This review and introduction to the Special Issue on ‘Strategy Research in Emerging Economies’ considers the nature of theoretical contributions thus far on strategy in emerging economies. We classify the research through four strategic options: (1) firms from developed economies entering emerging economies; (2) domestic firms competing within emerging economies; (3) firms from emerging economies entering other emerging economies; and (4) firms from emerging economies entering developed economies. Among the four perspectives examined (institutional theory, transaction cost theory, resource‐based theory, and agency theory), the most dominant seems to be institutional theory. Most existing studies that make a contribution blend institutional theory with one of the other three perspectives, including seven out of the eight papers included in this Special Issue. We suggest a future research agenda based around the four strategies and four theoretical perspectives. Given the relative emphasis of research so far on the first and second strategic options, we believe that there is growing scope for research that addresses the third and fourth.

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link September 3, 2012 (by Bob after MP)This research is supported in part by the George R. Brown Chair in Strategic Management at Rice University, Ernst & Young, Equistone Partners Europe, the Jindal Chair at UT Dallas, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71132006). We thank Keith Brouthers, Mick Carney, Andrew Delios (Editor), and Eric Gedajlovic for helpful discussions, and we are grateful to Richard Swartz at Rice University for his help with the statistical analysis. 2 Emerging Multinationals from Mid-Range Economies: The Influence of Institutions and Factor Markets AbstractThis paper revisits and extends our earlier work (Wright, Filatotchev, Hoskisson, and Peng, 2005) in the pages of this Journal. We argue that there is a need for more fine-grained understanding of the country context along two dimensions: (1) institutional development and (2) infrastructure and factor market development. Specifically, we propose an enriched typology of emerging economies with a focus on mid-range emerging economies, which are positioned between traditional emerging economies and newly developed economies. Then we examine new multinationals from these mid-range emerging economies that have internationalized both regionally and globally. We outline directions for further research based on this typology in terms of (1) government influence, (2) resource orchestration, (3) market entry, and (4) corporate governance regarding the internationalization strategy of these emerging multinationals from mid-range economies.

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version.  We would like to thank the UK Department for Trade and Industry with support for the research on which this study was based. The authors would like to thank the participants of seminars and workshops at Cass Business School, University of Groningen, University of Auckland, UK AIB Chapter (King's College London), Copenhagen Business School, the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. The authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally to this paper. Permanent repository link AN ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: COSTS, CONTINGENCIES, AND COMPLEMENTARITIES ABSTRACTThis paper develops an organizational approach to corporate governance and assesses the effectiveness of corporate governance and implications for policy. Most corporate governance research focuses on a universal link between corporate governance practices (e.g. board structure, shareholder activism) and performance outcomes, but neglects how interdependences between the organization and diverse environments lead to variations in the effectiveness of different governance practices. In contrast to such 'closed systems' approaches, we propose a framework based on 'open systems' approaches to organizations which examines these organizational interdependencies in terms of the costs, contingencies, and complementarities of different corporate governance practices. These three sets of organizational factors are useful in analyzing the effectiveness of corporate governance in diverse organizational environments. We also explore how costs, contingencies, and complementarities impact effectiveness of different governance aspects through the use of stylized cases and discuss the implications for different approaches to policy such as 'soft-law' or 'hard law'.

Using a sample of 251 IPOs in the United Kingdom, this paper examines interlinks between executive and nonexecutive characteristics, share ownership, and short‐term performance measured in terms of share offer ‘underpricing.’ It argues that executives' power and previous experience directly affect ex ante choice of nonexecutive directors and their ownership interests in the firm. These endogenously developed governance factors may be used by IPO teams strategically to reduce the extent of underpricing. However, there is a selective response of investors to different board characteristics and share ownership structure. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.