Foreign Subsidiary Performance Research Articles

Performance of foreign direct investment from Singapore

This study was conducted with two broad aims: to assess the performance levels attained by foreign direct investment (FDI) undertaken by Singapore firms and to identify the key determinants of the performance levels attained. We employed a broad set of perceptual measures, as reported by the MNC parent managers, to assess the performance of foreign subsidiaries. The measures included: stability, profitability, overall success, market share and sales growth. We hypothesized that the performance of (FDI) will be influenced by the following factors: mode of entry, cultural distance, relative size of the subsidiary and host government attitudes. Based on an analysis of 128 responses to a survey, we find that Singapore firms’ foreign subsidiaries achieve moderate levels of performance. The data analysis also revealed that FDI performance was positive under the following conditions: the host government attitudes were positive and the subsidiaries were of large size relative to the parent.

The relative economic performance of foreign subsidiaries in UK manufacturing

This paper compares the economic performance of UK and foreign-owned firms in UK manufacturing industry. A panel data set covering 14 233 firms for the period 1992–1996 is used and the influences of firm-, industry- and country-specific advantages on productivity are examined. The results of the study show that labour productivity is higher in foreign subsidiaries than in UK firms and that foreign subsidiaries as a whole employ higher levels of human capital and enjoy greater economies of scale. A further source of productivity advantage for US subsidiaries is their higher level of intangible assets, and for European and Japanese subsidiaries their higher level of capital intensity. The results have policy implications for the targeting of promotion activities to attract FDI.

Survival and Profitability: The Roles of Experience and Intangible Assets in Foreign Subsidiary Performance

This study integrates research on the financial performance of multinational firms with research on foreign subsidiary survival. We examined the influences a firm's intangible assets and its experience have on foreign subsidiary survival and profitability using a sample of 3,080 subsidiaries of 641 Japanese firms. The results show survival and profitability have different antecedents. Host country experience has a direct effect on survival but a contingent relationship with profitability. The entry mode moderated the nature of these relationships.

Investing Profitably in China: is it Getting Harder?

Using information from the Toyo Keizai, this article studies the performance of 2,962 foreign subsidiaries across the period 1985–1999 to show a picture of declining profitability from foreign direct investment by MNE’s in China. Despite the influence of macro-level factors, such as the historically fluctuating performance of the Chinese economy, we observed that of the many factors that may affect profitability, subsidiary-specific factors had the greater influence. The findings suggest that there are significant benefits for early entrants into the market, but caution against the use of high majority ownership control. Other evidence showed that larger subsidiaries tended to perform better. Managerial implications for MNEs and the future prospects of foreign direct investment in China are discussed.Since China opened up to the outside world in 1979, it has been attracting increasing amounts of foreign direct investment (FDI), and after 1993 became the second largest recipient of FDI flows in the world. Meanwhile, a major participant in the upsurge in global foreign direct investment in the 1990s was Japan. By the mid-1990s, Japan became the second largest FDI source country in the world behind the United States. China, in particular, has become a major destination for Japan’s direct investments, absorbing one-ninth of all Japanese foreign investments at the end of 1996.1Studying Japan’s worldwide direct foreign investment, we found that the proportion of profitable Japanese subsidiaries in China has been declining. In fact, this was the only part of the world where this was the case. While over 71 percent of Japanese subsidiaries in China claimed profits in 1992, the percentage steadily slipped to around 50 percent by 1999 (see Table 1Table 1Performance of Japanese subsidiaries in China (% profitable)1992 (%)1994 (%)1997 (%)1999 (%)Loss11 (13.3%)27 (16.1%)99 (21.7%)201 (24.3%)Break-even13 (15.7%)35 (20.8%)114 (25%)205 (24.8%)Gain59 (71.1%)106 (63.1%)243 (53.3%)421 (50.9%)Total # Reporting83168456827Source: Toyo Keizai, 1999.). This poses two interesting questions. Is it really getting harder to invest profitably in China? And what could have influenced the profit performance of foreign subsidiaries in China?

The International Control Conundrum with Exchange Risk: An EVA Framework

Principal-agent problems between corporate parent and subsidiary operations are frequently exacerbated in international settings by exchange rate fluctuations between the foreign subsidiary's local currency and the parent multinational corporation's reference currency. We develop a conceptual solution to this international control conundrum using Economic Value Added as the sole performance numeraire. Our framework facilitates assessment of foreign subsidiary performance in emerging-market countries in the presence of unexpected, exchange-related shocks.

Human Resource Practices and the Bottom Line in Russian Subsidiaries

The article discusses the results of a study investigating how human resource management (HRM) practices relate to subsidiary performance in Russia. Western multinational corporations (MNCs) typically prefer to use local employees in Russia, but also want to alter employee behavior to increase productivity, leading them to develop programs focused on feedback and rewards. The study reports that HRM practices are apt predictors of foreign subsidiary performance in Russia, however the area of impact is dependent on their focus. Employee development programs have an equal effect on both manager and nonmanager performance in contrast to decentralized decision making in group-based payment practices, which do not affect managers nearly as much as they do nonmanagers.

Survival and Profitability: The Roles of Experience and Intangible Assets in Foreign Subsidiary Performance

This study integrates research on the financial performance of multinational firms with research on foreign subsidiary survival. We examined the influences a firm’s intangible assets and its experi...

The poor performance of foreign bank subsidiaries: Were the problems acquired or created?

We examine foreign acquisitions of United States banks around the time of the ownership change to determine whether the observed poor performance of foreign subsidiaries is the result of changes in business strategy or the preexisting characteristics of the target bank. We find that many of the problems were already present at the time of acquisition. However, changes in business strategy by the foreign owners were generally not successful in raising the bank’s performance level to that of its domestic peers.

Assessing Foreign Subsidiary Performance: The Currency Choice of U.K. MNCs

This paper examines the extent of foreign currency and/or parent company currency financial measures used by 105 U.K.-based MNCs in the process of evaluating foreign subsidiary operations and their managers' performance.