particularly increasing returns to scale, we propose that network advantages (On) emerge as a distinct strategic resource that merits separate investigation from the traditional asset-based (Oa) and transaction-based (Ot) advantages.

/pdf/internalization-theory-for-the-digital-economy-p71tn5y2c8.pdf

Elitsa R. Banalieva

Papers

Home-region focus and performance of family firms: The role of family vs non-family leaders

When do family firms have an advantage in transitioning economies? Toward a dynamic institution-based view

Home-region orientation in international expansion strategies

Internalization theory for the digital economy

How do pro-market reforms impact firm profitability? The case of India under reform