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This article examines the issue of determining long-term sustained superior financial performance. We demonstrate that the technique of frontier analysis is a robust and theoretically consistent way to identify relative performance. We show how our approach, although dependent on the reliability of reported financial data (which recent events show needed to be treated with caution for some companies), addresses the three critical issues in the measurement of performance: balancing short-term and long-term performance, capturing the multidimensional nature of performance, and finding the right peer comparators. The approach is particularly important today, given the failure of past performance to signal in any way how firms would be able to weather a pervasive global crisis.

This article presents a strategic intent perspective (SIP) to analyze the foreign acquisitions made by Chinese firms. It suggests that Chinese firms strategically use cross-border acquisitions to achieve goals, such as acquiring strategic capabilities to offset their competitive disadvantages and leveraging their unique ownership advantages, while making use of institutional incentives and minimizing institutional constraints. The SIP is supported by the evidence from three firms that we studied, where dozens of interviews were conducted, including the one with the founder of Lenovo. This study contributes to extant international business theories by incorporating the SIP to examine internationalization strategies of firms from developing countries.

This paper examines the international success of British companies in a matrix combining global market share and international revenues. We identify those industry segments in which British companies are most successful internationally, and also investigate whether these are attractive industries in terms of profitability and growth. We find that the industries with the largest global market shares for British companies are Mining, Casinos (and Gaming), Oil Companies (Major), Distillers & Brewers, and Water Utilities. Four of the top ten might be considered to be “sin” industries. The industries with the highest international revenues are Precious Metals, Pharmaceuticals, Industrial (Diversified), Oil Companies (Secondary), and Mining. We also find that virtually all of the largest British firms average over a 10% global market share, in the “British Winners” segment of our matrix. However, we find the second measure, the extent of internationalization, to be ambiguous. The manufacturing (product-based) firms tried to be highly internationalized, as they compete globally, but the largest British services firms (financials, retailers) tend to have low internationalization, and therefore appear to benefit from a still somewhat regulated home market. In addition, British companies have done a good job of building up global market shares in higher growth industries. We provide recommendations for managers as to how British companies with different combinations of global market share and extent of internationalisation can improve their positions. Our methodology can also be applied to analyzing companies from other nations.

How does the Internet affect globalization and global strategy within firms? How should multinational companies re-evaluate their global strategies to best take advantage of the Internet? Both managers and researchers have assumed that a correct and appropriate use of Internet technologies by companies speeds up globalization of industries and enables firm use of global strategies. This paper provides empirical evidence on the exact uses of the Internet by global companies, how their use affects key globalization drivers and how they believe this, in turn, affects performance. We derive ten lessons on how companies can use the Internet to enhance their global strategies.

This article looks to the strategic opportunities provided by the recent Asian economic crisis. It suggests that whilst the crisis did require immediate responses, the longer-term issues were equally important. The authors look at different reactions to the crisis. They discuss a variety of strategies, including bargain hunting for assets and making strategic purchases whilst prices are low, forming new alliances to augment or supplant those that already exist, and expanding whilst competitors are weak. They embed their ideas into traditional strategic thinking, touching on issues of competence enhancement, competitor awareness and customer focus. They use topical examples to illustrate their points. Crises will reappear unexpectedly in countries and markets, demanding that firms revisit their strategies. This article provides a framework for thinking about these issues.

The authors posit the question of whether companies should formulate their strategies according to a global or regional corporate mindset. In this study, they explore the strategic responses of multinational automotive companies embedded in a simple framework of interdependent industry forces, total globalisation barriers, and competitive regionalisation advantages. Regional strategies could be viewed as alternative, potentially superior solutions vis-a-vis fully globally integrated or locally responsive approaches. The presented evidence suggests that there are some valid reasons for companies to follow an eclectic course of regionalisation as well as globalisation. Such an approach involves clustering countries that exhibit similar market conditions and addressing homogenised regional consumer tastes, while minimising adaptation costs. In the context of the automotive industry, however, the preliminary findings suggest that a car producer should first become a global company, in order to efficiently and selectively regionalise in a second step. Overall, regional strategies could be associated with later, rather than earlier, stages in the evolution of a company's global strategy.

Two competing theories of firm performance have been proposed in the business strategy literature, the industry structure view and the resource-based view of the firm. Empirical studies have estimated the relative contribution of industry structure, corporate, and business unit effects to business unit performance. These studies, however, have been restricted to using only single-country data. Missing from this debate is an international dimension that includes the relative importance of country conditions as a determinant of firm performance. The objective of this article is to fill this void by adding country characteristics to the analysis. Using cross-country data of four large multinationals in a single industry, we estimate the relative importance of country characteristics in addition to industry structure, corporate characteristics, and subsidiary strategy as determinants of subsidiary performance by using multiple regression analysis. This analysis also will contribute to the discussion on environmental determinism versus strategic choice. Country and industry characteristics are mainly outside the control of management, whereas corporate characteristics and subsidiary strategy are under management's control. Results show that country characteristics are by far the most important determinant of subsidiary performance, followed by industry structure, subsidiary strategy, and corporate characteristics. Thus, country conditions are a very important determinant of firm performance that so far has been overlooked in previous studies. These results indicate that subsidiary performance is determined mainly by conditions outside the control of subsidiary management. In terms of competing theories, these results support the environmental determinism view more than the strategic choice view and the resource-based view of the firm more than the industry structure view. These results also have important implications for multinational corporations' selection of countries for entry and investment and for performance evaluation of subsidiary management.

This article discusses two concepts in an emerging theory of knowledge development in globalizing firms. The concept of "language games" is developed to shed light on the role of language in global ...

Organizational performance is one of the most important constructs in management research. We review the contexts that frame organizational performance as a dependent variable with specific emphasis on how it is operationalized and measured. The research contexts of past studies are firmly anchored around a multidimensional conceptualization of organizational performance related predominately to stakeholders, heterogeneous market circumstances, and time. The review of the operationalization and measurement of performance highlights the limited effectiveness of commonly accepted measurement practices in tapping this multidimensionality. By synthesizing the literature, the foundations are laid for the improved measurement of performance in management research. We conclude with a call for research that examines the effectiveness of triangulation utilizing multiple measures, applies longitudinal data and brings to bear alternative methodological formulations as means of appropriately aligning research contexts with the measurement of organizational performance. Validating these measurement approaches is an important agenda for further research. Previous Title: Measuring Organizational Performance in Management Research: A Synthesis of Measurement Challenges and Approaches

The measurement of company performance poses several challenges. Three critical ones are: balancing short-term and long-term performance, the need to use multiple measures to capture the broad meaning of performance, and finding the right peer comparators. We argue that truly sustainable long term superior performance should be observed over an extended period, and in comparison with industry peers from around the world. We describe how a technique, frontier analysis, can be applied to the issue of measuring performance. We apply frontier analysis to several companies in the oil industry to demonstrate how their performance can be ranked even when using eight divergent measures. We also apply the technique to identify which of 215 of the largest UK publicly-listed companies in 38 industries can qualify as long term superior performers. We find and name 28 qualifying companies in 19 industries.

The measurement of performance is critical to nearly all managerial disciplines. Yet, we know little about the aggregation characteristics of the components of performance and how our notion of a "good performing firm" relates to what it is that we use as a dependent variable. In this paper, we propose an approach to thinking about the measurement of performance that uses the logic of frontier analysis. The approach is shown to be a reasonable representation of the multidimensional nature of performance and is shown to replicate, effectively, the components that we normally consider when discussing performance. This approach is shown to be superior to the simpler alternatives based on psychometric techniques.

Multinational companies (MNCs) vary in both their use of global strategy and in the systems of corporate governance in which they operate. In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework and set of propositions to show that differences in national corporate governance systems will influence the behavior of corporate actors, which in turn explains the ability of MNCs to achieve global integration. In particular, we conceptualize our comparative model for MNCs by drawing on an actor-centered institutional theory perspective, focusing on five key governance actors: employees, shareholders, boards of directors, top management teams, and governments, to predict MNC's ability to achieve global integration in terms of global strategy and organization. We show that despite increasing convergence pressures, nationally embedded institutional characteristics continue to shape the globalization strategies of multinational companies.

Using globalization and contingency theory, this paper develops a supplier-based model of global account management (GAM). The model comprises the multinational supplier's industry globalization drivers, the multinational customers' extent of globally coordinated buying, such customers' demand for GAM services, the supplier's response in terms of using various aspects of GAM, and resulting possible improvement in the supplier's performance. The paper develops six hypotheses linking these variables. Data on various aspects of these variables were collected in a survey of 191 executives in multinational companies. Two related models are estimated from these data using a structural equations method. The results support the argument that the supplier's industry globalization drivers play a key role in affecting customers' demand for GAM services, and that supplier's implementation of GAM leads to significant performance improvements.