Papers by Jean-francois Hennart
Strategic Management Journal, 1999
Foreign investors and their domestic joint venture partners must find ways to share the benefits ... more Foreign investors and their domestic joint venture partners must find ways to share the benefits of the venture if both sides are to be satisfied. Some work in the literature on joint ventures has asserted that there is a danger in all joint ventures, and especially joint ventures with ...
Journal of global mobility, Apr 21, 2023
PurposeThe authors revisit the literature on the use of expatriates and specifically Boyacigiller... more PurposeThe authors revisit the literature on the use of expatriates and specifically Boyacigiller (1990) and examine whether OW Bunker, a Danish bunker oil trader, filled positions at its foreign units with traders transferred from its other units (expatriates). The authors test the generalizability and robustness of past findings on this topic by using a different dependent variable, sample, and methodology.Design/methodology/approachBy searching the traders' LinkedIn profiles and consulting secondary sources, the authors obtain data on current and previous positions and work location and type of customer handled (global or local). Using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), the authors analyze 236 hiring decisions made between 1983 and 2014.FindingsThe authors find that OW transferred expatriates, principally home-country nationals, to handle global customers in its large foreign subsidiaries located in high-income countries. In another clear pattern, expatriates were used to start new foreign subsidiaries. These results generally confirm those of Boyacigiller. However, and contrary to her findings, none of our scenarios for internal transfers feature expatriates being sent to culturally and institutionally distant subsidiaries unless it is to serve global customers, casting doubt on the idea that a major reason for using expatriates is to remedy a local shortage of skills or to handle political risk.Originality/valueThe authors test the generalizability of Boyacigiller’s (1990) findings and confirm a large part of it. They extend her study by demonstrating that MNEs deploy expatriates not only to distant countries but also to close ones.
Emerald Group Publishing Limited eBooks, Oct 31, 2009
ABSTRACT Purpose – We investigate whether the partnership behavior of Japanese partners in joint ... more ABSTRACT Purpose – We investigate whether the partnership behavior of Japanese partners in joint ventures (JVs) with European partners in Europe is better explained by the Trojan Horse Hypothesis (THH) than by the cooperative specialization (CS) view. THH assumes that Japanese firms establish JVs to steal the knowledge of their partners and dissolve JVs as soon as they have achieved their goals. The CS view, however, argues that Japanese firms set up JVs to achieve CS and that these JVs will be long-lived.Methodology – We first derive implications of both the THH and the CS views for the longevity of JVs. We make a census of all two-partner Japanese–European JVs manufacturing in Europe in 1987 and record their evolution to 1996. We count how many of these JVs have evolved in ways that are predicted by the THH and the CS view. We argue that a particular view is supported if the number of JVs following the predicted path is larger than the number of those following alternative paths.Findings – We find that the partnership behavior of Japanese firms is more consistent with a CS than with a THH view.Limitations – This is a conservative test of THH behavior since JVs can dissolve for other reasons than the knowledge-stealing behavior of their Japanese partners.Value of the Paper – This is, as far as we know, the only study that has investigated the evolution of the population of Japanese–European JVs in Europe and has derived implications for the validity of the THH and CS views of JVs.
Taylor & Francis eBooks, Feb 16, 2010
Información Comercial Española, ICE: Revista de economía, 1991
Springer eBooks, 1997
This paper discusses the use of binomial logit models by researchers trying to explain the choice... more This paper discusses the use of binomial logit models by researchers trying to explain the choice made by foreign direct investors between entering a foreign market with wholly-owned subsidiaries or with joint ventures. The paper first discusses the theory of the optimal level of equity stake a parent should take in its foreign affiliates. I then critically examine the methodology chosen by researchers attempting to test this theory, and specifically the use of binomial logit models, the operationalization of the dependent variable as a categorical variable, and the data collection techniques. The paper then examines the practical problems and limitations faced in conducting such research, “using my 1991 Management Science study” of the ownership policies of Japanese foreign direct investors in the United States as an example. I conclude by suggesting areas for future research.
Journal of Management Studies, Nov 1, 2006
Bell et al. (2006) express dissatisfaction with academic research on alliances and suggest ways i... more Bell et al. (2006) express dissatisfaction with academic research on alliances and suggest ways in which it could be improved. While much of the literature has delved on alliance structure, they think it should analyse processes by which alliances evolve, what they call the dynamics of cooperation. Unfortunately, they find that this literature lacks coherence and is useless to managers. I agree with them that the present dynamics of cooperation literature leaves much to be desired, but I am pessimistic as to its chances of ever providing parsimonious and managerially useful theories. Re-visiting four cases of alliance evolution that have been featured in the dynamics of cooperation literature, I show that focusing instead on alliance structure, in the broad sense of the term, is likely to yield strong testable propositions and useful managerial prescriptions.
Journal of International Business Studies, Mar 1, 2002
*Shih-Fen S. Chen is Assistant Professor of International Marketing at Brandeis University. He re... more *Shih-Fen S. Chen is Assistant Professor of International Marketing at Brandeis University. He received his Ph.D. in international business from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include global branding, foreign investment and ...
Global Strategy Journal, Aug 1, 2012
and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requi... more and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.-Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research-You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain-You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright, please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
Management Science, Sep 1, 1993
Yonsei Business Review, Dec 1, 2004
Business firms, along with nation states, are crucial agents in today’s advanced economies. Trans... more Business firms, along with nation states, are crucial agents in today’s advanced economies. Transnational corporations (TNC) are business firms with activities in more than one nation state,1 and although they are but a small subset of all business firms, they play a dominant role in the world economy. According to UNCTAD (2009), there were some 82,000 TNCs in 2008 owning more than 800,000 foreign affiliates. Ten years earlier, their internal trade was estimated to already account for as much as three-quarters of world exports (UNCTAD, 1999: 232).
This paper uses principal-agent and transaction cost theories to analyze the concept of control i... more This paper uses principal-agent and transaction cost theories to analyze the concept of control in multinational enterprises. One of the main points is the distinction between methods of organization (the price system and hierarchy) and economic institutions (markets and firms), which use both methods of organization. I argue that the price system and hierarchy are substitutes, with the price system utilized in firms to overcome the basic flaws of hierarchy. This theoretical framework is then used to analyze some of the relationships studied in the organization theory literature of the MNE.
Research in global strategic management, Sep 23, 2005
We start by looking at the arguments put forth as to why having operations evenly spread in a lar... more We start by looking at the arguments put forth as to why having operations evenly spread in a large number of countries should make firms more profitable. Kim, Hwang, and Burgers (1993) argue, for example, that global market diversification, which they measure as the dispersion of a firm's business between seven global market areas, provides a series of advantages that should allow globally diversified firms to earn both higher return on assets and lower risk. Because their arguments are complex and multifaceted, I cite them in extenso.First, global market diversification offers possibilities for exploitation of economies of scale and scope above and beyond the potential of product diversification (Grant, Jammine, & Thomas, 1988). Second, the diversity of national markets exposes firms to multiple stimuli which provides [sic] with a broader learning opportunity and the ability to develop more diverse capabilities than are available to purely domestic firms…. Third, different nations have different factor endowments which, in the absence of efficient markets, lead to intercountry differences in factor costs. Global market diversification allows firms to gain cost advantages by configuring their value added chain in such a way that each link is located in the country which has the least cost for that link (Kogut, 1985a). Global market diversification thus provides firms with unique opportunities to increase returns by spreading its [sic] activities [emphasis in original] across multiple global market areas, rather than by choosing higher risk activities.At the same time, global market diversification endows firms with three unique options [emphasis in original] over domestic firms which are reasoned to reduce the level of corporate risk. First, global market diversification provides a firm with multiple national market bases from which it can retaliate against aggressive moves made by competitors (Hamel & Prahalad, 1985; Kim & Mauborgne, 1988). This option reduces the risk for the global firm of having to face aggressive challenges from its competitors. Second, the multiplicity of national markets allows firms to minimize the effect of adverse changes in a country's interest rates, wage rates, and commodity and raw material prices by providing the added option to more readily shift production and sourcing sites to other more favorable national markets (Kogut, 1983, 1985b; Porter, 1986). Finally, global market diversification releases firms from the mercy of supply and demand fluctuations of any one national market, smoothing the peaks and troughs of firms’ revenue streams. In sum, the spreading of activities across global market areas provides the firm with operational flexibilities that will serve to reduce earning and profit fluctuations. Taken together, the above discussions suggest that the unique opportunities and options of global market diversification may simultaneously increase firms’ returns and reduce their risk.” (Kim et al., 1993, pp. 276–277)
... with very short life cycles and for whom keeping technological options open is critical. ... ... more ... with very short life cycles and for whom keeping technological options open is critical. ... Towards a New Framework for Alliance Management 193 in-house a capability that can be ... joint ventures are so common in high-technology sectors (Teece, 1992), where managers are often ...
Journal of Banking and Finance, Nov 1, 2016
Using a gravity model, we analyze the determinants of the probability that commercial banks in 89... more Using a gravity model, we analyze the determinants of the probability that commercial banks in 89 acquiring countries and 118 target countries will undertake M&As over a 30-year period (1981-2010) and of the value of these M&As. We find that the value of cross-border M&As increases with the size of the acquiring country, and that both the probability and value of M&As vary positively with the depth of the financial market in acquirer countries and the presence of corporate and non-corporate customers from acquiring countries in target countries, and negatively with the geographic, psychic, and time zone distances between acquirer and target countries. Our study highlights the role of non-corporate customers and of psychic distance in the cross-border expansion of commercial banks through M&As.
International Business, 2001
Uploads
Papers by Jean-francois Hennart