Dissertationen zum Thema „International business enterprises – Public opinion“

Thesis (M.A.)--George Mason University, 2008.
Vita: p. 72. Thesis director: Tim Gibson. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Communication. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed July 18, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-71). Also issued in print.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which represent around 95% or more of the total number of enterprises in many countries, are often considered critical for a country's economy because of their effects on economic output and their contribution to overall employment. However, as a result of globalisation and the deregulation of the New Zealand economy, SMEs in this country have been faced with the need to internationalise in order to grow because of increased domestic competition. Moreover, when they make their move to offshore markets they also face fierce competition. Hence, it is in this largely integrated and competitive global marketplace that it becomes critical for smaller firms to learn about international business to succeed. Therefore, this thesis aimed to understand and explain how internationalising NZ SMEs learn and develop knowledge throughout their internationalisation process. To frame this problem an extensive review of the literature on internationalisation, organisational knowledge and organisational learning was conducted. This assessment revealed a gap related to the evolution of learning and knowledge in SMEs' internationalisation process. It also identified the incremental and born-global internationalisation types, two more common and distinctive internationalisation paths that SMEs follow. The literature described the several common forms of knowledge that played more or less critical roles in these firms' internationalisation. Furthermore, extant research also stated that experiential learning and other learning processes were important for the internationalisation of these firms but it did not delve into the development of these learning processes over time. Finally, the evaluation of the knowledge and learning literatures identified three most distinctive and important forms of knowledge that organisations develop as a result of several learning processes. Anchored on the research problem and the specific research questions, derived from the literature review, and framed by a post-positivist worldview, this study developed a methodology that combined theory building, process-based research and case studies to address the problem. More specifically, the methodology involved the selection of and collection of historical, or retrospective, data from eight cases, four incremental and four early-internationalising firms. The data collected through interviews and document analysis was examined using different process analysis techniques. This research has found that there were important differences in the incremental and early-internationalising firms' learning and knowledge during their creation. Furthermore, the early-internationalising firms identified and implemented an internationalisation strategy from the beginning. Thus, the knowledge about international markets and products acquired through congenital learning and their initial intention to offer their products offshore allowed the early-internationalising firms to expand internationally from their creation or soon after. In contrast, the incremental firms only decided to internationalise after they learned from their experience in their domestic market that they had a successful product that had international potential. Besides their initial internationalisation strategy, or lack of it, and knowledge, other factors, such as firm resources, product and industry characteristics and previous learning and knowledge, influenced these firms' subsequent internationalisation strategy, learning and knowledge. Publication associated with this thesis: Pellegrino, J. (2005) Organisational Learning Processes in Internationalising Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises: a Comparison between Traditional and Born-Global firms. Udevalla Symposium & McGill International Entrepreneurship Conference, Udevalla, Sweden, September 2005.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China is popular these days and this also applies to the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. China seems to be a promising market for pharmaceuticals with over 1.2 billion potential consumers. This huge number of people together with the outstanding economic performance attracted multinational pharmaceutical firms that were looking for a new market for their products. By the end of 1998, China had established over 1,500 pharmaceutical enterprises with foreign investment and 117 of which were invested by foreign pharmaceutical firms. Foreign pharmaceutical firms invested their capital and technology in what is likely to be developed as the world�s largest pharmaceutical market in the future with the expectation they will earn an excellent return in the longer term. When a firm decides to establish an overseas operation, it has to decide whether to pursue the venture alone or with a joint venture partner (Bell, 1996). For most manufacturers that want to invest abroad, the first-best entry strategy remains the sole venture (SV), and joint venture (JV) would be a second-best invest entry strategy (Root, 1994), because JV is inferior to SV which allows investing firms to maximise the returns on ownership-specific advantages (Caves, 1982) and to have full control over the business operations. Foreign pharmaceutical firms who invested in China during the period from 1980 to 1998 basically chose either a SV or JV entry mode, and over 84 percent of the foreign pharmaceutical firms chose a JV entry mode rather than a SV, even though foreign investors have been allowed to set up 100 percent solely foreign owned sole venture operations in China since the passage of �Law of the People�s Republic of China on Foreign Capital Enterprises� at the Fourth Session of the Sixth National People�s Congress on 12 April 1986. This research was designed to investigate why the large majority of pharmaceutical firms preferred the second-best entry mode for entering into the Chinese market. This research has incorporated in Root (1994), Mockler and Dologite�s (1997) conventional foreign market entry mode framework, and the relevance of Kumar and Subramaniam�s (1997) contingency entry mode framework is acknowledged. Fieldwork was mainly conducted in China by personal interviews as well as mail questionnaire surveys over a period of three months in 1999 and 44 companies participated in total. Using multiple indicators by means of logistic regression analysis to examine the effects of groups of factors on entry mode decision choice between SV and JV options. Seven groups of factors (independent variables) were examined: China environmental factors, China market factors, China production factors, parent firm�s home country/region factors, parent firm�s product factors, parent firm�s resource commitment factors, and parent firm�s decision task related factors. This research has found that the probability for establishing joint ventures with Chinese partner (s) is significantly and positively related to the importance of China environmental factors and market factors. Parent firm�s decision task related factors had a positive impact on firms� decision to choose a SV entry mode. Bivariate analyses have also discovered a number of individual variables that had significant impacts on firms� entry mode choice decisions. The research did not show sufficient evidence to support that China production factors,parent firm�s home country/region factors, parent firm�s product factors, and parent firm�s resource commitment factors had significant influences on foreign pharmaceutical firms� entry mode decisions, although the results showed expected directions of the relationships between the entry mode choice and independent variables. This research has contributed to the entry mode theory literature in the way of developing, as the result of the research in this thesis, an eclectic framework for better understanding of theories in choosing an entry mode between a sole venture and a joint venture in the context of foreign direct investment into the Chinese market, particularly it has discovered significant variables that affected the foreign pharmaceutical firms� FDI entry mode decisions into the Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturing industry during the period of 1980~1998. The framework can be used as a base by researchers to develop further the theories of foreign market entry strategies and to test its relevance in other industries or countries. This research has also extended its examinations to some other important issues in relations to foreign direct investment in China. They are the difference between early and late entrants, and between eastern and western firms on FDI entry mode decisions, foreign pharmaceutical firms� FDI decision formulation, FDI implementation, FDI performance evaluation, joint venture partner and operation location selections in China were also analysed and discussed in this thesis. Further research with larger sample size into the interrelationships among strategic FDI decision formulation, entry mode choice,strategy implementation and evaluation would be worthwhile to help understand the entire process of strategic FDI planning and implementation.

Japanese-style management and Japanese companies have been popular targets of management studies since the 1970s. Many studies have been devoted to the examination of Japanese companies in Japan. By comparison, less understanding has been achieved about how Japanese companies conduct business in their international operations and how famous Japanese management has been transferred to Japanese subsidiaries. This thesis contributes to an ongoing academic debate about the internationalization processes within Japanese multinational companies. The processes involved in interaction between the parent company and subsidiaries address the research question of how subsidiaries of Japanese multinational firms perceive the relationship with their parent companies. The parent-subsidiary relationship is conceptualized within the boundaries of communication and information exchange theory. The conceptual framework creates a tool for research inquiry into the parent-subsidiary relationship. The framework conceptualizes the relationship between facilitating factors and perceived parental influence. Access to the parent company, motivation to engage with the parent company, and ability to engage with the parent company are conceptualized as factors facilitating the parent-subsidiary relationship. National/country and organizational/industry characteristics are identified as attributes moderating the relationship. Information outflow, inflow, and intraflow are derived components of the parental influence. The study presented here is exploratory with findings based on two sequential comparative research stages. The Czech Republic and New Zealand, although different in terms of national and country characteristics, are argued as a suitable comparable base for conducting research within subsidiaries ofJapanese firms. In stage one, 18 Czech and 17 New Zealand subsidiaries of Japanese companies participated in a questionnaire survey. In stage two, 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted for case studies within Czech and New Zealand subsidiaries of six Japanese parent companies. The case studies provided further insights into the subsidiary-parent relationship. This research seeks contribution to the internationalization literature by offering a new useful framework for the examination of the parent-subsidiary link. The self-identity of Japanese subsidiaries was found to give meaning to the parental relationship as perceived by the subsidiary. This relationship was influenced by the subsidiary�s country location, the industry in which the subsidiary operates, and the presence of expatriate management in the subsidiary. This research also found significant commonalities among the perceptions of parental influence in all Japanese subsidiaries involved in the study. The observed commonalities indicate that Japanese companies might have moved away from the internationalization processes ascribed to them by previous academic research. The change triggered by collapse of stock markets in mid-1990s has resulted to a recent reduction of expatriate staff reported little parental guidance, independence, and the strong self-identification of subsidiaries with their local environment. Keywords Internationalization, Japanese Multinational Company, Subsidiary, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Information, Parent-Subsidiary Relationship

Thesis (PhD) -- University of Western Sydney, 2001.
"This thesis is submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Accounting, University of Western Sydney" Includes bibliographical references.

To make the most of emergent techno-economic innovations, countries around the world must constantly upgrade their physical infrastructure and infrastructure systems – more than ever now that the world is facing growing environmental constraints. Public policies that foster the transformation of established infrastructure sectors, and encourage the development of new ones, can help to speed up and direct these structural changes. But to be effective, these policies must take into account how the process of development of new sectors varies among different infrastructure sectors, how it varies with respect to other kinds of sector, and how it varies in different institutional contexts. In this work, I show how three new infrastructure sectors developed in Chile, a ‘Hierarchical Market Economy' characterised by the dominance of diversified business groups and subsidiaries of multinational enterprises, a segmented labour market, and a low-skills equilibrium. These three sectors are the ones that first started to build wind farms, solar PV systems, and anaerobic digesters in the country, and in the study I characterize three aspects of their development process: a) the economic changes that turned these new (to the country) kinds of infrastructure facilities into attractive entrepreneurial opportunities; b) the economic agents that discovered these opportunities and developed them into viable investment projects, and those that sponsored and procured finance to build these projects; and c) the means by which these economic agents became capable of undertaking the relatively novel activities that their entrepreneurial initiative demanded. The resulting rich description of new sectoral development processes in Hierarchical Market Economies helps to understand what makes these processes vary inter-sectorally, cross-sectorally, and cross-nationally.

The era of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) is so significant in the development of the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) as was the era of the Industrial Revolution in the development of the now More Developed countries (MDCs). It could be referred to as one of the major economic frontiers in the LDCs as is the computer frontier in the MDCs now. Naturally therefore, there are problems of distrust, fear of eventual crisis, uncertainty of the correct path and a pain in policy making. Coupled with the North/South delicate relationship, the MNC's (which mostly comes from the North) acceptability in LDCs (which are in the South) is of mixed feelings. In this paper therefore we shall explore some of the problems affecting the MNC/LDC relationship. Thus, among the questions to ponder on are what has been the impact, is it harmful or beneficial, do all MNCs have the same impact and how does each party interpret each impact? These ques~ tions often end up in accusations between MNCs and LDCs in general without devouring each other. But not without a loss of resources especially time and extra costs involved in speculations on each other as well as cushioning of uncertain events that one party suspects of the other.

This research evaluates the change observed during the implementation of an outsourced application development within a large defence organisation in Europe. Whereas most extant research focuses on the firm level or dyadic relations this research aims to uncover how different outcomes can be explained by attending to the micro-processes and specific mechanisms of work between purposive actors as they create the new service. The research was a longitudinal, six-year in-depth participant observation focused on the implementation of an HRM application carried out by six case organisations within a consortium formed to implement the service. The results of the field study are based on a grounded analysis from semi-structured interviews, focus groups, documents, and over 5,000 email communications involving a total of 62 stakeholders. A conceptual framework of neo-institutional theory, practice and power was used to analyse the process of change as the consortium worked together to deliver the outsourcing. The findings showed that political goals and behaviour influenced and shaped the outsourcing implementation and exposed the systemic nature of conflict within a constrained project context. The high conflict observed was shown to negatively influence success and supports the notion that strong contracting is only effective in stable contexts. It was also shown that tight control can negatively impact collaboration, by reducing adaptability, forcing vendors to take an inflexible posture. This type of behaviour was observed to increase power and conflict within the project and buyers reacted by increasing control and applying sanctions. This resulting in increased conflict and was a form of feedback loop. The findings also showed control in general is ineffective and can be overwhelmed in situations where there is high demand uncertainty. These observations add to the outsourcing and power/political literature by showing the central role of power and conflict and suggests the final configuration of an outsourcing is a negotiated order that may be at variance to the original objectives. Implications for practice: From a practical perspective, managers should think carefully before rushing into tight preventative contracts and consider the complexity of the demanded service and degree of completeness in their requirements. High uncertainty can lead to outsourcing failure, conflict within the implementation, and unmet expectations, unless specific mechanisms are in place to mitigate this. Furthermore, embedding new work processes and procedures to manage the service within the buying organisation is fundamental to how outsourcing actually works. Buyers and suppliers must pay attention to the design and implementation of processes and routines to manage effective delivery of the outsourced service.

As Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and social enterprises become drivers of economic growth, the nexus provides opportunities for new models of business to bring benefits to communities in developing countries. Recognising the complex dynamics and range of actors in this diverse and emerging sector, this study chooses to document the external influences, use and impact of ICT on social enterprises. The problem investigated is the potential gap between the rhetoric of the 'promise of e-business' versus the dynamics of enactment and impacts of ICT in practice in the social enterprise sector. The methodology consists of a mixed-method data collection strategy to triangulate data sources from a diverse cross-section of organisations in the social enterprise sector in Cambodia. These include a cross-sectional survey, interviews, observations, document analysis and review of artefacts. It is unclear whether the Cambodian social enterprise sector represents a unique case or is representative of other countries. Regardless, the rich dynamics of the sector and the current lack of understanding of ICT use by this sector in developing countries per se warrant such a study. It fills a significant gap in the field of ICT and development by providing an in-depth overview of the social enterprise sector in one developing country, which may also be applicable in other developing country contexts. The research maps the e-business status of Cambodian social enterprises along a continuum from precursor activity to fully integrated e-services. It finds that Cambodian social enterprises believe ICT adds value to their operation; however access to affordable and reliable local ICT resources is an important factor determining long-term uptake. It also shows that external support is seen as vital to the success of ICT uptake by social enterprises in Cambodia. Donors have the most significant influence on social enterprises' framing of ICT, whilst NGOs, associations and the private sector are also important institutional players in shaping understanding and uptake of ICT. The main contribution of the research is to identify the real development impact of ICT use by social enterprises by measuring the role of ICTs in achieving their goals. Its major finding is that social and business missions are inextricably linked within these organisations, so to measure one in isolation of the other denies the new paradigm that social enterprises present. The most active sub-sector explored that best reflects this unique value proposition is the emerging social outsourcing potential of the IT services sub-sector. The handicraft and processing sub-sectors have yet to fully engage and use ICT to their maximum benefit. The outlook for these sub-sectors is likely to require further support to best harness the potential that ICT can bring developing countries.

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Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Swinburne University of Technology, Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, 2000.
Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology 2001. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 348-367).

This study is concerned with the governance of global production networks, and examines the role of public and private actors as competing sources of production network governance. In recent years, the development of a set of global production networks approaches as a subfield within international political economy (IPE) scholarship has increasingly drawn scholarly attention to these qualitatively different and novel systems of production, which have emerged to manage and organise the trade and investment relationships between firms in functionally{u00AD}integrated but globally-distributed industries. While these approaches have provided a set of methodological tools for the analysis of the governance of globalised industries and have spawned numerous empirical studies, questions remain over how these governance processes can be theorised, especially whether production networks can be understood and explained as a set of private, inter-firm relationships to manage the functional integration between dispersed industries; or whether public actors (i.e. the state) can also act as a source of governance, and if so by what means. An impasse on this issue between two competing approaches - the global value chains (GVC) and global production networks (GPN) frameworks - has come to characterise this literature; and led many contributors to call for a 'second generation' of analysis that bridges this gap. This study contributes to these efforts by addressing the question of what respective roles public and private actors perform in production network governance, and what explains these roles. It makes such a contribution in two ways. First, it draws upon broader debates in IPE over the role of public and private actors under conditions of economic globalisation to develop a new framework for production networks analysis, which synthesises theoretical propositions from IPE debates with the empirical concerns of the production networks approaches to derive research questions and explanatory hypotheses concerning the role of public and private actors. Second, it applies and evaluates the explanatory purchase of this 'synthetic' framework in the case of steel production networks in the Asia-Pacific region, which integrate mineral suppliers in Australia, Brazil and Canada with steel producers in Japan, Korea and China. Through an analysis of three temporally-defined case studies on the evolution of governance arrangements in these networks from the 1950s to 2010, it draws two conclusions regarding the sources of production network governance. First, it argues the role of public and private actors can be explained as a result of the possession of 'specific advantages', which have allowed certain actors to exclude the interests of competing actors in determining governance outcomes; and second that actors' possession of such specific advantages are conditioned by institutional features of the firms and states in question. On the basis of these theoretical insights from broader IPE debates, and the empirical findings they help generate in the case of the Asia{u00AD}Pacific steel industry, the study argues that this proposed framework serves as a useful via media to navigate the current impasse between competing approaches to production networks analysis and to theorise the role of public and private actors in production network governance.

This dissertation has a twofold purpose: to get insight into the benefits to enterprises that come from internationalisation; and, to assess the impact of European Union (EU) internationalisation support programmes on wine sector micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To achieve this, a questionnaire was conducted to wine SMEs (42) which had access to internationalisation support programmes defined in the European Structural and Investment Funds 2014-2020, and an in-depth interview to a consultant to corroborate the findings. The results related to internationalisation strategies demonstrate that most of the companies have a positive experience with being active abroad earning the benefits identified by the literature: increased turnover, more stability, more innovation, among others. The truth is that most of the companies are conscious of the opportunities related with this type of strategy. However, at the same time, SMEs are also aware of the several challenges and their limitations. For instance, lack of adequate information regarding markets, lack of capital and the corporate business, like taxes and regulations, were the most identified ones. Difficulties that discourage most companies to increase or approach foreign markets. In this sense, public support can have a crucial role in assisting SMEs to engage in international strategies or develop them. The results have shown 9 out of 10 SMEs recognized that EU funds assisted them surpassing those barriers. The study gave valuable insight regarding the positive impact of public support, and at the same time possible improvements on how those supports can be more effective.
Esta dissertação tem um duplo propósito: obter informações sobre os benefícios para as empresas que advêm da internacionalização; e avaliar o impacto dos programas de apoio à internacionalização da União Europeia (UE) nas micro, pequenas e médias empresas (PMEs) do sector vitivinícola. Nesse sentido, foi realizado um questionário às PMEs do sector vitivinícola (42) que tiveram acesso aos programas de apoio à internacionalização definidos nos Fundos Europeus Estruturais e de Investimento 2014-2020, e uma entrevista a um consultor parar corroborar os resultados. Os resultados relacionados com a internacionalização demostram que a maioria das empresas possui uma experiência positiva de atuação no exterior, obtendo benefícios identificados pela literatura: aumento do volume de negócio, maior estabilidade, mais inovação, entre outros. A verdade é que a maioria das empresas está consciente das oportunidades inerentes a esse tipo de estratégia. No entanto, ao mesmo tempo, as PMEs também estão conscientes dos vários desafios e suas limitações. Por exemplo, a falta de informações adequadas sobre os mercados, a falta de capital e os elevados impostos e regulamentações foram as mais identificadas. Estas barreiras desencorajam naturalmente a aposta na estratégia de internacionalização. É nesse sentido que os fundos estruturais podem ter um papel crucial no apoio às PMEs. Os resultados mostram que 9 em cada 10 empresas consideraram os fundos europeus um recurso valioso para ultrapassar essas barreiras. Os resultados oriundos deste estudo contribuem com informação valiosa sobre o impacto positivo dos fundos europeus, e ao mesmo tempo, possíveis formas de os tornar mais eficazes.