Global Growth Opportunities Research Articles

Sustainable Competitive Advantage in the Legal Industry: A Review of Business Strategies and Market Entry Approaches for Gowling WLG in Japan and Nigeria

The modern business landscape has been notably disrupted by events like the COVID-19 pandemic, which reduced global trade by 13% to 23% in 2020, affecting the triple bottom line—profit, people, and planet—of the legal industry. This research develops a sustainable competitive advantage framework for Gowling WLG in emerging markets, focusing on Japan and Nigeria. The study compares Gowling WLG's business strategies and market entry approaches through a strategic management model and case study design, comparing the firm's operations in these diverse markets. Data was collected via document analysis, interviews, field observations, and megatrend articles to evaluate the competitive landscape. A context analysis of existing literature helped formulate relevant themes. Findings reveal the dynamic nature of the legal sector, influenced by political stability, economic conditions, technological advancements, and environmental concerns. Despite challenges like Brexit, global growth opportunities and threats coexist. Gowling's strengths include global recognition and advanced technology, but it also faces challenges in innovation and leadership. Opportunities lie in expanding the high-legal industry and offering sustainability-focused services, though cybersecurity risks and economic instability are significant threats. Strategic alliances with local firms for risk management and expertise are advised. Entering Japan requires thorough research, local collaboration, and cultural sensitivity. This research contributes to the empirical and theoretical literature, noting data reliability limitations, especially in Nigeria.

HİZMETLER TİCARETİNİN ÖNEMİ VE REKABETÇİ AVANTAJLAR VAKA ÇALIŞMASI

Purpose: The services sector has been emerging as a key driver of global trade rather than merchandise trade. Together with the re-shaping role of digitalization, ICT and ICT enabled services have been of high importance for the global growth and presenting opportunities both for developed and even more for developing economies. Telecommunications, computer and information, insurance and pension, financial services, intellectual property are emphasized for being more efficient on economic growth and after the Covid-19 pandemic outbroke, the importance of ICT and related services were highlighted due to the rapid digital transformation the pandemic has triggered. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Turkey’s foreign trade competitiveness in ICT and ICT-enabled services comparing with the major exporters of aforementioned services. Method: Competitiveness of Turkey, USA, India and China are compared in the trade in services by using competitive advantage indices RCA, RXA, RMP, RTA, RC. Findings: Turkey has a surplus in its services trade, however, the sectors Turkey has competitiveness are travel and transport but not the ICT and ICT-enabled services. Digital transformation may help Turkey to both enable sustainable trade and faster recovery from pandemic. Originality: Originality of the paper comes from the indication of necessity to change the mixture of Turkey’s trade in services and the literature lacks this kind of research.

Debt overhang, global growth opportunities, and investment

Using a pan-European data set of 8.5 million firms, we find that firms with high debt financing invest relatively more, than otherwise similar firms, if they are operating in sectors facing good global growth opportunities. The positive impact of a marginal increase in debt on investment in good-global-growth-opportunities sectors disappears if firm debt is already excessive, if it is dominated by short maturities, and during systemic banking crises. Our results are consistent with theories of the disciplining role of debt, as well as with models highlighting the negative link between firm- and bank-related agency problems and corporate investment.

Debt Overhang and Investment Efficiency

Using a pan-European dataset of 8.5 million firms, we find that firms with high debt overhang invest relatively more than otherwise similar firms if they are operating in sectors facing good global growth opportunities. At the same time, the positive impact of a marginal increase in debt on investment efficiency disappears if firm debt is already excessive, if it is dominated by short maturities, and during systemic banking crises. Our results are consistent with theories of the disciplining role of debt, as well as with models highlighting the negative link between agency problems at firms and banks and investment efficiency.

Linking local business with global growth opportunities: the role of infrastructure

Infrastructure is instrumental when it comes to linking local businesses with their global growth opportunities. This paper shows that, by making this link, the transport network can act as a catalyst for regional economic growth. Using a novel approach, we find that firms in regions with a more developed transport infrastructure are better placed to benefit from positive growth opportunities than those in regions with a less well-developed transport network. This advantage is most pronounced in times of economic slack—making a better transport network a key ingredient for economic recovery. It is against this background that the recent slowdown in infrastructure investment in Europe is worrisome. But it is through this channel (among others) that the substantial ramp-up of activity by the European Investment Bank is expected to foster growth and enhance competitiveness in Europe.

The Eco-Efficiency and Sustainable National Projects in Egypt

As national mega projects, the Suez Canal Area Development Project and New Suez Canal have logistically imposed two main questions. First, how the project can spot the preferred solution for balancing the business and environmental concerns? Second, how the project can enhance the trade-off between those two dimensions. In order to answer these two questions, the efficient frontier between the profitability and the environmental impact needs to be investigated. Three Levels of Thinking has to be applied. In Marlog 2, the Operational Thinking has been discussed using different supply chain approaches including SCOR and Lean Thinking. In Marlog 3, the Tactical Thinking has been explained for global growth opportunities including thinking process and value chain philosophy. This year, the Strategic Thinking approach will be discussed for improving the Eco-efficiency in logistics clusters with the application for the Suez Canal Logistics Corridor project. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the eco-efficiency solution and the concept of eco-topology for the national mega project to transfer the Suez Canal region into a global logistics corridor.

Another Look at the Case for International Diversification

In an era of sluggish domestic growth, the business spotlight is once again turning to international diversification as a means to harness global growth opportunities and production efficiencies. However, the current empirical literature provides an inconsistent view of the effects of international diversification on business performance. We employ a panel-data analysis of the international revenues and assets of the 2011 Fortune Global 500 companies and examine their performance over the past 15 years. We find that the overall contribution of diversification to revenue growth, profitability and return on capital has been positive. However, the specific shape and timing of the impact can be complex. Accordingly, businesses need to be aware of the turning points for organizational gain as well as loss.

Does financial development help to align growth opportunities with growth? Evidence from industry-level data

Financial institutions are expected to play a crucial role in reallocating resources in favor of industries facing greater global and local shocks to growth opportunities. Fisman and Love, in their paper entitled “Financial development and intersectoral allocation: A new approach”, argue that growth opportunities are unobservable and propose a new methodology to test the capital allocation hypothesis. The methodology is based on correlations in the patterns of intra-industry growth between two countries and similarities in the level of financial development and income. This paper extends their methodology by proposing direct and forward-looking measures of local and global growth opportunities, obtained by interacting the country’s patterns of industrial specialization with industry-level price-earnings ratios, as in the paper “Global growth opportunities and market integration” by Bekaert et al. The results, obtained in a cross-section framework including 37 developed and developing countries over the period 1992–2006, confirm the relevance of financial development to promote economic growth and to help industries in taking advantage of global and local growth opportunities. They also show that the methodology developed by Fisman and Love can be extended to include direct measures of growth opportunities.

Credit constraints and investment in human capital: Training evidence from transition economies

Abstract Using a unique survey database of 8265 firms from 25 transition economies, I find that lack of access to finance in general, and to bank credit in particular, is associated with significantly lower investment in on-the-job training. This effect is stronger in education-intensive industries and in industries facing good global growth opportunities. To address endogeneity issues, I use the structure of local credit markets as an instrument for credit constraints at the firm-level. In addition, in panel estimates, I control for the presence of unobserved firm-level heterogeneity, as well as for changes in macroeconomic conditions.

Financial dependence, global growth opportunities, and growth revisited

We show that financial development has a non-monotonic effect on growth in the Rajan and Zingales (1998) and Fisman and Love (2007) sample. Beyond a threshold, financially dependent industries and industries facing good growth opportunities grow disproportionately more slowly.

Credit Constraints and Investment in Human Capital: Training Evidence from Transition Economies

Using a unique survey database of 8265 firms from 25 transition economies, I find that lack of access to finance in general, and to bank credit in particular, is associated with significantly lower investment in on-the-job training. This effect is stronger in education-intensive industries and in industries facing good global growth opportunities. To address endogeneity issues, I use the structure of local credit markets as an instrument for credit constraints at the firm-level. In addition, in panel estimates, I control for the presence of unobserved firm-level heterogeneity, as well as for changes in macroeconomic conditions.

Global Liquidity, Risk Premiums and Growth Opportunities

Global Liquidity, Risk Premiums and Growth Opportunities

Global Liquidity, Risk Premiums and Growth Opportunities

This paper constructs new indicators of liquidity for equity, bond and money markets in major advanced and emerging market countries, documents their evolution and comovements, and assesses the extent to which such measures are determinants of selected spreads and proxy measures of countries' growth opportunities. Three main results obtain. First, there is evidence of an historical increase in market liquidity since the early 1990s, in part as a result of advances in international financial integration, but markets have been increasingly exposed to global systemic liquidity shocks. Second, liquidity indicators appear to be important determinants of bond spreads in advanced economies and EMBI spreads in emerging markets. Third, improvements in market liquidity have significant real effects, as liquidity indicators have a significant positive impact on proxy measures of countries' growth opportunities.

Global Liquidity, Risk Premiums and Growth Opportunities

Global Liquidity, Risk Premiums and Growth Opportunities

Cross-listing pursuit of unseasoned foreign firms after going public in the U.S.

We examine a company's cross-listing decision with a unique sample of unseasoned foreign firms that went public in the U.S. and later cross-listed abroad. We find that these firms are motivated by their pursuit of global growth opportunities in both the capital and product markets. They strategically bond with the U.S. market through their U.S. IPOs to signal their commitment to increased shareholder protection, which facilitates their future capital raising efforts. Their higher quality is evidenced with characteristics of larger firm size, larger issue size, being prominent in their home countries, underwritten by prestigious underwriters, with lower issue costs and greater analysts' coverage than their non-cross-listing peers. Further analysis shows a positive valuation effect and increased liquidity for their U.S. shares around the cross-listing event. Additional findings suggest that foreign issuers seek cultural or geographical proximity when they further cross-list abroad.

Global Growth Opportunities and Market Integration

Global Growth Opportunities and Market Integration

Global Growth Opportunities and Market Integration

ABSTRACTWe propose an exogenous measure of a country's growth opportunities by interacting the country's local industry mix with global price to earnings (PE) ratios. We find that these exogenous growth opportunities predict future changes in real GDP and investment in a large panel of countries. This relation is strongest in countries that have liberalized their capital accounts, equity markets, and banking systems. We also find that financial development, external finance dependence, and investor protection measures are much less important in aligning growth opportunities with growth than is capital market openness. Finally, we formulate new tests of market integration and segmentation by linking local and global PE ratios to relative economic growth.

Financial Dependence and Growth Revisited

We revisit an earlier, highly influential paper on financial dependence and growth by Rajan and Zingales (1998). We re-examine their assumptions, and the robustness of their results to alternative theories and interpretations. We first show that they may be implicitly testing whether financial intermediaries allow firms to better respond to global shocks to growth opportunities, rather than the extent that financial intermediaries allow firms to grow in industries with an inherent (technological) financial dependence. We propose a more direct measure of growth opportunities: If U.S. capital markets are perfect, then actual growth in the U.S. is a good proxy for global growth opportunities. We test this directly, by including U.S. industry growth in Rajan and Zingales's original specification, and find that our direct growth measure outperforms their financial dependence measure and is less vulnerable to controlling for outliers and level of development. This still suggests an important role for finance in the allocation of resources, but shifts the emphasis from “financial dependence” to “global growth opportunities.” (JEL: F3, G1, O4)

Global Growth Opportunities and Market Integration

We propose an exogenous measure of a country's growth opportunities by interacting the country's local industry mix with global price to earnings (PE) ratios. We find that these exogenous growth opportunities predict future changes in real GDP and investment in a large panel of countries. This relation is strongest in countries that have liberalized their capital accounts, equity markets, and banking systems. We also find that financial development, external finance dependence, and investor protection measures are much less important in aligning growth opportunities with growth than is capital market openness. Finally, we formulate new tests of market integration and segmentation by linking local and global PE ratios to relative economic growth.

Emerging Technologies, IT Infrastructure, and Economic Development in Mexico

Well-articulated IT infrastructures generate a direct impact on domestic and global economic growth opportunities and have been shown to be an essential factor in reducing disparities between developed and developing economies. This paper examines the role new and emerging technologies play in supporting an IT infrastructure that may enhance economic development in Mexico.A political economy framework (PEF) is used as a conceptual foundation for understanding the impact emerging technologies have upon the utilization and transfer of technical knowledge. The use of new and emerging information technology to enhance economic development in Mexico will require applications at both macro and micro levels. At the macro level, MNC alliances for the transfer of technology, Mexican telecommunication joint ventures, and satellites for long distance educational programs are discussed as illustrations of new IT applications. At the micro-level, the Internet for connectivity, personal computers as an a computing platform, and the use of decision support technology such as GSS are discussed.