Research Summary
Research Summary
Institutional influences on the firm: cross-country comparisons
Description
A third stream of work examines the influence of country institutions on firms in a cross-country comparative context. In a paper co-authored with Jordan Siegel (published in Management Science in 2009), we employed a quasi-natural experiment: a representative multinational entering almost all large markets regardless of institutional difference, and relying on incentive pay-for-performance as a source of competitive advantage. With a comprehensive empirical assessment of distance factors from a range of institutional dimensions, we found that labor market distance was crucial to performance, but that the multinational was able to systematically overcome more than 75 percent of this distance through a creative form of adaptation (mixing and matching intermediate-level subsets of their practices to both maintain consistency with local institutions while delivering competitive advantage).
In a new cross-country comparative project, I examine the relationship between governance institutions and private-sector participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives. I have developed contacts with leaders of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)'s Market Transformation Initiative, a global group within WWF that works to transform key agricultural commodity markets using a unique business-focused multi-stakeholder model of market transformation. I am currently designing a study that will analyze the private-sector participation in WWF's multi-stakeholder councils and boards worldwide, relative to facilitating and inhibiting institutions in each country. I focus not only on formal institutions (laws, government bodies), but also on informal institutions (local practices, enforcement of laws, informal power structures), which is critical in the developing markets that make up these important agricultural markets. This study seeks to add not only to the work on cross-country comparisons of institutions, but also to the body of work connecting local sustainability issues in agriculture to the supply chains of some of the world's largest corporations.
In a new cross-country comparative project, I examine the relationship between governance institutions and private-sector participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives. I have developed contacts with leaders of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)'s Market Transformation Initiative, a global group within WWF that works to transform key agricultural commodity markets using a unique business-focused multi-stakeholder model of market transformation. I am currently designing a study that will analyze the private-sector participation in WWF's multi-stakeholder councils and boards worldwide, relative to facilitating and inhibiting institutions in each country. I focus not only on formal institutions (laws, government bodies), but also on informal institutions (local practices, enforcement of laws, informal power structures), which is critical in the developing markets that make up these important agricultural markets. This study seeks to add not only to the work on cross-country comparisons of institutions, but also to the body of work connecting local sustainability issues in agriculture to the supply chains of some of the world's largest corporations.