Foreign Affiliates Research Articles

From local to global: understanding shifts in production processes

ABSTRACT As the global economy continues to integrate, there are notable shifts in how and where products are manufactured. This study examines how increased outward foreign direct investment (FDI) influences shifts in domestic production processes, with a focus on the vertical dimensions of production lines. Using unique Korean firm-level data, we investigate the scope of a firm’s involvement within the production line and the specific stages that have undergone changes. Our findings show that firms with foreign affiliates generally have a narrower scope in their production lines, skewed towards downstream stages – closer to the final stages – compared to firms not engaged in FDI. These micro-level observations are in line with broader trends, such as the decrease in domestic value-added share in gross exports. This study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of FDI’s association with production line modifications, shedding light on the intricate dynamics of global production fragmentation.

THE HOME COUNTRY EFFECT ON BETWEEN- AND WITHIN-FIRM PERFORMANCE DIFFERENCES

This study estimates the home country effect on multinational firm performance using data from 117 home countries (28,079 firms) and 123 host countries (85,579 affiliates) from 2010 to 2019. Using a variance decomposition approach, we find that the effect explains a sizable portion of variance between firms but is mostly trivial for performance differences among foreign affiliates within firms. These findings complement and improve research on location effects, informing the debate on the conceptualization of the home country effect. We revise assumptions about the transferability of homegrown advantages and highlight the importance of aligning theory and empirics in understanding performance differences globally.

Exploring the Usefulness of Real Options Theory for Foreign Affiliate Divestments: Real Abandonment Options’ Applications

Scholars propose that future research on real options theory should shift attention away from option buying during the first investment stage and toward option execution after investment. Researchers maintain that it would be interesting to explore the circumstances under which investors decide to withdraw their investments, thereby exercising the option to abandon their investments. The present research seeks to fill the gap in the literature and investigate the applicability of real options theory when an organization enhances sustainability policies while focusing on disciplined capital allocation through exit strategies. With case study data on Natura &Co’s divestment strategy for the Body Shop in November 2023, a real options analysis revealed the method’s practical advantages and disadvantages. This paper investigates real options theory in the context of the divestments of foreign affiliates, providing unique viewpoints and enhancing the theory beyond previous knowledge while also increasing our understanding of the divestiture phenomenon. This study concludes with a review of this paper’s theoretical contributions to real options theory, the managerial and practical/social implications of real options applications in general, and the valuation methods of abandonment options in particular, shedding light on the potential of future research.

Analysis of foreign affiliate efficiency and determinants: evidence from Korean multinational firms

Multinational firms establish foreign affiliates to reduce production and transaction costs and open markets. This study was conducted to determine whether foreign affiliates are efficient in production—the efficiency of foreign affiliates established by Korean multinationals through foreign direct investment from 2007 to 2018. DEA efficiency was measured by dividing it into pure, technical, and scale efficiency. An empirical analysis using the panel Tobit and Probit models examined the factors affecting efficiency decisions. It was confirmed that the total number of foreign affiliates’ employees significantly affects their efficiency. In addition, it was analyzed that establishments with traditional FDI motives, such as taking advantage of low wages and promoting exports, harm the efficiency of foreign affiliates.

Persistence in the benefits of foreign ownership: Evidence from divestment

AbstractIn this paper, we examine the persistence of benefits from foreign ownership, which informs the proper FDI policies. We exploit the divestment of foreign affiliates in South Korea from 2007 to 2019 as a quasi‐experiment to estimate such persistence of benefits. Our empirical analysis at firm‐level based on the propensity score reweighted difference‐in‐differences model leads to several conclusions. First, on average, the productivity benefit from foreign ownership does not persist after the divestment. Second, the productivity benefit of foreign ownership is persistent in firms with a higher absorptive capacity, measured by R&D intensity, intangible assets, and skilled workers. Such persistence is strengthened if the former foreign affiliate has a longer duration of ownership before the divestment. It suggests that absorptive capacity and time input are helpful for foreign affiliates to persistently absorb knowledge from their owners. Finally, we find that the productivity benefits of foreign ownership are less persistent at former foreign affiliates relying more on external trade.

FDI, financial constraint and partial ownership

AbstractThis study uses matched firm‐bank‐FDI data from 1989 to 2016 to explore how a firm's financial constraints affect its foreign affiliate ownership structure choice. Importantly, it tests the hypothesis that parent firms with banks as their largest shareholders hold lower ownership shares in their foreign subsidiaries, in part due to typical bank risk‐averse behaviour. The empirical analysis confirms that foreign subsidiary ownership ratios are negatively associated with parent firms' debt ratios. Moreover, this study finds evidence that greater bank ownership of the investing parent leads to lower foreign affiliate ownership shares. However, this result is not robust to two specifications: ‘crisis times’ when bank lending is greatly restricted to all borrowers, and a follow‐the‐customer relationship where the bank already has an overseas subsidiary in the host country.

Study on the Role of Foreign Affiliates in GVCs Trade

Study on the Role of Foreign Affiliates in GVCs Trade

Assets of foreignness in a regulated industry

Purpose Foreign subsidiaries incur substantial institutional conformity costs because they have to respond to host-country institutional pressures (Slangen & Hennart, 2008). The purpose of this paper is to study this type of cost from institutional and regulatory perspectives. The authors argue that these costs decrease when the host country adopts concepts of international regulations that multinationals may be familiar with due to their own home country regulation experience. This prior regulatory experience gives foreign subsidiaries an advantage of foreignness (AoF), which can offset their liability of foreignness (LoF). Design/methodology/approach This study compared the returns on assets of 35 domestic firms with those of foreign subsidiaries in the Brazilian energy industry between 2002 and 2021, using regression dynamic panel data. Findings The existence of a relationship between the international regulatory norm and the Brazilian regulator has transformed the LoF into an advantage of foreignness to compete with local energy firms. The results also suggest that the better the regulatory quality of the subsidiary’s country of origin, the better its performance in Brazil, as it can reduce compliance costs. Finally, the greater the psychic distance between Brazil and the foreign subsidiary’s home country, the worse its performance. Research limitations/implications The research suggests that one of the keys to competitiveness in host countries is local regulatory ties. Prior international regulatory experience gives foreign subsidiaries an asset of foreignness (AoF). This result complements the current institutional and regulatory foreignness studies on emerging economies (Cuervo-Cazurra & Genc, 2008; Mallon et al., 2022) and the institutional asymmetry between home and host country (Mallon & Fainshmidt, 2017). Practical implications This research suggests that one of the keys to competitiveness in host countries is local regulatory ties. Prior international regulatory experience gives foreign subsidiaries an asset of foreignness (AoF). This result complements the current institutional and regulatory foreignness studies on emerging economies (Cuervo-Cazurra & Genc, 2008; Mallon et al., 2022) and the institutional asymmetry between home and host country (Mallon & Fainshmidt, 2017). The practical implication is that the relationship between conformity costs, capital budget calculation and strategic planning for internationalization will be related to the governance quality of the home country of multinationals. The social implication is that a country interested in attracting more direct foreign investment to areas that need foreign technology transfer and resources may consider adopting international regulatory standards. Social implications The social implication is that a country interested in attracting more direct foreign investment to areas that need foreign technology transfer and resources may consider adopting international regulatory standards. Originality/value This research discuss firm and local regulator tie is one of core competitiveness in host countries (Yang and Meyer, 2020). This study also complements the current institutional and regulatory foreignness studies in emerging economy (Cuervo-Cazurra & Genc, 2008; Mallon et al., 2022). Second, prior regulatory experience of multinational enterprise in similar environment can affect its foreign affiliate performance (Perkins, 2014). Third, this study confirms current literature that argues that knowledge and ability to operate in an institutionalized country can be transferred from parent to affiliate. In the end, this study investigates whether AoF persists when host governments improve the governance of their industries.

Characterization of immigration in the Chilean Pension and Unemployment Insurance Systems

The levels of immigration recorded in Chile over the last few decades are unprecedented. Despite the magnitude of this phenomenon, the literature on immigration in Chile is scarce. Even though it is expected immigration has important effects on the Chilean labour market, there is not much historical neither systematic evidence available for a better understanding of the phenomenon. This can be mainly explained by the fact that related sources of information are limited and infrequent.This paper aims at describing the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the immigrants’ formal working population in Chile (i.e. individuals working in the formal sector who by law contribute to the social security system), using administrative records of the Pension Systems and the Unemployment Insurance System, in addition to information provided by the Civil Registry and Identification Service on their nationality and country of origin.The results obtained show an exponential increase in new foreigners to the social security system over the last few years. Haitians and Venezuelans are the largest groups, representing 70% of the total number of new foreign affiliates to the Pension System in 2018. The average wage difference between Chileans and foreigners increased by over 600% during the 2010-2018 period, differing by almost USD 300 in 2018 in favor of Chileans. This difference deepens with higher wages. Finally, there is an important gender gap both for Chileans and foreigners (around 10% in 2018). The gender gap for foreigners has importantly decreased during the last decade reaching the relatively more stable, but still important, Chilean gender gap of around 10%. However, foreign women are in a much weaker relative situation than Chilean women when age, cohort and time effects are obtained.

Foreign direct investment from Japan, South Korea and China in the Czech Republic: A comparative analysis

Multinational companies from Japan, South Korea and China began to actively penetrate Czech market starting from the mid-1990s. By 2021, Japan was the leader in terms of foreign direct investment stock in the Czech Republic ($ 4.7 billion), followed by South Korea ($ 3.4 billion); and China ($ 760 million). The methodological basis of the paper is Dunning’s eclectic paradigm, which makes it possible to explain foreign investment activities from the point of view of the simultaneous availability in these processes of ownership, location and internalization advantages. As a result of a comparative analysis, the author comes to the following conclusions. In the processes of activity of foreign affiliates of Asian companies in the Czech Republic (as part of the implementation of existing ownership advantages), the following features were identified: concentration on the main field of activity of the parent company; concentration of activity in those industries that are most developed in the Czech Republic (industry agglomeration effect); clustering of affiliates around the leading company and main activity; diversification of the activities of foreign affiliates by supplementing the main activities of the parent company with the activities in related sectors. To explain the weak presence of Chinese MNCs in the Czech market and the more deep activity of South Korean and Japanese MNCs, a “wedge-shaped” foreign market entry was proposed; it is based on the idea of internalization advantages of. The leading company represents a spearhead of the “wedge-shaped” foreign market entry. A large MNC possesses powerful and well-developed ownership advantages. It is the first to enter foreign market in the sector that is main one for its activity in the national market; and it is followed by foreign affiliates operating in the main and related sectors in a kind of expanding “wedge”. It is the penetration that enables MNCs to gain a foothold in the market, leveraging both ownership, location and internalization advantages.

Upgrading of Foreign Affiliates in Sub-Saharan Africa and Spillovers to Local Firms

Upgrading of Foreign Affiliates in Sub-Saharan Africa and Spillovers to Local Firms

Research of the Competition Level for Manufacturers and Distributors of the Pharmaceutical Market in Ukraine

The article analyzes the development of the pharmaceutical market of Ukraine, proves the prospects of this industry in terms of the impact on the national economy and indicators of dynamics in the period from 2018 to 2021. During this period, the influence of global processes on the dynamics of the production indicators and sale of goods in the pharmaceutical market, the impact of the COVID pandemic is assessed and its consequences, as well as the beginning of a full-scale war of the RF against Ukraine.
 A retrospective study about the development of the main players of the pharmaceutical market in Ukraine at all levels of the medical products-representatives movement: from production to distribution of products by distributors, taking into account the national and foreign affiliation of a specific counterparty. The level of market monopolization was evaluated according to the Lind and Herfindahl-Hirschman indices, which are the most common methods among scientists for identifying the level of market concentration. It is illustrated that newly created and small enterprises of the pharmaceutical market, which constitute a competitive environment in the industry, deserve special attention. According to the results of the analysis, enterprises with an extremely high level of market concentration for manufacturers and distributors were also identified: “Farmak” and “Darnytsia” and “Optima-Pharm LTD” and “BaDM”, respectively.
 Among the manufacturers, a comparative analysis of structures in dynamics using the coefficient of structural shifts was additionally applied - to generalize the intensity of changes for 2021 and 2022. In the structure of distributors, particular attention is also paid to the enterprise «Venta LTD», which closes the top three enterprises in the farm industry, but has a risk of nationalization due to the share of Russian capital in the total assets of the enterprise, which gives time to other suppliers to occupy places on the trade niches, forming an oligopoly on market. As a result, specific decisions regarding state regularization as a way to solve the problem of pharmaceutical market monopolization by some of its representatives, related to the main principles of ensuring a competitive environment: transparency, control, support and protection of enterprises, are given to the conducted analysis. The specified information constitutes a promising direction of research – cooperative relations between manufacturers and distributors for the establishment of a logistics chain in today’s conditions.

New perspectives on CESEE insurance markets

AbstractThe insurance markets of Central Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) present a unique landscape characterized by intricate geopolitical and institutional dynamics. Despite being a relatively small region, the countries within CESEE navigate a complex political and institutional environment. The development of insurance markets across CESEE is marked by considerable disparities, reflecting diverse approaches to market reforms. Despite the markets being open, a lack of competition prevails, with a pronounced presence of multinational insurance groups and their foreign affiliates. This paper provides an update on current challenges in the region.

Going Dutch? Firm exports and FDI in the wake of the 2014 EU‐Russia sanctions

AbstractWe examine the 2014 European Union economic sanctions on exports to Russia and the Russian retaliatory measures on imports from several Western countries. Using the universe of highly disaggregated international trade and taxation data for firms in the Netherlands, we systematically analyze the impact of these economic sanctions on Dutch firms' exports and foreign direct investment. Our analyses account for the product‐specific EU restrictions on arms, equipment used for oil exploration and extraction, and dual‐use products suitable for civilian and military use, as well as the Russian import ban on various primary commodities. Our empirical findings highlight the overall negative impact of sanctions on the intensive margin of exports. However, having a foreign affiliate in Russia helps to mitigate the otherwise negative impact of sanctions on the extensive margin of exports. We also show that exporters do not circumvent sanctions by setting up a local affiliate in Russia. In fact, exposure to Russian countersanctions may even force firms to close their Russian affiliates.

Liberalization for Sale: Corporate Demands and Lobbying over FTAs

Firm-based approaches to international trade have revolutionized the study of trade politics. Corporate participation in political processes is costly, limiting access to large, productive, well-resourced, and often internationally engaged firms. This implies a pro-trade bias in corporate lobbying demands over trade policy. I examine this relationship in the case of three free trade agreements passed by the United States Congress in 2011. I combine public statements from firms on the FTAs with corporate lobbying activities and find that both lobbying firms and those that lobbied and publicly disclosed their policy positions were more productive than the typical publicly traded firm. Likewise, firms with income from foreign affiliates were more likely to be politically active than others. These results contribute to a vibrant body of research into the complex relationships firms hold with policies governing access to international markets.

The impact of policy uncertainty on foreign direct investment: Micro‐evidence from Japan's international investment agreements

AbstractThis study proposes an empirical strategy to identify the impact of policy uncertainty (PU) at the host economy‐sector‐reservation level on foreign direct investment (FDI) by exploiting sectoral differences in PU before and after the entry into force of international investment agreements (IIAs). These sectoral differences arise because IIAs mitigate PU in host economies, but sectors included in negative lists of IIAs continue to face different degrees of PU owing to exemptions from certain obligations, such as national treatment and the most favored nation in IIAs. Using this empirical strategy, we evaluate how the activities of Japanese multinational enterprises and their foreign affiliates are affected by Japan's 22 IIAs, including bilateral investment treaties and economic partnership agreements with investment provisions, during 1995–2016 at the microdata level. We find that PU regarding a combination of national treatment and most favored nation has a negative impact on FDI. In particular, PU discourages the establishment of new foreign affiliates. However, PU does not necessarily induce affiliates to exit the market.

Should I stay or should I go? The influence of managerial self-interest on foreign exit decisions

Based on the agency theory and the social exchange theory, this study investigates how foreign affiliate (FA) managers can utilise two mechanisms that the principal adopts to deal with the agency problem of influencing the foreign divestment/non-divestment decision of the headquarters (HQ). Specifically, we examine whether and under which conditions FA managers’ self-interest affects the decision of the HQ to divest a foreign market. Using secondary and primary data collected from multiple informants in Chinese firms engaged in outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), we find that although the FA managers’ self-interest has no direct impact on the HQ’s foreign divestment decision, the HQ is less likely to divest the foreign market when the FA manager holds a high level of trust in the HQ. Furthermore, when the FA is locally embedded in the foreign host market, the manager’s self-interest has the strongest negative impact on the HQ’s foreign divestment decision.

FDI and onshore task composition: evidence from German firms with affiliates in the Czech Republic

How does a firm’s foreign direct investment (FDI) in a low-wage country change its onshore task demand in a high-wage country? Is the shift more intensive for jobs that the literature has designated offshorable? We address these questions using a matched difference-in-differences (DiD) approach with data on German firms that have similar propensities to conduct FDI in the Czech Republic. Our novel matching procedure draws on post-lasso logit estimates and shows that high task intensities of managing, administration, and labor legislation play a major role in firms’ engagement in international expansion. The outcomes of the DiD estimation show that after acquiring a foreign affiliate, multinational enterprises (MNEs) increase the intensities of their activities typical of headquarters such as managing, analyzing, and negotiating relative to the corresponding task intensities among non-MNEs. We also find sector-specific decreases, such as a reduction in typical production tasks (monitoring, producing, measuring) in manufacturing MNEs or typical service tasks (informing, medical, repairing) in service MNEs.

A supply chain performance assessment model in multinational enterprises using foreign affiliates statistics

With a globalized economy, traditional boundaries are becoming both unclear and uncertain, and it is necessary to analytically measure business globalization to estimate the results of the production activity of resident producer units. The value chains that have bound the world economy are now under new strain. This study presents an analysis of data relating to the activities carried out by a company in multinational territories. We study the distribution of the added value of companies and the relationship with their non-domestic activities for statistical purposes; the type of foreign affiliate known as a branch is considered a quasi-enterprise (Eurostat − Manual on Business Demography Statistics, 2007), resident in one country and controlled by a unit resident in another nation. We use two separate sources of sectoral information for a specific year (2019): Foreign Affiliates Statistics (FATS), covering activities of permanent establishments operating among Italian borders under foreign control, and outward FATS covering the activities of Italian branches abroad. Hence it can be difficult to untangle these complex chains of control; as we detail in this work, the integrated use of archives, statistical, administrative, and tax sources, as well as other information (company sites, profiling of the main multinational groups) allows to select the subset of companies potentially interested in the reality of foreign production a priori, to identify affiliates that are not constituting separate legal entities. This study can be used by public decision maker to highlight fiscal elusive strategies and estimate the real share of domestic and foreign (through stable organizations) production.

Hiring High-Skilled Labor Through Mergers and Acquisitions

Abstract Using random H-1B visa lotteries as a natural experiment, we find that firms respond to shortages of high-skilled workers by acquiring firms that employ such workers. The effect is stronger among firms with high human capital and more senior workforces, firms facing tight labor markets and legal barriers to poaching workers, and firms lacking foreign affiliates. The acquired workers are highly educated, sharing skills and occupations similar to those of the acquirer’s existing workers. Our findings suggest skilled labor is an important driver of acquisitions and acquiring is an effective means of obtaining skilled labor.