Journal of International Business Studies

We examine how legal creditor rights are related to debt financing and corporate investment over the business cycle. Using firm-level data from 40 countries, we find that creditor rights are associated with greater debt financing and investment during economic downturns, but creditor rights have a significantly smaller effect during expansions. The beneficial effects of creditor rights during recessions are stronger for firms that are more likely to have severe shareholder–bondholder agency problems. We also find that during recessions (relative to expansions) strong creditor rights are associated with a smaller decline in net capital flows. Our findings are consistent with credit market frictions increasing during recessions, and with stronger creditor rights decreasing the negative effects of these frictions. Overall, the results suggest that better creditor protection laws help moderate the decline in debt financing and investment during recessions.

Papers challenging institutionalized fields to change are rare, and those not extinguished by neglect are rarer. Shenkar understands his target audience. Those in that target community of IB scholars studying cultural distance's (CD) associations with foreign direct investment (FDI) might read this paper as relatively radical. Culture scholars sometimes interpret the discussion of cultural friction (CF) as competing with, even slighting by omission, their corpus of work on contact and interaction. Both readings are false, and forced comparison with two later papers reveals retrospective bias at work. It further reveals CF as a metaphor, not theory; it is not a research agenda “assigned to the field”, even if it becomes a personal project for the author. Rhetorical theory is the basis to compare the reasoning of appeals and emotion. The discussion considers whether academic change agents might consider more use of emotion. Bringing Shenkar into focus enriches our appreciation for its impressive craftsmanship as well as its scholarship. I discuss implications for “impact” as a concept currently stuck with looking for citation over substance, and offer suggestions for reviewers and editors to lower the barriers for impact.

This study analyzes the determinants of the performance of a sample of 153 TNCs in 6 light manufacturing industries in the 5 ASEAN countries. Firm profitability increased as the firm’s market share, advertising, and R&D intensity increased and as the market shares of the 2 largest firms in the industry and tariffs increased. Profitability decreased as the market share of the third largest firm in the industry increased, as import penetration increased, as the growth in the firm's sales increased, and as the number of home countries of the TNCs in the industry increased.

This paper assesses whether societal culture moderates the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational performance. Drawing on matched employer–employee data from 387 organizations and 7187 employees in 14 countries, our findings show a positive relationship between HRM practices combined in High-Performance Work Systems (HPWS) and organizational performance across societal cultures. Three dimensions of societal culture assessed (power distance, in-group collectivism, and institutional collectivism) did not moderate this relationship. Drawing on the Ability–Motivation–Opportunity (AMO) model, we further consider the effectiveness of three bundles of HRM practices (skill-enhancing, motivation-enhancing, and opportunity-enhancing practices). This analysis shows opportunity-enhancing practices (e.g., participative work design and decision-making) are less effective in high-power-distance cultures. Nevertheless, in markedly different countries we find combinations of complementary HPWS and bundles of AMO practices appear to outweigh the influence of societal culture and enhance organizational performance.

In spite of both positivistic and instrumental research, the reliability of measuring the degree of internationalization of a firm remains speculative. We collected data on nine attributes of seventy-four American manufacturing MNCs. Alpha, factor, and frequency analyses revealed a linear combination of five variables with a reliability coefficient of .79 as a measure of the degree of internationalization of a firm. We discuss the statistical and conceptual properties of the scale and their implications for content and construct validity.