Michael Nippa

Success Factors for Managing International Joint Ventures: A Review and an Integrative Framework

International joint ventures (IJV) are an important organizational mode for expanding and sustaining global business and have been of special relevance for the emerging Chinese market for decades. While IJVs offer specific economic advantages they also present serious management problems that lead to high failure rates, especially in developing countries. Because of the strategic relevance of IJVs and corresponding management challenges, research on success factors for managing IJVs in China has received broad attention, resulting in a variety of studies. However, there are no conceptual syntheses of the literature to date and further development in the field is hampered by both a lack of consolidation of what is known and identification of viable avenues for future research. We address this gap by building on existing concepts in the field, developing them further and synthesizing them into an integrative, theory-based framework of IJV success factors. We use this framework to systematically depict the results of both empirical studies related to Sino-foreign IJVs and to IJVs in general. Finally, we draw important implications from the research and propose potential paths for future study.

Corporate Portfolio Analysis Tools Revisited: Assessing Causes that May Explain Their Scholarly Disdain

While prominent corporate portfolio analysis tools such as the BCG Growth-Share Matrix took centre stage in the field of strategic management from the 1960s to the mid‐1980s, this review of the literature shows that they have since then largely disappeared from the academic agenda, despite their practical relevance and widespread application. There may be two independent reasons for this apparent scholarly disdain: corporate portfolio analysis tools (a) may have been recognized as unsuitable owing to inherent flaws or superior alternative concepts or (b) may have become obsolete because of proof that corporate diversification is inferior to market diversification. Thus, this assessment is based on an extensive review of the most relevant academic literature on corporate portfolio analysis tools and on the constitutive diversification – performance link published in leading management journals over the past five decades. The review reveals that research to date has not produced advanced tools based on an objective criticism of the original matrices, nor has corporate diversification – as a precondition for corporate portfolio analysis – proved to be inferior to market‐based co‐ordination mechanisms. Thus, this literature review constitutes a call for further academic research in the field of corporate portfolio analysis tools as well as corporate diversification.

Explaining firm approaches to corporate social responsibility: institutional environment and firm size

Only a few studies so far have dealt with a comparison of different national institutional systems and the consequences for how firms approach Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Even fewer studies have focused specifically on how the country in which a firm is headquartered and firm size affect the way a company addresses different stakeholder interests and communicates its CSR efforts. This study compares firm approaches to communicating CSR using company samples from Germany, an archetypal Coordinated Market Economy (CME), and the USA, the largest Liberal Market Economy (LME), finding major differences in how CSR is presented on firm websites. The data support two of our three hypotheses. Firms in LMEs tend to communicate more on CSR than those in CMEs, and large firms communicate more about CSR-related issues than mid-size firms, whether located in an LME or a CME.

Ökonomische Konse quenzen der Mitgliedschaft ehemaliger Vorstandsmitglieder im Aufsichtsrat: Eine empirische Analyse

ZusammenfassungAnhand eines die Jahre 1999 bis 2008 umfassenden Paneldatensatzes für die 300 wichtigsten börsennotierten Unternehmen Deutschlands wird untersucht, ob ein Zusammenhang zwischen der Mitgliedschaft ehemaliger Vorstandsmitglieder im Aufsichtsrat und der Unternehmensleistung beziehungsweise der Bewertung des Unternehmens durch den Kapitalmarkt besteht. Im Ergebnis finden sich keine Belege für einen statistisch signifikanten Einfluss ehemaliger Vorstandsmitglieder im Aufsichtsrat. Somit lassen sich weder die Argumente der Gegner noch die der Befürworter einer Berufung me hemaliger Vorstandsmitglieder in den Aufsichtsrat empirisch bestätigenAbstractTo investigate whether supervisory board membership of former members of the executive board has an impact on firm performance and market valuation, an empirical analysis of 300 companies listed on the German stock exchange is carried out for the time period 1999 to 2008. Findings indicate no significant relation between supervisory board membership of former executive managers and firm performance. As such, no empirical support is found for arguments of either opponents or proponents toward appointing former executive managers on the supervisory board

Alternative Konzepte für eine effiziente Corporate Governance Von Trugbildern, Machtansprüchen und vernachlässigten Ideen

Hinter der Fassade des Klarheit suggerierenden Begriffs Corporate Governance prasentiert sich ein interessengeladenes, breites Spektrum teilweise vollkommen unterschiedlicher Konzepte, Arbeiten, Meinungen und Vorstellungen zur Unternehmensfuhrung und Unternehmenskontrolle. Mehr noch als das von einigen Autoren beklagte Fehlen einheitlicher Begriffsfestlegungen fuhrt die Dominanz sin-gularer Denkrichtungen in Verbindung mit einem auffallend geringen Hinterfragen zugrunde liegender Annahmen zu einer hochgradigen Einengung des Gesichts- bzw. Denkfeldes. Der Beitrag widmet sich daher der systematischen, ideologiefreien aber kritischen Darstellung unterschiedlicher Konzepte der Corporate Governance sowie dem Nachweis des Trugbildes einer allgemein verwendbaren, optimalen Corporate Governance. Ausgehend von einer Ineffizienzv er mutung der derzeit vor allem auf Druck des Kapitalmarktes eingefuhrten Corporate Governance Gesetze, Regeln und Grundsatze und aufbauend auf unterschiedlichen Organisations- und Verhaltenstheorien wird der Primat der Macht- und Gestaltungsvielfalt sowie des Nonkonformismus als okonomisch vorteilhaft prasentiert.

Another case of 'same bed, different dreams'? Assessing divergence and multidimensionality in energy evaluations and implications for interdisciplinary research and energy management

This study represents an in-depth effort to investigate divergence and multidimensionality in energy evaluations. Two forms of evaluative responses are investigated, namely affective energy perception and cognitive energy beliefs. Specifically, we assessed the role of education background and gender in influencing affective energy perception. Additionally, we examined for multidimensionality in cognitive energy beliefs, 399 university students from engineering and business disciplines and students from a non-university institution participated in a survey in 2011 to assess their affective energy perception as well as their beliefs of social, economic and environmental harms and benefits associated with diverse energy sources. Findings relating to nuclear and fossil-based (i.e., coal, natural gas and oil) energy sources are presented in this paper. Analyses indicate significant divergence in affect towards nuclear energy between young adults from different education disciplines and levels. Findings are also suggestive of an additive effect of education background and gender on energy perception. Furthermore, participants not only significantly differentiated between social, economic and environmental dimensions in their energy beliefs, they also exhibited a general confounding of harm and benefit beliefs. Implications for energy management and interdisciplinary energy research collaborations are discussed.

What Do We Know about the Success and Failure of International Joint Ventures? In Search of Relevance and Holism

Rather than add another review of the numerous scholarly publications of success factors and performance of International Joint Ventures (IJVs) this study offers an overview of the extant research based on the findings, criticisms and recommendations of previous reviews. Scholars and practitioners interested in the research field may profit from our contribution in several ways. First, we provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art of the field in a table listing the characteristics of the most relevant review studies published in leading management journals. These special reviews offer more detailed analyses of the studies under investigation, different frameworks and proposals for future research directions. Finally, we summarize the criticisms and recommendations of previous researchers that have been ignored and discuss why many of those recommendations have gone unheeded and how future research may benefit from more systematic development of this field.

Transforming the business portfolio

Purpose – The major purpose of this paper is to investigate antecedents, outcomes and processes of business portfolio transformations, including diversifying, refocusing and repositioning portfolio restructurings. Design/methodology/approach – The paper conducts a longitudinal study on the process of business portfolio transformations among the largest 100 European and 100 North American firms during the period of 1998-2010. A newly developed metric is applied that allows a business portfolio transformation to be identified and quantified and process-related research to be conducted. Findings – The study confirms and expands prior literature that postulates that poor performance and over-diversification are key motivations for portfolio restructuring. However, the majority of transformations were not successful, with firm performance further deteriorating in the course of the transformation. The analysis of the transformation process itself reveals that the average transformation took 2.6 years and change...

Erfolgsfaktoren internationaler Joint Venture in China

Entsprechend der volks- und einzelwirtschaftlichen Bedeutung der Markterschlieβung in China sind in den letzten Jahren die Erfolgsfaktoren des Managements internationaler Joint Venture in der Volksrepublik China vielfach wissenschaftlich analysiert und veroffentlicht worden. Fur den Praktiker und Wissenschaftler gleichermaβen schwierig ist die Ableitung gesicherter Erkenntnisse, da die Beitrage vielfach einzelne Erfolgsfaktoren herausgreifen und dabei das Gesamtbild verloren geht. Der vorliegende Beitrag verfolgt das Ziel, dieses Defizit durch eine Zusammenfassung der anerkannt fuhrenden Forschungsergebnisse zu beseitigen. Darauf aufbauend lassen sich sowohl zukunftige Forschungsfragen und -felder als auch konkrete Handlungsvorschlagen fur die Praxis ableiten. Zu diesem Zweck wurde eine Metaanalyse relevanter Beitrage in fuhrenden Managementzeitschriften im Zeitraum von 1991 bis 2001 durchgefuhrt. Als ein Ergebnis dieser Analyse wird ein integriertes Modell der Erfolgsfaktoren entwickelt.

Erfolgsfaktoren organisatorischer Veränderungsprozesse in Unternehmen

Im Zuge der Beschaftigung mit prozesorientierter Unternehmensgestaltung, Reengineering und anderen Managementkonzepten zur nachhaltigen Sicherung der Wettbewerbsfahigkeit stost man immer wieder auf ein Kernproblem. Die Managementliteratur ist voller Erfolgsrezepte und brillanter Konzepte, doch die Praxis scheint nicht in der Lage, diese erfolgreich umzusetzen.