Market entry agility in the process of enhancing firm performance: A dynamic capability perspective

Social media empowers small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in engaging with their stakeholders economically and effectively. Social media use affects SMEs operation and knowledge sharing which creates innovation opportunities, speeds time to market, satisfies firm's customers, and improves business performance. Current research aims to explore the impact of social media use on the market entry agility, product innovativeness, reducing the market entry time for the SME and improving the firm performance. Cross-sectional survey-based data was collected from the jewelry crafting SMEs in Bali, Indonesia. The data was analyzed with the covariance-based statistical analysis technique with the SPSS based AMOS 23. The study results identify that social media use and market entry agility significantly impact firm performance. However, product innovativeness insignificantly influences firm performance. Furthermore, the market entry agility mediates for the firm performance so, SMEs need to leverage social media use, and market entry agility enables the dynamic capacity to enhance firm performance. Firms’ level innovativeness capability should be considered as a mediating role but should support another variable to leverage firm performance. The study limitation and future research options are reported at the end.

The analysis of barriers to entry into the pharmaceutical market of Ukraine

The pharmaceutical market of Ukraine is characterized by a tendency to dominate imports over exports, which indicates its economic attractiveness for foreign companies that face various obstacles when entering the market. Entry barriers are understood as factors of an objective or subjective nature that prevent new firms from organizing profitable operations in the industry. The presence and impact of market barriers prove the need for their identification and comprehensive research. It has been established that when entering the pharmaceutical market of Ukraine, there are restrictive barriers related to state policy (for example, licensing, registration of medicines, examination, certification, etc.), barriers due to competition, and barriers of a non-legal nature. The results of the analysis of the competitive situation as a possible barrier characterize the pharmaceutical market of Ukraine as a market of free competition, which contributes to the relatively free entry of foreign manufacturers. Market entry barriers are also caused by anti-competitive behavior such as mergers and acquisitions, unfair competition, informal agreements, and so on. The results of the research can be used in making decisions about entering new markets or market segments for pharmaceutical companies, in forming competitive advantages and business strategies in order to develop potential in the long term.

Does the Agglomeration of Producer Services and the Market Entry of Enterprises Promote Carbon Reduction? An Empirical Analysis of the Yangtze River Economic Belt

As the world’s largest carbon emitter, China has been committed to carbon emission reduction and green development. Under the goal of “double carbon”, adjusting the industrial structure and promoting the development of producer services are regarded as effective emission reduction paths. In this paper, from the perspective of market entry of enterprises, we firstly investigate the transmission mechanism between market entry of enterprises and industrial agglomeration and summarize the carbon emission reduction mechanism of producer services. Based on the panel data of 110 prefecture-level cities in China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2003 to 2017, we analyze the impact of producer services on carbon emission reduction by using the dynamic spatial panel model. The empirical results show that China’s urban carbon dioxide emissions have noticeable spatial spillover effects and high emission club clustering characteristics and exhibit a noticeable snowball effect and leakage effect in time and space dimensions. The development of the producer services can effectively reduce carbon emission levels, effectively solving the dilemma of “stabilizing growth and promoting emission reduction”. Furthermore, there is an apparent synergistic effect between enterprises’ market entry and industrial agglomeration. The agglomeration of producer services can effectively promote the entry of innovative new enterprises, thus increasing the carbon emission reduction effect. However, due to resource mismatch and isomorphic development, this carbon emission reduction effect has apparent industrial heterogeneity and regional heterogeneity. Finally, this paper makes suggestions for optimizing regional industrial structure, strengthening inter-regional linkage cooperation, and promoting the advanced development of the producer services.

Capabilities of a Periodic Containerised Railfreight System in Germany

Based on an analysis of the developments to date, this article originates from and then substantiates long-discussed approaches of a fast, periodic unaccompanied combined rail freight transport network for Germany that corresponds to the target modal split. A four-stage scenario of a market entry is developed. The presented solution incorporates potentially novel aspects such as a network design based on the Deutschlandtakt Cargo integrated periodic timetable framework, the prospective quantity structures as of 2030, and a segmentation for a route-specific mix of two major shipping container types. The set of assessment indicators derived by the model allows to gain insights on the achievable capacities and service levels versus the addressable freight transport demand as well as consequential cost/benefit functions.

Effective selection of countries in sub-Saharan Africa for new market entry by independent wind power producers

When independent power producers (IPPs) assess new market entry opportunities, subjective decision making can result in an unfavourable outcome. Multi-criteria decision analyses (MCDA) objectify the decision process and help to achieve better results. The aim of this study is to determine and rank the most important criteria for market entry and then determine which selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa are most favourable for wind IPPs. A combination of MCDA methods was used to rank seven countries. Nineteen criteria, identified in the literature reviewed, were included in the analyses. In the first phase of the study an industry expert survey was conducted and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was used to rank the criteria in order of importance. In the second phase, a preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE) was employed to rank the countries from most to least favourable for IPP market entry. The expert survey and AHP showed that political and economic criteria are more important than technical and social criteria. The PROMETHEE model ranked South Africa followed by Ethiopia as the most favourable markets for wind IPPs to enter. These countries have strong natural wind resources but only South Africa offers incentives specifically for on-grid renewable energy. The methods used in this study are not restricted to the wind industry and can be expanded to different technologies and industries to assist with decision making.

EXPRESS: Timing Market Entry – the Mediation Effect of Market Potential

Timing a multinational firm’s entry into a new country is a pivotal decision with long-term impact on the firm’s overall performance, thus a deeper understanding of the drivers of the decision and their interrelationship can yield significant managerial benefits. We explore the mediating role of market potential by decomposing the total effects of the decision’s main drivers—macro-economic attractiveness, market concentration, social heterogeneity, population density—into direct and indirect effects. These decompositions explain the countervailing effects of some drivers that simultaneously make both positive and negative impacts. Our dataset encompasses mobile 4G broadband penetration in 130 countries, including market entry timings for 28 international operators in 79 countries. We establish the nature of the mediation effect of market potential on the drivers of entry timing. Using early penetration data, we utilize growth mixture modeling to divide the countries into four latent segments. We validate this segmentation using machine learning with the four key drivers as classifiers; the process establishes macro-economic attractiveness as the predominant classifier. Our analysis offers entry-timing guidance at both pre- and post-launch stages.

Athlete-Centric Employer Branding During Rival Leagues’ Market Entry

New sports leagues use employer branding to promote themselves as distinctive and desirable employers so they can attract talented athletes. A multiple case analysis was used to examine the employer branding strategies of four leagues that entered markets with incumbents: the National Women’s Hockey League, BIG3, Alliance of American Football, and Premier Lacrosse League. All four leagues used athlete-centric employer branding, which uses symbolic and instrumental employment information to signal commitment and involvement to athletes. Leagues also directed their employer branding to consumers. The findings suggest adding an employment dimension to theories of league brand architecture as well as reconsidering the audience for employer branding. Athlete-centric employer branding is a strategy for entering markets from a rival position and is likely to become more popular as public pressure on leagues increases.

How does corruption distance affect MNCs' entry ownership strategies and entry performance? A combined lens of transaction cost economics and institutional theory

<p>Purpose — Government determines the rules of the game that influence the strategies and actions of a firm. Government corruption increases the transaction costs and generates institutional pressures for MNCs. Corrupt countries are often economically attractive emerging markets, which are strategically important for foreign entrants. However, little research has been carried out as to discussing the role of market entry strategies in MNCs entering corrupt host markets. In this thesis, we focus on how firms strategically respond to corrupt environments, as well as how they succeed in the corrupt foreign markets. Theory/Framework — We first scrutinized two fundamental theoretical underpinnings that are pertinent to this research, namely, transaction cost economics (TCE) and the institutional view. Specifically, not only does corruption pervasiveness affect MNCs’ entry decisions, corruption arbitrariness and institutional forces also has important implications. Through a TCE lens, we decomposed the “arbitrary corruption” and focus on country-level arbitrariness, i.e., a “lack of political constraint” and “political instability” in a host country. From an institutional view, we analysed the influence of both external and internal institutional forces, that is, the legitimacy pressure from a host government, as well as the internal pressure driven by the ethical identity of a parent firm (based on the organizational identity theory) in the context of corruption. Drawing on the blended perspectives, we filled in the research gaps by constructing a conceptual model that connects corruption distance with entry ownership strategies, and the subsequent entry performance. Methodology — We manually extracted data regarding foreign market entry behaviours of US listed MNCs from periodical databases using the Event History Analysis (EHA). We ran empirical analysis to demonstrate how corruption and related factors affect MNCs’ entry strategies, and how these strategies produce different entry performance. By using logistic models, the first study examined the impact of corruption distance on MNCs’ strategic ownership choices between joint ventures (JVs) and wholly owned subsidiaries (WOSs), and how corruption arbitrariness and institutional forces respectively moderate the corruption-strategy relationship. The second study employed Heckman two-stage models to examine how corruption distance, selected moderators and entry strategy fit enhance entry performance. Key findings — Empirical findings in Study 1 suggest that as corruption distance increases, MNCs are more likely to choose the JV mode. They tend to choose strategic alliances when entering a host country with fewer political constraints. The results also indicate that both “lack of political constraint” and “political instability” negatively moderate the positive relationship between corruption distance and MNCs’ strategic preference for a JV entry. From an institutional view, the findings indicate that regulatory pressure driven by political intervention, as well as internal constraints in the form of corporate identity, affect firms’ entry decisions. As corruption distance becomes greater, international firms with less salient ethical identities show a greater inclination for local adaptation, whereas their ethically conscious counterparts show little conformity in their strategic response to host-country corruption. Study 2 advances the understanding of how corruption distance and entry strategies affect a foreign subsidiary’s entry performance and answers the subsequent “so-what” question. Employing an EHA-based measure of entry performance, we have found that 1) As corruption distance increases, foreign subunits are less likely to be successful. 2) In relation to the WOS entry, local partnership overcomes competitive disadvantages induced by corruption distance and generates more successful host-market entries. 3) As opposed to wholly controlled investment, local partnering would be more successful where a host country is more politically unconstrained. 4) We confirmed a positive effect of corporate ethical identity on entry success. Contributions/Originalities — Both studies contribute to the marketing strategy research in international markets by linking government corruption and relevant factors with firm strategy and firm performance through dual lenses from TCEs and the institutional theory. The research does not only have theoretical value in demonstrating the implications of corruption distance, but also sheds light on strategic decisions and foreign entry outcomes for international practitioners entering host countries under various transactional costs and institutional conditions.</p>