Multinational Business Review

T. Chotigeat; Sebastien Kramer; C. S. Pyun

2004 Multinational Business Review

doi: 10.1108/1525383X200400001

Large French banks have restructured over the last two decades responding to the evolution of the French banking system, European union integration, and globalization. Using financial time‐series and cross‐sectional data of three major French banks (Societe Generale, BNP Paribas, and Credit Lyonnais) from 1993 to 1999, this paper analyzes their performance. Our findings indicate that the French banks’ performance (return on equity capital ratio) was influenced negatively by total assets, the efficiency ratio, the Tier‐1 capital ratio, and loan loss provisions, but not at all influenced by non‐interest income (contrary to our hypothesis). When the French banks were compared their global counterparts, common factors explaining the performance of these banks are efficiency and total assets in at least 3 of the 6 countries.

Joao Pedro Couto; Jose Cabral Vieira

2004 Multinational Business Review

doi: 10.1108/1525383X200400002

This paper examines the effect of national culture on the process of innovation and research and development activities in the subsidiaries of multinational companies. For this purpose, we use a sample of 222 subsidiaries for five European countries. The paper has drawn up two important findings. Firstly, cultural dimensions such as individualism, masculinity, power distance and uncertainty avoidance influence research and development activities of the subsidiaries. Secondly, the type of management model, defined according to the location of the parent company, influence the organization of the research and development activities.

Tao Gao

2004 Multinational Business Review

doi: 10.1108/1525383X200400003

This paper delves into the mechanism of the contingency framework for foreign entry mode decisions and identifies two essential tasks that jointly determine the outcome of the entry mode decision. It then recognizes a critical weakness in previous research pertaining to the comparison of entry modes along a key decision criterion, the degree of control. Existing studies generally treat equity involvement as the only source of entrant control, while largely ignoring non‐equity sources of control (i.e., bargaining power and trust). Non‐equity sources of control, when underutilized, amount to missed opportunities, increased resource commitments, and heightened risk exposures in foreign markets. Drawing from a pluralism perspective in transaction and relationship governance, the author presents a more integrative method for the ranking of entry modes along the degree of control. The central message is that companies entering foreign markets should make an earnest effort to identify trust and bargaining power situations and fully utilize their control potential in making entry mode decisions.

Nitish Singh; Olivier Furrer; Massimiliano Ostinelli

2004 Multinational Business Review

doi: 10.1108/1525383X200400004

With the growth of worldwide e‐commerce, companies are increasingly targeting foreign online consumers. However, there is a dearth of evidence as to whether global consumers prefer to browse and buy from standardized global web sites or web sites adapted to their local cultures. This study provides evidence from five different countries as to whether global consumers prefer local web content or standardized web content. The study also measures how the degree of cultural adaptation on the web affects consumer perception of site effectiveness.

Douglas E. Thomas; Lorraine Eden

2004 Multinational Business Review

doi: 10.1108/1525383X200400005

Previous theoretical explanations and empirical analyses of the multinationality‐performance relationship have produced mixed arguments and results. Linear and inverted U‐shaped relationships have been theorized and confirmed empirically. Recent research has theorized that there is a three‐stage, sigmoid relationship between multinationality and performance. We contribute to the debate by showing that the impact of multinationality depends on the time dimension incorporated in the performance measure; that is, the net benefits from multinationality are likely to be higher in the longer term. The results from our sample of US manufacturing multinationals indicate that there is a three‐stage, sigmoid multinationality‐performance relationship.

Jim Meteer; Larry Hummel; Frank Wicks; Thomas Nolan

2004 Multinational Business Review

doi: 10.1108/1525383X200400006

Executives of a multinational company were looking for ways to spread improvements made at one location to other locations throughout the world. Their initial approach of sharing examples and case studies had proven ineffective. In addition, the localized improvements were having little impact on the worldwide corporate business measures. The principles of quality management and change management added little insight. Frustration with their lack of success had given way to an interest in an approach developed by the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI) for the health care industry (Kilo, 1998). The concept of an “improvement collaborative” provided the framework for developing their global improvement initiatives.