J. Michael Geringer

Product and international diversification among Japanese multinational firms

This paper examines the relationship of performance with product and international diversification on Japanese multinational firms from 1977 to 1993. We show the relationships between diversification and performance change over time through the use of multiple time periods and accounting for keiretsu membership. Results show that while diversity strategies vary between keiretsu and non-keiretsu firms, performance is not much different. Across time periods, performance varies considerably, but strategies are less variable. Product diversity has weak effects on firm performance only in one time period, while international diversification has negative profitability and positive growth consequences in in some periods. These results suggest first that diversification strategies and their effects on performance vary across time periods and generally produce some unexpected findings. We do not find strong interactive diversity effects. Copyright

TOWARD A THEORY OF COMPARATIVE MANAGEMENT RESEARCH: AN IDIOGRAPHIC CASE STUDY OF THE BEST INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT PROJECT

Cross-cultural international management research is complex, costly, and frequently, nonrigorous. This idiographic study documents the evolution of a multinational, multicultural, interdisciplinary research consortium that sought to remedy this lack of rigor in a project investigating international human resource management practices. We identify key learning points derived from this project and conclude with the rudiments of a midrange theory of a comparative management research methodology.

In Search of ‘Best Practices’ in International Human Resource Management: Research Design and Methodology

The goal of this article is to describe and examine the research design and methodology that were employed by the Best International Human Resource Management Practices Project. The article briefly addresses the origins and goal of the project, including the research questions that the study was attempting to address. The methodology used for collecting the projects data is then presented, including the design and dissemination of the questionnaire and related data collection issues. Implications of the projects research design for interpretation of results, and for influencing the design and management of effective international human resource management practices, are discussed.

Benchmarking Training and Development Practices: A Multi‐Country Comparative Analysis

This study compares training and development practices within and across nine countries and one region, and addresses whether there are universal training and development practices. After a brief review of the literature on training and development for the countries and region examined, the study identifies country-specific and region-specific training and development practices. The results are descriptive in nature and discussed as benchmarks of current and desired levels of training and development practices within and across countries. While the results do not indicate any universal practices across all countries studied, they do indicate significant similarities in practices within country clusters. The common practices found within these clusters are believed to be influenced by cultural values and industry trends. The study emphasizes the importance of context and provides practitioners with guidelines in designing training and development practices across countries and researchers with insight into future research questions.

Harnessing the power of your value chain

Abstract Enterprises capitalizing upon the strengths of modern resources to add value to their customers are experiencing dramatic performance improvements. But before beginning to re-engineer its business processes, an organization should understand what those processes have to achieve. The natural value chain is proving to be a useful tool for helping firms rigorously reconceptualize their business, paving the way for creative change in the way business is done.

Benchmarking training and development practices: a multi-country comparative analysis

This study compares training and development practices within and across nine countries and one region, and addresses whether there are universal training and development practices. After a brief review of the literature on training and development for the countries and region examined, the study identifies country-specific and region-specific training and development practices. The results are descriptive in nature and discussed as benchmarks of current and desired levels of training and development practices within and across countries. While the results do not indicate any universal practices across all countries studied, they do indicate significant similarities in practices within country clusters. The common practices found within these clusters are believed to be influenced by cultural values and industry trends. The study emphasizes the importance of context and provides practitioners with guidelines in designing training and development practices across countries and researchers with insight into future research questions.

Institutional Ownership, Strategic Choices and Corporate Efficiency: Evidence from Japan

Based on the tenets of capital allocation systems theory, stewardship theory, and ‘going concern’ concept of business, institutional ownership is proposed to affect corporate productivity, both directly and indirectly, in large Japanese corporations through a set of four firm-level choices: product/market development, R&D intensity, capital intensity, and leverage. Using data on 118 corporations drawn from five industry sectors in Japan, and applying a partial mediation technique, this study tests an integrated, causal model of the relationships among these variables. Results show mixed support for the model. No direct relationship between institutional ownership and productivity is observed. However, institutional ownership affects productivity indirectly through R&D intensity and leverage. Although product/market development and capital intensity also affect productivity, institutional ownership has no significant relationship with them.

Agency Costs and the Structure and Performance of International Joint Ventures

This article develops a principal-agent contractual model for the issue of the structure and performance of international joint ventures. From this model, hypotheses are generated relating the number of partners in a joint venture and the cross-cultural divergence of the partners with joint venture performance. These hypotheses are empirically assessed using a population of over 3,500 developed-country joint ventures.

Contextual Moderating Effects and the Relationship of Firm-Specific Resources, Strategy, Structure and Performance among Japanese Multinational Enterprises

This paper develops and tests a path analytic model of resource value-strategy-structure-performance relationships for multinational enterprises (MNEs) in which resource and strategic variables are interdependent.

Rewarding growth or profit?: Top management team compensation and governance in Japanese MNEs

Japanese multinational enterprises (MNEs) have been popularly characterized as pursuing competitive strategies emphasizing long-term performance, especially growth in sales and market share, rather than shorter term profit performance. Though prior research has emphasized the importance of linking compensation to organizational goals and performance, the relationship between performance and compensation of Japanese executives has received limited empirical attention. This paper provides a preliminary examination of how Japanese top management teams in the 106 largest industrial MNEs were compensated, particularly for performance on sales growth and profitability criteria, over the 1976-1993 time period. The relationships revealed between organizational performance and the bonus compensation of top management teams suggest that the emphasis of Japanese industrial MNEs regarding sales growth versus profitability may not be as simple as suggested by prior studies and popular characterizations.