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Purpose This paper aims to examine the influence of formal and informal institutional quality on country-level variations in foreign equity shares in transition economies (TEs). Design/methodology/approach Drawing on institutional theory and transaction cost theory, this paper examines the influence of formal and informal institutional quality on country-level variations in foreign equity shares in TEs. The authors use a two-step empirical strategy, identifying clusters of explanatory variables and running generalized least squares random effect estimations to test for the influence of explanatory and control variables on foreign equity shares. Findings Foreign equity share is positively affected by informal institutions and negatively by formal institutions. However, when control for stage of transition we find that the the presence of informal institutions in more rapidly or advanced transforming economies negatively influences foreign equity shares. Complex infrastructure discourages foreign equity shareholdings, and foreign companies use informal practices to overcome unfavourable host country conditions. Government size has a negative effect, and gross domestic product per capita positively affects foreign equity shares. Research limitations/implications The study is the new groundwork for the re-enactment of a fruitful discussion on foreign equity. The study has practical implications for managers, too – managers of foreign-owned firms operating in weakly installed institutional environments should carefully analyse the entry strategies because of the high presence of informal institutions. Furthermore, managers could understand the various facilitation roles of informal institutions in any firm internationalisation effort to arrive at optimal ownership holdings for better internationalisation performance. Although the study is based on a sample of transition countries, the findings have implications for other emerging economies’ contexts sharing similar institutional settings. Originality/value This study provides a unique empirical investigation and evidence based on country-level indicators on the effect of formal and informal institutions on foreign equity shares holdings in TEs, reinforcing the importance of impacts of both the formal and informal dimensions on ownership decisions of foreign investors.

Cryptocurrencies are becoming an exciting topic for legislative bodies, practitioners, media, and scholars with diverse academic backgrounds. The work identifies diversification benefits when cryptocurrencies are combined with the equity instruments from Visegrad Stock Exchanges. Furthermore, the results of the study explore financial and economic benefits for the investors of combining cryptocurrencies with equity stocks on the mixed portfolio. Three different independent experiments were conducted to observe diversification benefits generated from cryptocurrencies. Results from the two experiments show that cryptocurrencies employ higher portfolio risk and generate higher returns when they are involved with equity stocks portfolios. The first experiment indicates that cryptocurrencies reduce the risk level of the equity portfolios while increase average returns. Providing the equity portfolios with additional equity stocks lower the portfolio risk which is in line with the theoretical paradigms. Results indicate that cryptocurrencies must be seriously considered by the portfolio managers as an essential aspect of the portfolio diversification benefits. Future studies might raise the samples of selected portfolios with stocks from different stock indexes, to identify the problem from a broader perspective.

High-growth aspiration entrepreneurship has attracted much attention in the literature (Hermans et al., 2015; Lim et al., 2015). This paper examines simultaneously the impact of individual characteristics, institutional factors and country level control variables on high-growth aspiration entrepreneurship. The focus is on the employment growth aspirations, new products/market development of newly-established ventures in both developed and developing economies. The individual characteristics data is obtained from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Adult Population Survey (APS), covering 62 countries (divided into innovation-driven and efficiency-driven) over a seven-year period (2005-2011). Multi-level estimation technique, which accounts for the hierarchical nature of the data, is used to examine employment growth aspirations. Dichotomous choice model (probit) is applied when testing the hypothesis for new products/market development. The results indicate that most of the individual characteristics have a positive and significant effect on employment growth aspiration in both innovation and efficiency-driven economies. Specifically, entrepreneur’s education, household income, social networks, skills and perceived opportunities are significant determinants of growth aspirations. We also find that employment growth aspirations and the product/market innovativeness are gender sensitive, with male entrepreneurs being more likely to have high growth aspiration. Small-size governments, and property rights protection are found to influence growth aspirations of young firms positively whereas higher levels of corruption have a negative impact on growth aspirations and on new products/market development. Entrepreneurial growth aspirations are also found to benefit from regulatory, normative and cognitive entrepreneurial environment. Finally, we find that the effect of both individual characteristics and the institutional settings varies according to the stage of a country’s economic development.