Impact of company and country antecedents on B2B buyer perceived supplier performance

Purpose To date, country-of-origin research has commonly explored structural relationships among country image (CI) constructs, together with attitudinal constructs, using a variety of halo, summary construct and flexible models, drawing on consumer samples. There has been no previous attempt to examine or synthesize these three models with respect to business-to-business (B2B) buying behavior. To fill this gap, this study reconceptualized these three models with B2B constructs using multi-cue settings and tested on B2B samples. This study aims to examine and estimate the relative impact of company- and country-specific images on B2B buyers’ evaluations of suppliers, and the direction of structural relationships with mediation among the constructs. Design/methodology/approach Data collection was administered through a web-based structured questionnaire. The final sample consisted of 276 purchasing managers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the study’s hypotheses. Findings Company image is significantly influenced by product country image (PCI) but not by overall CI. The existence of a significant relationship between PCI and perceived supplier performance in a multi-cue setting is an important new finding. In addition, company image significantly influences supplier performance and mediates the relationship between PCI and supplier performance. Among the three models that test structural relationships among CI and other constructs, the reconceptualized halo model fits the data best. Practical implications The study results revealed the contribution of company and country-related facets on B2B buyers’ perceptions of supplier performance while purchasing intermediate goods internationally. The significance of PCI on supplier performance emphasizes the strength of the industry sector within a country that may enable an industry to build a product-specific CI in international marketing. Originality/value This study advances the country-of-origin issue and debate concerning the strength of the country influence in the academic literature by addressing B2B buyers’ international purchasing behavior of intermediate goods. Additionally, the examination of multiple country facets, multi-cue settings and the CI influence structure in a single study, from a B2B perspective, offers a novel dimension to CI studies.

Sustainable Export Innovation Behavior of Firms Under Fiscal Incentive

The fiscal imbalance between the central and local governments under fiscal centralization may motivate local governments to pass tax burdens on firms. The causal identification of the tax system reform and the sustainable export innovation behavior of firms are of great significance. This study uses the income tax sharing policy of China to examine the impact of fiscal centralization on the sustainable export innovation behavior of firms. We find that this tax reform has significantly inhibited the increase of the export value-added rate of firms, and has an increasing trend with the share ratio between the Central Government and the local government. Moreover, this effect mainly comes from the crowding-out effect of imported intermediate goods on domestic intermediate goods. The tests show that the above conclusions are consistent with the general logic of local governments. When they face greater downward fiscal pressure, they will further pass the tax burden on local firms and force the firms to promote their export performance to expand the tax base. This short-sighted behavior of replacing “quality improvement” with “quantity increase” is an important factor that affects the sustainable export innovation behavior of firms and the climb in the global value chain.

Bulgarian Export of Consumption Goods and Intermediate Goods Since the Outbreak of the Corona-virus

In the context of the dynamic conditions since the beginning of the pandemic, the objective of this article is to explore the changes in the export of Bulgaria. The focus is on two categories: consumption goods and intermediate goods. My approach is based on the examination of the latest available data for trade value. It is combined with a review of relevant publications of international organizations and the academia. The results suggest disruptions in the Bulgarian export of both observed categories since the outbreak of the new virus. Based on early data, the article can be useful to provide initial indication for the variations in export in the first three quarters of 2020. The implications of the outcomes may be limited by the uncertainty of the pandemic and possible unexpected changes in the international trade environment.

Assessing the impact of Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey with a novel economic uncertainty index

PurposeThis study aims to measure economic uncertainty in Turkey by a novel economic uncertainty index (EUI) employing principal component analysis (PCA). We assess the impact of Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey with our constructed uncertainty index.Design/methodology/approachIn order to obtain the EUI, this study employs a dimension reduction method of PCA using 14 macroeconomic indicators that spans from January 2011 to July 2020. The first principal component is picked as a proxy for the economic uncertainty in Turkey which explains 52% of total variation in entire sample. In the second part of our analysis, with our constructed EUI we conduct a structural vector autoregressions (SVAR) analysis simulating the Covid-19-induced uncertainty shock to the real economy.FindingsOur EUI sensitively detects important economic/political events in Turkey as well as Covid-19-induced uncertainty rising to extremely high levels during the outbreak. Our SVAR results imply a significant decline in economic activity and in the sub-indices as well. Namely, industrial production drops immediately by 8.2% and cumulative loss over 8 months will be 15% on average. The losses in the capital and intermediate goods are estimated to be 18 and 25% respectively. Forecast error variance decomposition results imply that uncertainty shocks preserve its explanatory power in the long run, and intermediate goods production is more vulnerable to uncertainty shocks than overall industrial production and capital goods production.Practical implicationsThe results indicate that monetary and fiscal policy should aim to decrease uncertainty during Covid-19. Moreover, since investment expenditures are affected severely during the outbreak, policymakers should impose investment subsidies.Originality/valueThis is the first study constructing a novel EUI which sensitively captures the critical economic/political events in Turkey. Moreover, we assess the impact of Covid-19-driven uncertainty on Turkish Economy with a SVAR model.

‘New-Age’ Preferential Trade Agreements and Global Value Chains: An Empirical Analysis

This article analyses the impact of the ‘depth’ of new-age preferential trade agreements (PTAs) signed by nations on value-added trade as well as trade in final and intermediate goods carried out between them. This objective of this article goes beyond the black-boxing of a PTA through a dummy and aims to focus on the ‘depth’ of a PTA as measured by its provisions and content. For this purpose, we construct an intensive panel data set. The data set spans across 6 years (3-year intervals across 2000–2015) and is constructed on a dyadic (country pair) level for 61 countries and 110 PTAs across the world, using the Trade in Valued Added (TiVA) Database from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Content of Deep Trade Agreements database from World Bank. Further, we construct two indices for measuring the ‘depth’ of the PTAs based on their content. Our study uses augmented gravity equation with three-way fixed effects, namely country pair, exporter time and importer time, for estimating the results. Our results indicate that the ‘depth’ of a PTA significantly affects trade in final goods, intermediate goods and value-added trade, and the impact is highest for trade in value added. We also observe that PTA with greater number of provisions has a higher impact on trade in final goods, intermediate goods as well as trade in value added.

Research on the Influence of Shanghai Import Trade Structure on Technological Progress

Based on the statistical data from 1995 to 2018, this paper uses regression analysis, error correction model and impulse response analysis to empirically test the specific impact of import trade structure on Shanghai's technological progress. The results show that the decrease in the proportion of intermediate goods imports promotes the technological progress, while the increase in the proportion of capital goods imports has a significant positive impact on Shanghai's technological progress. The relationship between FDI and technological progress in Shanghai is negative. The development of Finance and the increase of patent authorization promote the technological progress of Shanghai. The stability test of VEC model shows that there is a long-term equilibrium and stable relationship among the variables. Impulse response analysis shows that there is a bidirectional interaction between the import trade structure and Shanghai's technological progress. Therefore, we should further reduce the quantity of intermediate goods with low technology content and increase the import volume of capital goods appropriately. At the same time, we should attach importance to innovation based on introduction and absorption, and use the platform of China International Import Expo to attract foreign enterprises to widely display new products, new technologies and new services of various countries, so as to help high-quality development in the future.

Cooperation and subcontracting enterprises as a form of deepening the process of integration within the Eurasian Economic Union

The article considers such forms of integration between enterprises as subcontracting and cooperation, designed to increase the industrial potential, activate the processes of restructuring industries and move them to a qualitatively new level. The purpose of the study is to identify the features and trends of the process of integration of enterprises through the mechanism of subcontracting and cooperation within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and to substantiate the prospects for its further development.The paper describes the degree of development of national subcontracting markets in the countries that are part of the Eurasian Economic Union, and identifies the features of national systems for supporting cooperation and subcontracting processes. The authors carry out the analysis of the dynamics of cooperative supplies between the EAEU member states in the sectoral context, as well as the analysis of structural shifts in trade in intermediate goods in the context of the participating countries. The latter found a shift in the final links of the cooperative chains of product value formation in the EAEU space, which indicates the deepening of integration processes. The article considers the problems of information, financial and regulatory support for the development of subcontracting and cooperation. The paper determines the reasons that hinder the integration processes in the EAEU. The results of the study can be used in the development of an industrial strategy and integration policy in the Eurasian space.