French Strategies of Directed Internationalized Statism

France has a popular and academic reputation as a state-influenced economy that is suspicious of foreign private investors, especially in strategic sectors and ‘national firms’. Yet this chapter shows that it has followed a strategy of directed internationalized statism, focused on attracting selected Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) to specific ‘national champion’ firms and sectors. The political executive has welcomed SWFs, despite some parliamentary concerns over national security and a rhetoric of ‘economic patriotism’ that arose when private American firms sought to take over French ones. Although additional legislative powers for overseas investments have been created, they have not been used against SWFs. Instead, policy makers have used SWF investments to support domestic firms, notably by providing new sources of patient capital, supportive share owners, and export orders. The French case shows how policy makers can use overseas state investors as part of strategies to adapt longstanding policies of state-led industrial policies to liberalized and internationalized markets.

How increased foreign competition motivates domestic firms to do good: an examination of foreign entry mode and domestic CSR response

PurposeWe examine whether domestic firms react differently to foreign direct investment (FDI) entry modes –mergers and acquisitions (M&A) versus greenfield. Specifically, we ascertain whether the entry mode of foreign competition motivates different corporate social responsibility (CSR) responses from domestic firms and when such relationships hold.Design/methodology/approachWe employ fixed-effects models using 1,331 US firm-year observations for 2015–2018. Furthermore, we examine the interactive effects of industry concentration to examine a key boundary condition.FindingsForeign entry via greenfield mode has no effect on domestic firm CSR. Entry through M&A has a significantly positive effect. We attribute these findings to the increased threat to domestic firms from foreign M&A whereas foreign entry through greenfield mode is less threatening as entrants face significantly more challenges in host countries. We identify industry concentration as a boundary condition of our findings. The effect of foreign M&A entries on domestic firms' CSR becomes weaker as industries are more concentrated.Originality/valueThis study offers novel insights on FDI by parsing out different reactions to entry mode by domestic firms. We add to our understanding of CSR as a mechanism to stave off foreign competition, offer insights into a key boundary condition of such actions and demonstrate the robustness of our findings.

The Great Dialectic

This chapter examines China’s mixed upgrading and innovation record in the context of the ongoing debate over the role of the state vis-à-vis the market. A key finding that emerges is that sectors that have been most open to competition, in which entry and exit are less encumbered and, more generally, in which firms have been free from the often-distorting hand of the Chinese state, are those that have been most successful in cultivating domestic firms able to compete domestically and globally. Central to our assessment is how firms in these sectors have been better able to leverage China’s rapidly growing domestic market to their competitive advantage in the course of their upgrading and innovation efforts.

EU-US cooperation in tech council likely to be limited

Significance In their joint statement the two partners stressed their common interest in: ensuring that new technologies reflect and reinforce their democratic values; resisting unfair trading practices of ‘non-market economies’; and working with like-minded countries on technology issues in multilateral forums. However, the statement added that the TTC would not affect either side’s regulatory autonomy. Impacts Bilateral trade tensions could escalate if both sides use industrial policy to boost their domestic tech sectors. To safeguard supply chains, both sides may impose procurement restrictions to favour local tech suppliers or exclude non-domestic firms. EU leaders could support EU-based cloud providers, especially for storing public data, thereby challenging US corporate dominance.

Recruiting strategic human capital from MNCs—Does hiring MNC managers enable exporting in domestic firms?

Exporting is a central growth strategy for most firms and managers with international experience are instrumental for export decisions. We suggest that such managers can be hired from Multinational Corporations (MNCs). We integrate theory from strategic human capital research into models explaining export decisions. We theorize that hiring managers from MNCs increases the odds of domestic firms to start exporting and this effect depends on the similarities between hiring firms and MNCs. We hypothesize that young firms will benefit comparatively less from hiring MNC managers. In contrast, firms with internationally diverse workforces and with high degrees of hierarchical specialization will benefit the most from hiring MNC managers. We test and support these hypotheses for 474,926 domestic firms in Sweden, which we observe between 2007 and 2015.

Productivity Spillovers From Foreign Direct Investment To Ethiopian Manufacturing Sector

The study attempted to investigate productivity spillover from FDI to domestic firms in Ethiopian manufacturing industries. The analysis was conducted using panel data for the years 2011 up to 2016 on 260 large and medium scale-manufacturing firms deployed under 24 industries. The System Generalized Method of Moments (SYS-GMM) estimator was employed to conduct the analysis. Accordingly, the study found that a coexistence of both negative and positive effects from FDI through productivity spillover to domestically owned firms using absorptive capacity as determining factor of spillover occurrence in moderate level. Specifically, foreign presence in industry contributed a positive and significant horizontal and backward productivity spillover effect to domestic firms within the industry in average level. The horizontal productivity spillover transmitted to local firms through demonstration and competition effects in moderate level. Likewise, vertical productivity spillover occurred through the channel of sales of intermediate goods and services to foreign firms. Finally, we can conclude that technology gap is critical factor among those factors that determines the productivity spillover occurrence.