Uneven regulatory playing field and bank transparency abroad

Motivated by international business research on institutional arbitrage and headquarters–subsidiary relationships, we examine the effect of regulatory distance on multinational banks’ (MNBs) reporting transparency abroad. Using an international sample of foreign subsidiary banks in 46 host countries from 47 home countries, we find that bank transparency declines when the home countries have tighter activity restrictions than the host countries. We bolster the causal inference using difference-in-differences designs that take advantage of banking reforms and cross-border bank acquisitions. We also find that the result is more pronounced when parent banks have lower capital ratios or when host countries have weaker supervisory power, suggesting that parent banks use opaque reporting to conceal risk-taking abroad. Further analysis finds that less transparent subsidiaries are more likely to fail during financial crises. Overall, our findings suggest that regulatory distance creates negative externalities for bank transparency and stability abroad.

Omnichannel Business

The widespread diffusion of digital technologies along with evolving consumer behaviors and requirements have fostered the emergence of omnichannel businesses, i.e., firms that can exploit integrated processes and information systems to realize a seamless and consistent consumer experience across a plenitude of digital and physical channels. To date, omnichannel research has been cluttered and characterized by significant terminological ambiguity that creates unnecessary challenges for researchers and markeeters trying to navigate and advance research and practice in this area. This fundamentals article seeks to address this problem by presenting a definition of omnichannel business that is grounded in its unique characteristics involving technology, organizational, and market perspectives and clearly distinguishes omnichannel from other terms, such as multi-channel or cross-channel. We leverage this conceptual clarity to analyze and structure the previous research on omnichannel business and conclude with an integrated framework that signifies fields of interest for future omnichannel business research.

Electricity Markets in a Time of Change: A Call to Arms for Business Research

Europe’s clean energy transition is imperative to combat climate change and represents an economic opportunity to become independent of fossil fuels. As such, the energy transition has become one of the most important, but also one of the most challenging economic and societal projects today. Electricity systems of the past were characterized by price-inelastic demand and only a small number of large electricity generators. The transition towards intermittent renewable energy sources changes this very paradigm. Future electricity systems will consist of many thousands of electricity generators and consumers that actively participate in markets, offering flexibility to balance variable electricity supply in markets with a high spatial and temporal resolution. These structural changes have ample consequences for market operators, generators, industrial consumers as well as prosumers. While a large body of the literature is devoted to the energy transition in engineering and the natural sciences, it has received relatively little attention in the recent business research literature, even though many of the central challenges for a successful energy transition are at the core of business research. Therefore, we provide an up-to-date overview of key questions in electricity market design and discuss how changes in electricity markets lead to new research challenges in business research disciplines such as accounting, business & information systems engineering, finance, marketing, operations management, operations research, and risk management.

Complementary Methods to Mitigate the Misinterpretation of Results Due to Collinearity in International Business Research

Objectives of the study: to demonstrate the methodological gaps in empirical work that use structural models in the area of International Business, and prescribe complementary methods to mitigate the problem of collinearity Method: a simulation was developed to evidence the effects of collinearity with respect to the importance and significance of predictors, and actions aimed at controlling the undesired effects of collinearity was developed Main results: the proposition of complementary methods that include grouping the latent variables that present multicollinearity into a second-order model, and the use of the technique that shows the relative importance of predictors Theoretical and methodological contributions: the contribution is based on the complementary methods offered for the academic community to conduct empirical research that are laid out by the findings of this research paper Relevance and originality: from the gaps pointed out in the recent scientific production of the field of knowledge of international business, complementary methods are presented to mitigate the problem of collinearity, which may render the results of empirical studies invalid Social contributions and management: among the main managerial and social implications achieved through our findings of, we stimulate the development of robust, relevant and reliable empirical research

Strategic Tools for Business Research and Analysis

There are many tools and techniques available for business analysis, but the question is whether there is one tool or a set of tools that are most commonly used. What tools or techniques are taught to business managers or business development officers? The literature is reviewed for tools that are most widely taught and in use. The chapter examines the reasons they have been chosen and the comments on how effective they were found to be. The use of tools generally and the need to use more than one tool are discussed. Several authors suggest that the central role of a business analysis tool appears to be to provoke discussion amongst the business development officers. The discussion seems to be more important than the tool in preparation for developing strategic options. The theory of resource-based analysis is discussed with its role in analysing the company and its competition.

The Strategic Divestment Decision in the Family Business Through the Real Options and Emotional Lenses

Divestments have received little attention in family business research, although representing one of the most important strategic and financial decisions. Additionally, they have been insufficiently studied from the owning family's emotional perspective. This chapter contributes in filling these gaps by focusing on the core entity of the family business as object of divestment from the Real Options and Regret theoretical lenses. It suggests a characterization of the family business divestment decision and a series of propositions with case vignettes around configurations of divestment options, their valuation, and influence in different emotional family business archetypes.