Dear friends and colleagues,  

Welcome to the first issue of Global Strategy Journal for 2023! You can find it at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/20425805/2023/13/1. In this regular issue, you can find a set of papers bringing attention to the micro-foundations of global strategy and its connections with global corporate governance. We start the issue with a review paper on resource dependence theory in global strategy (Jiang, Luo, Xia, Hitt, and Shen). We then have three articles on the relationship between boards of directors and global strategy; they analyze the effect of institutions on board effectiveness (Solarino & Boyd), the impact of interlocking directorates on internationalization (Yildiz, Morgulis-Yakushev, Holm, & Eriksson), and the role of board characteristics on the imitation of internationalization (Spadafora, Giachetti, Kumodzie-Dussey, and Elango). We complement these with three studies on attention and influence in subsidiaries; they study the impact of procedural justice on subsidiary attention (Weng & Cheng), the effect of autonomy initiatives on subsidiary attention (Cavanagh, Kalfadellis, & Freeman), and the influence of interventions on subsidiary mandates (Gillmore, Andersson, Dellestrand). We hope that you find the articles insightful individually and impactful as a set.  

If you are interested in reading articles appearing in future issues, you can find them at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/20425805/0/0.  

We look forward to receiving your best work for consideration for publication.  

Best wishes,  

Gabriel R. G. Benito, Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, and Grazia Santangelo 

Co-editors of Global Strategy Journal 

 

 

Resource dependence theory in international business: Progress and prospects 

Han Jiang, Yadong Luo, Jun Xia, Michael Hitt, Jia Shen 

Resource dependence theory (RDT) has been widely applied in the context of international business (IB) over the past four decades. This study reviews and synthesizes the insights of RDT in IB literature accumulated over the past 40 years and derives an integrative addendum for future research. We highlight three critical dependence dimensions (i.e., locational, interorganizational, and intraorganizational dependencies) and three essential RDT themes (i.e., dependence solutions, dependence-managing outcomes, and macro environmental conditions of RDT) in the IB context. Our review concludes that the IB literature has reached a good level of conceptual and empirical consensus concerning how multinational corporations (MNCs) take a large array of resource dependence actions and manage their resource dependence in various situations. We also find a strong need for further extension of RDT in IB research, offering suggestions for future research, including additional theoretical integration, underlying processes, and new dynamics that change the course of cross-border interdependencies under the new global reality. 

 

Board of director effectiveness and informal institutions: A meta‐analysis 

Angelo M. Solarino, Brian K. Boyd 

Board independence is central to corporate governance. Numerous theories espouse the value of the monitoring and advice provided by outside board members, and governance codes worldwide call for boards with more independent directors and for separating the roles of chief executive officer and chairman. However, neither original studies nor meta-analyses have found a substantial link between board independence and firm performance. We adopt an institutional logic perspective to argue that the relations between board independence and firm performance is moderated by the institutions of a country. Our analyses find that the strength of the informal institutions is a more important moderator than that of formal institutions. We employ country-level institutional moderators and apply meta-regression to a sample of 86 articles encompassing 40 nations. We offer suggestions for future governance research. 

 

Directionality matters: Board interlocks and firm internationalization 

Harun Emre Yildiz, Sergey Morgulis-Yakushev, Ulf Holm, Mikael Eriksson 

This paper examines an understudied aspect of network relationships—that is, direction of relational ties. Tie direction is important since it can shape when and how firms can benefit from the international experience of other firms. We focus on a specific type of network relationship—that is, interlocking directorates, which provides a clinical context to study directionality. We show that, due to their higher familiarity, identification, and executive power, focal firm directors serving in other firms' boards (i.e., outgoing ties) are more beneficial for utilizing partners' international experience. However, outside directors sitting on the boards of focal firms (i.e., incoming ties) can bring more useful first-hand experience and facilitate international expansion once these ties get stronger. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. 

 

International experience and imitation of location choices: The role of experience interpretation and assessment and its board‐level microfoundations 

Ettore Spadafora, Claudio Giachetti, Makafui Kwame Kumodzie-Dussey, B. Elango 

Drawing on the information-based imitation and information-processing perspectives, we examine how experience interpretation and assessment—and in particular its board-level microfoundations—affects the relationship between a firm's international experience and its decision to imitate the market leader's location choices. Our results show that the negative relationship between international experience and imitation of location choices is positively moderated by board turnover, board age, and board equity ownership but not influenced by board gender diversity. These findings advance our understanding of the interplay between information-based motives for imitation and firms' information processing and organizational learning. Specifically, we contribute to research on the effect of international experience on firms' mimetic behavior by pointing out the relevance of experience interpretation and assessment from a microfoundations perspective. 

 

Does fairness narrow the gap? Effect of procedural justice on MNE attention disparity 

David H. Weng, Hsiang-Lin Cheng 

Earlier studies have suggested that multinational enterprise (MNE) subsidiaries may receive unequal attention from headquarters, but have not yet thoroughly examined either this issue or potential mechanisms that may ameliorate the situation. Our study contends that procedural justice helps bridge an MNE's attention gap as perceived by subsidiaries. We further posit that this proposed effect would be moderated by several contextual factors including subsidiary capability, subsidiary initiative, MNE internationalization, and MNE scope. An assembled sample of MNEs headquartered in Taiwan supports our predictions. These findings have important implications for both the attention-based view of the firm and headquarters–subsidiary relationships. 

 

Developing successful assumed autonomy‐based initiatives: An attention‐based view 

Andrew Cavanagh, Paul Kalfadellis, Susan Freeman 

Adopting the attention-based view of the firm as our principal theoretical lens, we explore the mechanisms by which subsidiaries attract or avoid headquarters attention in developing successful assumed autonomy-based initiatives. To this end, our study utilizes qualitative data from subsidiary and headquarters perspectives in a multiple case study design. Our study reveals that subsidiaries first engage in non-disclosure of assumed autonomy-based initiatives to avoid negative headquarters attention. We then highlight the way in which subsidiaries undertake initiative selling to attract positive headquarters attention; in particular, we identify the unique selling criteria of demonstrable financial success and corporate alignment. Finally, we reveal the importance of timing in balancing the competing dual requirements of non-disclosure and initiative selling. 

 

Between a rock and a hard place: The consequences of complex headquarters configurations for subsidiary R&D activities 

Edward Gillmore, Ulf Andersson, Henrik Dellestrand 

Challenges related to the complexity of overlapping multiple partner headquarters configurations, the resulting power and political tensions between headquarters, and the consequent effects of multiple interventions in subsidiary value-creating activities remain an understudied phenomenon. We present a rich case study of how complex overlapping headquarters configurations develop. Then, we present the processes underlying power and political tensions that lead to parenting disadvantages between partner headquarters. We find that multiple and simultaneous headquarters interventions place the subsidiary between a rock and a hard place, as it becomes subject to conflicting headquarters voices. We contribute to the literature on parenting in multinational enterprises through an increased understanding of overlapping headquarters configurations and the power and political tensions between headquarters configurations that stimulate interventions in subsidiary R&D mandates.