Candace A. Martinez

Government Effectiveness, the Global Financial Crisis, and Multinational Enterprise Internationalization

This study examines the influence of national institutions on multinational enterprise entry mode behavior during economic downturns. Drawing on institutional and transaction cost theories, the authors propose (1) alternative hypotheses for the effect of host-country government effectiveness (a spatial institution) and (2) hypotheses for a direct and an indirect effect of a global financial crisis (a temporal event affecting all countries) on firms’ internationalization strategy. With a sample comprising 624 foreign expansion investments conducted by Dutch multinational enterprises between 2004 and 2009 into 66 countries, this investigation confirms that majority control more likely occurs when host-country government effectiveness is high or when the investment is made during a global financial crisis. The authors also find support for a hypothesized moderating effect of a global financial crisis. Concluding remarks discuss the implications of these findings for scholars and practitioners.

Multinational Corporations in Political Environments

The article reviews the book “Multinational Corporations in Political Environments,” by Usha C. V. Haley.

Informal Waste-Pickers in Latin America: Sustainable and Equitable Solutions in the Dumps

This chapter discusses the present and future role of informal recycling in Latin America in contributing to countries’ sustainability objectives as well as to firms’ profitability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals. Considered one of the most undesirable of occupations, the task of sorting through and recycling refuse from city garbage dumps has undergone an important paradigm shift that has significantly affected the rules of the game for the “waste-pickers” or “scavengers” in many Latin American cities. Governments are increasingly aware that informal waste-pickers are providing a service that can and should be formalized. Private-public partnerships have developed as the civil sector (citizen groups and nongovernmental organizations or NGOs), the private sector (domestic and multinational enterprises), and the public sector (municipal and national governments) recognize the societal, environmental, and economic value of the waste-pickers’ work. An examination of various aspects of the informal recycling sector in Latin America leads to the conclusion that stakeholders can work together to devise innovative approaches for participatory solid waste management that contribute to a more sustainable and equitable world.

An extended view of institutional domains and implications for the multinational enterprise

In this chapter, we examine and expand institutional theory. While acknowledging that actors and organizations interrelate in an institutional (legal, political and socio-economic) framework and that this interaction between them shapes economic activities (North, 1990; Scott, 1995), we argue that the boundaries of todays institutional environments have significantly evolved. They encompass not only the traditional domains of micro (individual/organization) and macro (nation-state) levels as well as of a co-located physical environment captured by received institutional theory but also an added dimension that transcends physical space. This new dimension includes a dispersed, borderless environment that invisibly cuts across nation-states. We discuss the implications of this extended view of institutional domains for theory and practice.

A Review of “Marketing Across Cultures”: (5th ed.). Jean-Claude Usunier and Julie Anne Lee. New York: Prentice Hall-Financial Times (2009), 496 pages. ISBN 978-0-273-71391-3. List price:

Institutions of higher education have traditionally stressed the importance of developing future leaders with a global vision, but the heightened interest in and commitment to the internationalization of curricula across campuses have taken center stage in recent years. From large, diverse public universities to small, religion-affiliated colleges, provosts are establishing proactive objectives for their respective schools that include a broad range of internationalization strategies: more study-abroad opportunities, more foreign exchange programs, and more international components in crossdisciplinary course content, to name a few. Marketing Across Cultures, by Jean-Claude Usunier and Julie Anne Lee, seems to be a direct response to universities’ call to integrate an international perspective into courses. This important text uses as its point of departure the fact that a cultural approach to international marketing is not only valid but also crucial. As the authors state in the introduction, the global perspective of their text is founded “on the recognition of diversity in world markets and on local consumer knowledge and marketing practices. . . . Understanding international diversity in consumer behaviour, advertising, sales and marketing management becomes the central teaching objective for an international marketing textbook.” Replete with student-friendly activities such as challenging exercises with guide questions, brief end-of-chapter cases, and frequent website links for further inquiry, the book can be used with equal success in management, marketing, and international business classes, at both the senior undergraduate level and MBA levels. Moreover, the authors have substantively modified this edition (the fifth) by deleting less relevant material and including more marketing and culturally rich content, as well as thoughtful and topical real-world examples. And, as in previous editions, the viewpoint of the text is European and Australasian—not North American, thus reinforcing the value of a geocentric mindset. The book is divided into four parts with a total of 14 chapters. In Part 1 (Chapters 1, 2, and 3), Usunier and Lee lay the groundwork for the rest of the text. They define terms, introduce key frameworks (e.g., Hofstede’s), and provide the fundamentals needed to progress to the next chapters. In Part 2 (Chapters 4, 5, and 6), the authors examine the nature of culturally bound consumer behavior and provide a thorough description of the challenges faced when conducting reliable market research in other countries. As a former marketing research executive stationed in Europe, I found this section particularly well-explained and presented. It provided students with sufficient detail to make the chapter interesting and readable, but it downplayed the myriad technicalities that could cause confusion. For example, the pitfalls of translating questionnaires are reported, as are the constraints of measurement reliability, but