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安徽工业大学 毕业论文
outweigh the cost of being foreign (Caves 1971; Hymer 1976).The internalization theory suggests that a firm‘s international expansion is a process of rational action, in which the firm continues developing its internal markets across national borders by integrating operations formerly carried out by intermediate product markets, until the expected benefits and costs of the expansion are equalized (e.g., Buckley and Casson 1976; Casson 1979;Rugman 1981). Integrating different streams of prior research, Dunning (1977, 1988, 1993, 2001) develops the eclectic paradigm, or ―OLI‖ framework, which suggests that firms make decisions on their international business activities by configuring three types of advantages: first, ownership (O)advantages, which are attributable to the firm‘s possession of particular intangible assets, such as firm specific technology; second, location (L) advantages, which stem from the institutional and productive factors present in a particular geographical area; third, internalization (I) advantages, which arise from the firm‘s ability to leverage its ownership advantages by effectively organizing production activities within the firm rather than exploiting such assets through the open market. In the past three decades, in the IB literature, the eclectic paradigm has been the most widely adopted framework for explaining the significant growth of multinational firms (Cantwell and Narula 2001).
These IB-specific theories are, in part, based on two more broadly applicable theoretical frameworks: transaction cost economics (TCE) and resource-based view (RBV). TCE suggests that firms select governance structures based on expected market transaction cost, that is, cost incurred in searching for,establishing, monitoring, and enforcing market contracts (Williamson 1975, 1985). As an early adopter of TCE, the IB literature has extensively applied TCE to explain and predict firms‘ foreign market entry decisions (e.g.Anderson and Gatignon 1986; Chen 2010; Delios and Beamish 1999; Erramilli and Rao 1993). An underlying logic of these studies is market failure. Specifically, the difficulty in acquiring necessary assets from external markets drives firms to pursue alternative nonmarket-based governance mechanisms, such as foreign direct investments and jointventures. TCE forms the theoretical foundation for the aforementioned internalization theory and eclectic paradigm. Overall, internalization theory can be viewed as the TCE of multinational corporations (Madhok 1997; Rugman 1986).
TCE is mainly concerned with how to efficiently exploit existing firm-specific advantage; RBV, on the other hand, also focuses on the development of such advantage. Based on Penrose‘s theory of growth, RBV states that sustainable competitive advantage stems from a set of valuable, rare,inimitable, and non-substitutable assets that the firm owns,controls, or has access to (Barney 1991; Wernerfelt 1984).RBV has also evolved into the capability-based view (Helfat and Peteraf 2003; Teece et al. 1997) 第 31 页 共 62 页
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安徽工业大学 毕业论文
and knowledge-based view (Grant 1996; Kogut and Zander 1992). RBV has been extensively adopted in IB. According to RBV, market entry decisions are driven by firms‘ idiosyncratic resources and capabilities (e.g., Kogut and Zander 1993; Peng 2001; Sapienza et al. 2006). The notion of resource has been an underlying logic in the development of the IB field. The aforementioned internationalization process models (e.g. Johanson and Vahlne 1977, 2009), for example, are also centered on learning and knowledge.
2.2 International Entrepreneurship
The above theories have provided the IB literature with a set of conceptual frameworks for describing and explaining firms‘ internationalization strategies. The types of firms that the IB literature has traditionally examined are mostly established, large multinationals (Oviatt and McDougall 2005). Recent developments in the global economy, however, have presented both challenges and opportunities to traditional theories. Specifically, certain highly entrepreneurial firms are able to internationalize more rapidly than predicted by traditional models (e.g., Lu and Beamish 2001). In particular, certain new ventures, such as some technology-based, knowledge-intensive firms, may enter foreign markets right from the firms‘ inception or shortly thereafter. These firms are termed ―born-globals‖ (Knight and Cavusgil 1996, 2004;Moen and Servais 2002; Oviatt and McDougall 1994, 1997;Rennie 1993). Examination of born-globals involves an integration of ideas from both IB and entrepreneurship (e.g.Shane and Venkataraman 2000), eventually leading to the emergence of a dynamic field, international entrepreneurship (Acs et al. 2003; Dana et al. 1999; McDougall and Oviatt 2000).
Among international new ventures, software and IT service firms are most prominent (Prashantham 2005). The ability of IT to facilitate cross-border coordination (Rangan and Sengul 2009) and to enable product and service delivery in electronic forms (Ojala and Tyrv?inen 2006) provides firms with opportunities to increasingly engage in international business (Etemad et al. 2010; Sinkovics and Bell 2006). Software and IT service firms are also unique in the knowledge-intensive nature of their business (Autio etal. 2000; Saarenketo etal. 2004). Their focus on acquiring various types of knowledge resources, including market information, entrepreneurial capacities, and business networks (Mejri and Umemoto 2010) enables these firms to rapidly and successfully internationalize into foreign markets (Dib et al. 2010; Kuivalainen et al. 2010).
Another type of firms that pose challenges to traditional internationalization theories are those based in emerging markets (Hoskisson et al. 2000; Wright et al. 2005). Some of these firms are actively expanding into developed economies (e.g., Makino et al. 2002; Yamakawa et al. 2008). In contrast with traditional multinational 第 32 页 共 62 页
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安徽工业大学 毕业论文
corporations, which often enter foreign markets to exploit their existing firm-specific knowledge and capabilities, firms from emerging markets oftentimes internationalize into developed economies in order to address their competitive disadvantages (Child and Rodrigues 2005). By proactively acquiring strategic assets overseas(e.g. Deng 2009) and rapidly upgrading capabilities (e.g.Guillén and García-Canal 2009), some firms based in emerging markets are themselves becoming new multinationals. The internationalization of these firms is a highly entrepreneurial process that involves continuous creation of new business opportunities (Schweizer et al. 2010; Yiu et al. 2007).
As the world‘s largest emerging market, China has undergone three decades of reform to create a market economy; in this transformation, Chinese firms have increasingly matured and developed their capabilities (Guthrie 2001, 2005). In the past decade in particular, a growing number of Chinese firms have been internationalizing into developed economies and some are growing into highly innovative and competitive players in the global market (Luo and Tung 2007). Similar to other emerging market based firms, Chinese firms pursue internationalization in order to seek strategic assets to compensate for their competitive weaknesses (Luo and Tung 2007; Naude and Rossouw 2010). What is unique about China is that Chinese firms have been especially active in adopting the role of subcontractors for foreign firms (Child and Rodrigues 2005; Murray et al. 2005). Such partnerships can provide Chinese firms with a more direct channel for acquiring managerial and technical competency and eventually moving up the global value chain (Liu et al. 2009).
To understand the behavior and decision rationale of these new ventures, the international entrepreneurship literature has adopted a set of theories similar to those in traditional IB research, including TCE (e.g., Schwens and Kabst 2009) and RBV (e.g., Gray and McNaughton 2010). Here RBV is broadly defined to include the knowledge-based view and organizational learning theory. Network theory (e.g., Oviatt and McDougall 2005) and institutional theory (e.g., Peng etal. 2008) are also extensively used. Network as a form of social capital (Yli-Renko et al. 2002) can be viewed as a resource (Zahra et al. 2003) and integrated into RBV (e.g.Coviello and Cox 2006; Torkkeli et al. 2012). Overall, RBV is the most extensively adopted framework for studying international entrepreneurship (Acs et al. 2003; Kiss et al.2012).
RBV has also provided a theoretical foundation for entrepreneurship research in general (e.g., Autio et al. 2011; Helfat and Lieberman 2002). The ownership and control of valuable resources is critical to the foundation and growth of entrepreneurial firms (Davidsson and Honig 2003; Lee et al. 2001). Many nascent firms, however, face severe resource constraints. In response, firms may seek and acquire resources from their external business environments (e.g., George and Prabhu 2000). Alternatively, 第 33 页 共 62 页
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安徽工业大学 毕业论文
firms may engage in a process of ―bricolage,‖ that is, ―making do by applying combinations of the resources at hand to new problems and opportunities‖ (Baker and Nelson 2005, p.333). The notion of bricolage, adapted from Lév I - Strauss‘ (1967) anthropology research, refers to a process in which actors recombine various available physical, social, or institutional elements, such as technical artifacts (Lanzara 1999), organizational routines (Ciborra 1996), and social networks (Baker et al. 2003), to achieve their goals. Bricolage emphasizes actors‘ resourcefulness and adaptability within an existing context (Di Domenico et al. 2010), and highlights the emergent and oftentimes improvised aspect of strategic decision making (Crossan et al. 2005; Moorman and Miner 1998; Weick 1998).
The concept of bricolage has been applied in a wide range of domains in entrepreneurship. For example, in the area of technology entrepreneurship, bricolage characterizes the process in which innovation emerges through combination of distributed knowledge from a network of actors (Garud and Karn?e 2003). In the area of institutional entrepreneurship, bricolage occurs as actors borrow elements from different market categories to transform industry boundaries (Rao et al.2005). In the area of social entrepreneurship, bricolage involves the integration of existing routines to enact collective action (Johannisson and Olaison 2007). All of these studies show that bricolage represents an effective alternative approach for organizing in a highly uncertain, resourceconstrained environment (Baker and Nelson 2005). In the area of international entrepreneurship, a firm‘s ability to compete on resourcefulness has been consistently emphasized (e.g., Peng 2001; Zahra 2005). However, the concept of bricolage has not yet been sufficiently incorporated and elaborate in international entrepreneurship (Chandra et al. 2012).
Another related behavior exhibited during firms‘ new market entries is the oscillation between different strategy processes(e.g., Bingham 2009). Specifically, firms shift between less and more improvisation in their internationalization process to achieve both efficiency and flexibility. The concept of oscillation was initially explored in the broader management literature. Van de Ven (1992) and McKelvey (1997) suggest that organizations might choose to dynamically oscillate between different modes of operation. Such oscillation has been identified in firms‘ engagement in various strategic activities such as centralization and decentralization (e.g.Cummings 1995; Ferner et al. 2004), and exploration and exploitation (e.g., Brown and Eisenhardt 1997; Lavie and Rosenkopf 2006). Compared to seeking a static or contingent fit between organization and environment, oscillation can be a more efficient mechanism for governance (Nickerson and Zenger 2002; Siggelkow and Levinthal 2003; Thomas et al.2005).
2.3 IT Service Suppliers
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安徽工业大学 毕业论文
A prominent example of international entrepreneurship is the recent emergence of Chinese IT service suppliers in the global outsourcing industry. IT services as an industry has been extensively studied in the IS literature, especially the research on global IT outsourcing. In the last two decades, a rich set of studies has been conducted to explore a number of key questions that the outsourcing clients, especially those based in the United States and other developed economies, need to consider when transferring IT services to another organization or another country. According to two major surveys on IT outsourcing research (Dibbern et al. 2004; Lacity et al. 2010), these questions can be categorized into two main topics: the decision process of IT outsourcing and the outcome of IT outsourcing. Specifically, four general questions regarding the IT outsourcing decisions of organizations have been explored.These questions include why organizations outsource(e.g., Kishore et al. 2004; Loh and Venkatraman 1992), what organizations outsource (e.g., Cross 1995; Cullen et al. 2005), how organizations make outsourcing decisions (e.g., Hirschheim and Lacity 2000; Koh et al. 2004), and how organizations implement and manage outsourcing arrangements (e.g., Goo et al. 2009; Tiwana and Keil 2007). In recent years, several major trends have been dramatically changing the global IT outsourcing landscape. These trends include, first, the emergence of innovative sourcing models such as multisourcing (e.g., Bapna et al. 2011; Su and Levina 2011), shared services (e.g., Janssen and Joha 2008; Su et al. 2009), and cloud computing (e.g., Armbrust et al. 2010; Su2011); second, the development of alterative global outsourcing destinations outside of India (Oshri et al. 2009).
While most existing research on IT outsourcing adopts the perspective of the client, a growing number of studies explore outsourcing from the supplier‘s standpoint. The focus of these studies is on how suppliers can successfully deliver the outsourced services to clients. The findings include a broad set of best practices, with varied levels of granularity. Some studies provide an overview of suppliers‘ overall business models (e.g., Currie and Seltsikas 2001) and general key success factors (e.g., Jennex and Adelakun 2003). Some studies explore specific aspects of outsourcing management, including client–supplier relationship management (e.g.Pinnington and Woolcock 1997; Rajkumar and Mani 2001), software process maturity (e.g., Gopal et al. 2002), contract structure (e.g., Gopal et al. 2003), trust development (e.g.Oza et al. 2006), knowledge management (e.g., Oshri et al. 2007), and risk mitigation (e.g., Taylor 2007). Some studies even take a step further and develop specific methodologies for suppliers to manage outsourcing engagements (e.g.Mojsilovic et al. 2007). An important subset of the literature on the supplier‘s perspective focuses on the more fundamental questions of why and how suppliers are able to create value for their clients in an outsourcing relationship. The findings suggest that the economies of scale 第 35 页 共 62 页