British Journal of Management

Publisher:: Wiley
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 1045-3172

Issue Number

No. 34-4, October 2023

Latest documents

Internally‐Assessed Bank Capital Requirements and Loan Portfolio Spreads
How the choice of more risk‐sensitive capital requirements by some banks influences average borrowing costs for their customers remains an open question. By exploiting cross‐country manually collected capital requirement data, we find higher portfolio loan spreads in banks that compute a larger share of these requirements for the loan portfolio through internal rating‐based (IRB) models. This result is driven by larger IRB adopters operating in credit markets with low competition from banks computing capital requirements with the less risk‐sensitive standardized models, by IRB adopters in credit markets where borrowers have more limited funding opportunities, and by IRB adopters in markets characterized by lower levels of political connectedness. Our results contrast with theoretical predictions suggesting that the heterogeneity in risk weights induced by IRB models should reduce average borrowing costs for bank customers. Instead, we show that IRB adopters do not fully incorporate the decrease in capital requirements obtained with these models into their pricing policies when competitive and political pressures are low.
The Context Sensitivity of International Entrepreneurial Orientation and the Role of Process and Product Innovation Capabilities
Drawing on a contingency perspective of the resource‐based view of the firm, we test the thesis that a relationship between international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) and the international performance of export‐manufacturing firms is context‐sensitive and contingent on innovation capabilities. Using time‐lagged survey data from 369 Bangladeshi export‐manufacturing firms in a least developed country (LDC) as an extreme empirical context, we predict that process and product innovation capabilities are essential to the relationship between IEO and international performance among export‐manufacturing firms. We find that the effect of IEO on international performance is not positive; however, the relationship becomes positive when moderated by process and product innovation capabilities. International entrepreneurial firms in an LDC succeed when they can better align IEO‐driven efforts with these capabilities. Our study advances knowledge on the context sensitivity of IEO and embellishes a resource‐based theory of IEO.
Market Capacity, Information Exchange and Imperfect Matching: Evidence from the Chinese Venture Capital Market
This paper examines imperfect matching between venture capital (VC) firms and entrepreneurial firms in the VC market. We find an anomaly of imperfect matching evidenced by an inflection point of the matching structure in the Chinese VC market. When the market capacity is within a specific critical range, the greater the market capacity, the greater the degree of matching; when the market capacity exceeds a certain critical point, the greater the market capacity, the smaller the degree of matching. We further show that the degree of efficient information exchange in the VC market provides a powerful explanation for this anomaly. Our findings advance the research on matching structures at the market level, explain imperfect matching in the Chinese VC market from a unique angle and provide valuable policy implications for the development of VC markets.
New Product Development Process Execution, Integration Mechanisms, Capabilities and Outcomes: Evidence from Chinese High‐Technology Ventures
This study examines new product development (NPD) processes in high‐technology new product ventures in the emerging market context. Drawing upon the knowledge‐based view and the capability‐based view, we propose a model that characterizes relationships between NPD process execution stages and product competitive advantage, and accounts for the moderating effects of NPD integration mechanisms on these relationships. Our model also explains how pricing capabilities can become a liability that undermines how product advantage impacts new product performance. We test this framework within an emerging market context that has been notably absent from the literature. Our data are generated from 187 new product projects and a follow‐up of 83 projects, from Chinese high‐technology ventures. We identify important theoretical interdependencies within our structural model results. Specifically, marketing–technical integration positively moderates the relationship between product development and testing capability and commercialization capability, while new product implementation capability positively moderates the relationship of commercialization capability and product competitive advantage. Yet, penetration pricing capability negatively moderates the link between product competitive advantage and new product performance.
Do Firms Earn Rents from the Intangible Assets of Their Owners? Institution‐Based Insights from the Energy Sector
Firms can earn rents not only from their own intangible assets (FIAs), but also from the intangible assets of their owner organizations (OIAs). Although the literature has established that rent creation from FIAs depends on the quality of institutions, it remains unclear how institutional quality influences rents from OIAs. This study examines how the rents from OIAs and FIAs change when they are deployed in environments with different institutional quality. Combining insights from the resource‐based view and institutional economics, we develop and test a set of predictions using a sample of over 6000 energy firms from 23 European countries. The study shows that the effect of institutional quality on rent creation is asymmetric, being positive for FIAs and negative for OIAs. In addition, OIAs drawn from multiple owners create higher rents than OIAs from a single owner. Such ‘multiplicity‐of‐ownership’ advantages are stronger in countries with better institutional quality. The contribution of the study lies in explaining how the two types of intangible assets generate rents for the focal firm, and in clarifying why the creation of such rents is contingent on the institutional context in which they are deployed.
The Beauty of Being Involved: The Case of Cooperative Banks
Is greater stakeholder engagement associated with greater stability? We provide readers with novel empirical evidence that this is indeed the case. Cooperative banks (where stakeholders are involved in the business by law) are an excellent case to study the association between stakeholder engagement and stability. Focusing on Italy, we show that cooperative banks differ substantially in risk‐taking from each other, and these differences are mostly related to the engagement of stakeholders. A greater overlap between shareholders, borrowers and depositors is associated with lower non‐performing loans, suggesting that greater stakeholder engagement reduces problems of asymmetric information and bank risk appetite.
Dynamic Discouraged Borrowers
This paper investigates the intertemporal dynamics of borrower discouragement. Using a cross‐country panel of firms that were resurveyed across the waves of the Survey on Access to Finance of Enterprises, we find that the probability of transitioning into discouragement changes over the business cycle and across bank financing products: term loans and credit lines. Past credit experiences and firm‐level risk indicators are important factors in explaining the probability of being discouraged over time. We also analyse the transitioning out of discouragement, and show that firm‐level improvements in credit history and profit outlook drive the transitioning out of the discouragement state.
Automation Anxiety and Augmentation Aspiration: Subtexts of the Future of Work
How are gender, class, and race imagined in relation to automation and augmentation in popular books on the future of work? This paper problematises intersectional inequality subtexts in books on the future of work to develop new research directions. The paper shows how automation anxiety is conceptualised as relating to the threat that men might lose their jobs. While working‐class men are constructed as unable to reinvent themselves, middle‐class men are presented as unable to remain the main provider for a nuclear family. Augmentation aspirations relate to how social and emotional skills are considered as future‐proof, but who gets credit for displaying such skills remains uncertain. Creating and working with machines is also considered future‐proof, but there are silences around inequality subtexts in relation to data, the designers, and the design of those technologies. The article suggests a research agenda that can be used to understand how inequalities emerge and how they can be diminished in discussions about automation and augmentation in the future of work.
Understanding the De‐internationalization of Entrepreneurial SMEs in a Volatile Context: A Reconnoitre on the Unique Compositions of Internal and External Factors
In recent years, the global business environment has witnessed a wave of de‐internationalization not only among multinationals but also among small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). This disengagement of cross‐border activities is deemed to be driven by various firm‐specific factors, as well as by external factors. Building on the premise of the non‐linear internationalization debate and focusing on the dynamic capabilities view and institutional theory, this paper aims to disentangle the extent to which internal factors (IFs) and external factors (EFs) drive SMEs towards de‐internationalization. To do this, we take advantage of a hybrid multilayer decision‐making mathematical modelling approach to explore SME de‐internationalization at two levels. Our findings at the exhaustive level contribute to the de‐internationalization literature by proposing distinct frameworks that highlight the interrelationship amongst IFs and EFs. And our results at the subordinate level constitute the identification of four unique compositions leading to different de‐internationalization modes. In this vein, we define two categories of factors, namely reducing and terminating factors, which drive SMEs into respectively partial and full de‐internationalization.
Universities as Internationalization Catalysts: Reversing Roles in University–Industry Collaboration
University–industry (U‐I) collaboration is vital to the development of society. However, this important interaction has become something of a caricature whereby a sequential and unidirectional relationship exists, with universities creating knowledge and industries commercializing it. We address this issue by using the triple helix (TH) perspective and the network‐revised Uppsala model of internationalization to demonstrate how this relationship can be reversed. We present an embedded longitudinal case study of a UK–China innovation programme, run by a UK university with the aim of supporting the development of 62 collaborative innovation projects between 58 UK small and medium enterprises and Chinese organizations. The results reveal a pressing need to revisit universities’ third mission: the transfer of academic knowledge to industry. The findings demonstrate universities’ role as internationalization catalysts for firms engaged in U‐I collaboration. This signals an important and underexplored component of the TH perspective. The knowledge exchange type in U‐I relationships shows a possible reversal in firm and university roles, where knowledge and technology are contributed by firms, and access to markets is orchestrated by universities, which become internationalization platforms.