مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد اثر دیفرانسیل فواصل نهادی بر استراتژی مالکیت

Multinational corporations (MNCs) determine an appropriate level of ownership (i.e. the extent of equity investment) in a foreign subsidiary by evaluating various critical strategic considerations, such as ownership control and resource commitments (Delios & Beamish, 1999; Taylor & Zou, 1998). Traditionally, transaction cost economics (TCE) researchers suggest that, the environmental uncertainty increases a foreign acquirer’s difficulty of searching, negotiating, and monitoring market transaction partners (Williamson, 1981). Increasing ownership control will reduce the transaction costs and thus improves governance efficiency (Brouthers & Hennart, 2007; Yang, 2015). However, examination of TCE was not fully carried out in some cases where a firm perceived host-home national differences as a high level of environmental uncertainty and opted for lower equity participation to diversify the investment risks in the unfamiliar market (Zhao, Luo, & Suh, 2004).

Seeking an alternative framework to analyze national differences, international business researchers suggest institutional theory as a promising perspective to advance entry strategy research (Brouthers & Hennart, 2007; Martin, 2014). Institutional theorists suggest institutions provide rules of the game that organizations ought to follow to gain legitimacy which is critical for their success and survival (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Suchman, 1995). Facing a large institutional distance, which refers to the differences in home-host countries’ institutional environments, a foreign acquirer potentially faces the threat of lacking legitimacy due to their unfamiliarity with the host market (Kostova, 1997; Xu & Shenkar, 2002). To overcome the legitimacy threat, a foreign acquirer presumably can benefit from the existing acquired firm’s legitimacy in the host market by sharing ownership with the acquired firm (Estrin, Ionascu, & Meyer, 2007; Xu & Shenkar, 2002). Some studies on advanced-market multinational corporations (AMNCs) render support for this legitimacy argument (Xu, Pan, & Beamish, 2004; Xu & Shenkar, 2002).

Outward investment of emerging market multinational corporations (EMNCs) provides a great opportunity for researchers to resolve the seeming paradox between the governance efficiency (i.e., high equity participation) considered in TCE and the legitimacy argument (i.e., low equity participation) discussed in institutional theory. Considering the institutional distance between EMNCs’ home and host markets, we posit that the aforementioned legitimacy argument is likely to be secondary to EMNCs’ governance efficiency concern for two contingencies. First, a low ownership position may not meet an EMNC’s special agenda for foreign expansion, such as seeking strategic assets (Luo & Tung, 2007) and escaping home market institutional constraints (Cuervo-Cazurra & Ramamurti, 2015). A dominant position to secure ownership control rather than a minority stake can bedesirable for EMNCs’ strategic concerns derived from their home market constraints (Brouthers & Hennart, 2007; Delios & Beamish, 1999). Second, some studies such as Ang, Benischke, & Doh (2015) highlight the multi-dimensional nature and differential effects of the institutional distance. Due to the explicit nature and unified enforcement of formal institutional rules, EMNCs may comprehend and comply with the formal institutions in the absence of a local partner’s assistance (Eden & Miller, 2004; Kostova & Zaheer, 1999).