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The purpose of this study is to examine how three dimensions of new venture managers' mindsets—cosmopolitanism, cognitive complexity, risk propensity—affect their evaluations of opportunities to expand internationally for the first time. We also consider a contingency that likely shapes the effects of mindset dimensions: the institutional risk of the country where the opportunity is located. Our focus on new ventures, risk propensity, and country institutional risk are novel in the study of managerial mindsets. We theorize that the three mindset dimensions are positively related to the attractiveness of international opportunities among new venture managers, but that country institutional risk weakens the effects of each dimension. Drawing on survey data of new venture managers in Italy, Turkey, and the US, we find general support for our hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the resource dependence theory and corporate political activity literatures by distinguishing dependence from uncertainty and explaining how two different types of uncertainty have opposite effects on dependence management. We explain how some environmental factors increase the state uncertainty associated with firms' dependence on government jurisdictions, whereas other factors increase response uncertainty. We hypothesize that, due to the historical influence of the media and social movement organizations on politics, negative national media tenor and oppositional social movement organization resources increase state uncertainty (i.e., government's likely behavior toward firms becomes less predictable), strengthening the relationship between firms' dependence on jurisdictions and their use of political contributions in those jurisdictions. Further, we hypothesize that top management team turnover and politician turnover increase response uncertainty (i.e., the effectiveness of firms' efforts to manage their dependence becomes less clear), weakening the relationship between dependence and political contributions. We find support for our theory in an examination of state-level political contributions of firms in environmentally intensive industries from 2009 to 2016. Interviews with senior executives, political consultants, and senior government employees directly involved in corporate political activity help illustrate the hypothesized relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit the implementation of the Inclusion of People with Disabilities Act in Brazil in early 2016 and use stigma theory to focus on the poor with disabilities, a double-stigmatized group, in a developing country setting. We hypothesize after the passage of the law, the poor with disabilities will pursue more self-employment than employment, but their income will remain low, with only the income of the employed improving. Contrary to expectations, the results show that the odds of self-employment were not higher than employment after the law. But as predicted, only the income of the employed improved, with the income gap between the employed and self-employed with disabilities growing wider after the passage of the law. The findings demonstrate that the law mainly benefitted the poor with disabilities who were able to gain employment but not the self-employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The informal economy makes an important contribution to economic activity but knowledge about the country-level conditions that influence an informal firm's willingness to formalise is limited. This article integrates insights from institutional theory and the imprinting hypothesis to explain how factor markets and institutional quality affect the likelihood that informal firms formalise over time, as well as how these effects are contingent on economic conditions at the founding stage. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys comprising of 8005 observations from 2477 firms in 73 countries, the results suggest that better factor markets and institutional quality increase the likelihood of formalisation and these relationships are strengthened by favourable economic conditions at the founding stage. The low correlation between factor markets and institutional quality supports the importance of separating these dimensions, while the moderating effect of economic conditions at the founding stage supports the importance of imprinting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We look at how emerging markets' institutional features affect ownership stake in cross‐border acquisitions (CBAs) within Africa. Particularly, we show that the presence of shared colonial history between the home and host country and the extent of fractionalization distance and formal institutional distance influence the acquiring firm's decision regarding its ownership stake in the target. Moreover, we show that geographic distance between the home and host country, by augmenting uncertainty faced by acquiring firms, moderates the relationship between these institutional features and ownership stake. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 341 intra‐Africa CBAs from 2001 to 2016. Generally, we find that greater ex ante uncertainty and ex post costs increase ownership stake. Specifically, greater geographic distance strengthens the positive relationship between shared colonial history and ownership stake and reverses the negative relationship between formal institutional distance and ownership stake. As for fractionalization distance, the relationship is more nuanced and needs to be further studied. We contribute to advance research on south–south CBAs in general, particularly within Africa, as well as to extend hostage theory in foreign market entry strategies in and from emerging markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of first moves is based on contingencies. Thus, we describe a multidimensional contingency variable, organizational capacity, and argue that it aids the firm in creating advantages from a first move. We also discuss environmental dynamism's role as it relates to this process. We rely on the resource-based view of the firm to help build our model of first moves and develop corresponding propositions. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for scholars and managers., INTRODUCTION A central concern of strategic management research involves understanding those factors that drive superior firm performance (Hoskisson, Hitt, Wan, & Yiu, 1999). One specific area of focus concerns the [...]

Examination of firm performance is done in market reaction to two types of business portfolio restructuring announcements such as refocusing and repositioning. It is suggested that market performance effects for these two types of strategic restructures would be moderated by prior diversification posture.

This study examined the characteristics of firms' top management teams (TMTs) and their effects on structural change. Using a sample of 76 firms reorganizing to the M-form structure, the results suggest that certain TMT characteristics do affect M-form implementation speed. Specifically, it was found that managerial age, education, functional background, organization tenure, and functional homogeneity all affect how rapidly a firm implements structural change. The results suggest that an M-form reorganization can be completed more rapidly by managers who are younger, have higher levels of education and possess more general management experience. As expected, functional diversity among TMT members was shown to facilitate a more rapid reorganization. An unexpected finding, and contrary to theory, was the beneficial influence of lengthy managerial tenure in the organization on the speed of reorganization. Younger managers possessing lengthy tenure seemed better able to accomplish rapid change. While such managers possess limited experience outside the firm, the findings point to the positive influence of a manager's knowledge of the firm and the cultivation of organizational power as essential factors in accomplishing rapid structural change., As firms expand and/or diversity, they generally change their structures from the holding co more often, the fun the multidivisional (M-form) structure (Chandler, 1962; Hoskisson, 1987; Williamson, 1975). The M-form [...]