Luiz F. Mesquita

Horizontal and Vertical Relationships in Developing Economies: Implications for SMEs’ Access to Global Markets

We integrate the resource-based view, transaction cost economics, and institutional theory to model how collaboration among small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in environments of weak infrastructure and institutions help them achieve greater collective efficiencies and access to global markets. Using survey data from 232 Argentine furniture SMEs, we found that different types of ties matter in different ways for these SMEs’ collective efficiencies. For instance, vertical ties yield manufacturing productivity along the supply chain, while horizontal ties enable collective resource use as well as joint product innovation. These collective efficiencies, in turn, serve as competitive currencies helping SMEs access global markets.

Buyer-supplier and Supplier-supplier Alliances: Do They Reinforce or Undermine One Another?

Previous research has portrayed buyersupplier and suppliersupplier alliances as important mechanisms to foster learning and exchange efficiencies. Controversy remains, however, as to how these alliances interact. While some propose they reinforce one another (e.g. learning in horizontal ties generates positive spillovers to vertical ties), others propose a negative interplay (e.g. when increasing vertical-tie intensity, suppliers may weaken horizontal ties to avoid retaliation from buyers who wish to preserve bargaining power). We empirically test these competing views using survey data from the Brazilian auto-parts industry. In an attempt at reconciliation, we propose that the positive or negative interaction between vertical and horizontal alliances depends on the level of technological uncertainty of goods exchanged. Vertical ties seem to inhibit horizontal ties when technological uncertainty is low; when technological uncertainty is higher, vertical and horizontal ties do not seem to have any meaningful form of interaction. We discuss implications for theory and practice.

Determinants of firm competitiveness in Latin American emerging economies: Evidence from Brazil's auto‐parts industry

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to theoretically model and empirically analyze determinants of competitiveness of Brazilian manufacturing firms. Going beyond traditional manufacturing management literature, it integrates firm‐, inter‐firm, and institutional level theoretical arguments to explain manufacturing competitiveness in emerging economy environments.Design/methodology/approach – The model investigates the influence of firm‐, inter‐firm, and institutional level factors on the competitiveness of individual companies. The authors surveyed 182 firms, and interviewed a representative sub sample of 15 general managers. The survey and interview questions covered practices at the three theoretical levels, as well as firm performance. In a subsequent step, the authors used this data to statistically model the theory framework through a structural equation system.Findings – The paper finds that institutional level support, in the form of stronger participation in institutional organizations, enhances the...

The Meaning of Difference: Beyond Cultural and Managerial Homogeneity Stereotypes of Latin America

Drawing from our current original research on cultural trends in Latin America‐based multinational firms, this paper challenges the stereotypical perception of Latin America as a homogeneous region and explores the cultural distances among groups of multinational employees. After collecting surveys from 733 employees across eight multinationals in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, we establish that, much like it happens in other lumped‐together regions of the globe, such as “East Asia” and “Africa”, Latin American countries present significant differences in the way firm employees respond to situations where cultural traits are at stake. By researching these countries, we recorded significant variation in aspects such as the treatment and place of women in the workplace, attachment or detachment to formal rules, formal organizational hierarchies, and structured business planning, in addition to varying levels of tolerance to invasion of privacy. Implications of the study include the need to develop methodologies that adequately capture cultural differences within large geographic blocs and business practices that prepare the expatriate, the international manager, and the policy maker for the different realities they are bound to encounter in different countries.

Bad for practice?: Reconciling alternative views on managerial attitudes and their impact on organizational performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reconcile alternative managerial views regarding self‐serving behavior in organizations: while some propose that such behavior is commonplace and detrimental to performance, and suggest policies to counteract such conduct, critics contend that such policies generate distrust and diminish performance. The authors integrate elements from agency and interactional justice theories, and hypotheses that managerial attitudes not related to self‐interest can influence behaviors often attributed to the desire to curb self‐interest, and vice‐versa.Design/methodology/approach – The authors employ structural equation modeling based on survey data from 387 team‐leaders from both Brazil and the USA.Findings – An asymmetric relation is found in the aforementioned theoretical “cross‐talk:” managers concerned with self‐interest tend to devise policies solely focused on curbing self‐interest, while managers concerned with justice not only adopt justice‐enhancing practices but also ...

Driving Performance via Exploration in Changing Environments: Evidence from Formula One Racing

Until recently, scholars have customarily lumped multiple dimensions of environmental change into single constructs, and usually ascertained that the more the context changes, the more value firms derive from higher levels of exploration. In sync with more recent studies focusing on specific dimensions of change, in this paper we borrow theoretical elements from systems theory to examine the possibility that the reward to developing innovative product components may itself be eroded by implicit and yet burgeoning costs to fit the new component technology into existing architectures, thereby dampening system performance. Specifically, we theoretically assess how varying magnitudes of industry regulatory changes affect the optimum level of firm exploration, and propose-counterintuitively vis-i-vis past literature-that the more radical i.e., competence destroying, as opposed to incremental i.e., competence enhancing, these changes are, the more the optimum intensity of firm exploration recedes. Based on quantitative as well as qualitative empirical analyses from the Formula One racing industry, we precisely trace the observed performance outcomes back to the underlying logic of our theory, stressing that impaired capabilities to integrate the new component in the architecture redesign and time-based cognitive limitations both operate to inhibit the otherwise positive relationship between firm exploration and performance. In the end, we offer new insights to theory and practice.

Diversity and social capital of nascent entrepreneurial teams in business plan competitions

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of team member diversity and internal social capital on project performance within the context of business plan competitions (BPCs).Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses survey data on 95 nascent entrepreneurial teams enrolled in an open‐to‐the‐public BPCs. It assumes that higher levels of functional diversity as well as higher levels of internal social capital enhance the performance of nascent entrepreneurial teams in the crafting of their business plans (BPs).Findings – Under this particular context, where the needs for information processing and decision‐making requirements are so high, teams having higher levels of functional diversity attained better performance. Inversely, teams with higher levels of internal social capital did not show a significant advantage in the development of the BP.Research limitations/implications – Limitations are associated with the exclusion of external social capital measures and not considering demo...

Corporate Strategies of Busines Groups in the Wake of Competitive Shocks: Lessons from Argentina

Conventional economic and management theories explain that business groups facing market liberalization policy reforms (i.e., competitive shocks) would have incentives to reduce corporate portfolios and increase internationalization. We empirically examine the strategic responses of Argentine business groups and, through an inductive theory building process, propose refinements to this theory. We argue that such a strategy process is moderated not only by differences in market forces set out by policy reforms across different economic segments but also by the path dependency of resources and capabilities as well as management decision‐making style of individual business groups. We discuss implications for theory and practice.

Intra- and inter-firm agglomeration: The location decisions of multi-unit firms

Research on agglomeration has generally assumed that firms have only one unit per agglomerated region, so co-location is implicitly assumed to be a phenomenon that occurs among rivals. Our study ch...

Governance Structures and Innovation: The Case of the Brazilian Coffee Roasting and Grinding Industry

This study contributes to the New Institutional Economics literature by showing that firms adopting a mixed governance structure are more innovative than those adopting a single structure. In addition, this work seeks to determine whether the complementarity between internal and external governance structures influences firms’ innovativeness. Going beyond Grandori and Furnari’s approaches (Organ Stud, 19:459–485, 2008; Structural heterogeneity, organizational robustness and innovation performance. V Research Workshop on Institutions and Organization: Goncalves, Sao Paulo, 2010), which demonstrate that there is a relation between internal governance structures and degree of innovativeness, this paper also incorporates an external framework, in which we posit that integration with other firms—in this case suppliers and customers—provides information, knowledge, and complementary resources that tend to enhance innovativeness. The innovation process involves a combination a firm’s of internal and external governance structures. We test our model based on data from a survey of 214 Brazilian Coffee Roasting & Grinding (R&G) firms. To determine the combinations of structures we used the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) software fs/QCA, version 2.0 (Ragin, User’s guide to fuzzy-set/qualitative comparative analysis 2.0. Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, 2008). By allowing us to identify the organizational requirements that create greater opportunities for innovation, these results can guide public and business policies in order to enable companies to improve their rate of innovation and competitiveness in their markets.