Strategies for the Non-Market Environment

ABSTRACT 1: This paper examines whether mobile telecom operators with access to different kinds of knowledge pursue different strategies in politically risky markets. Using data from 2000-2010 I find that firms with country-specific knowledge, gained via presence in the local market, and general knowledge, gained through a long history of operations, were more likely to increase or maintain investment and operations even as political risk rose to the highest levels while peer firms drop both investment and operations. Firms with market-risk knowledge, gained through previous experience confronting political risk, drop investment similar to peer firms but increase operations to capitalize on their short-term competitive advantage. Therefore, country-risk knowledge and general knowledge are associated with strategies that are durable to political risk, while market-risk knowledge is associated with the distinct strategy for political risk of increased operations. These results contribute to the literature by documenting distinct market-based strategies for firms with differing knowledge sets that remain in a market as political risk rises. ABSTRACT 2: Scholars of corporate governance have debated the relative importance of country and firm characteristics in understanding corporate governance variation across emerging economies. Using panel data and a number of model specifications, we shed new light on this debate. We find that firm characteristics are as important as and often meaningfully more important than country characteristics. In fact, 16.8% percent of firms in emerging economies have been able to exceed the 75th percentile of ratings in developed economies. Our results suggest that over recent years firms in emerging economies had more capability to rise above weak home-country institutions than previously suggested. ABSTRACT 3: Outsourcing firms seeking to avoid reputational spillovers that can arise from dangerous, illegal, and unethical behavior at supply chain factories increasingly rely on private social auditors to provide strategic information about the conduct of their suppliers. But little is known about what influences auditors’ ability to identify and report poor supplier conduct. We find that individual supply chain auditors’ monitoring practices are shaped by social factors including their experience, gender, and professional training; their ongoing relationships with suppliers; and the gender diversity of their audit teams. Providing the first comprehensive and systematic findings on supply chain monitoring, our study identifies previously overlooked transaction costs and suggests strategies to develop governance structures to mitigate reputational spillover risks by reducing information asymmetries between themselves and their suppliers.