We investigate how international joint ventures (IJVs) established in emerging economies help their local suppliers with technological knowledge transfer. Data from 50 Pakistani‐owned Tier 1 suppliers, three of the major assemblers, and policy makers in the Ministry of Industries and Production in Pakistan is collected. Findings suggest that, in the context of the Pakistani emerging economy, IJVs can also play a critical role as the boundary spanners of knowledge transfer. Local suppliers are linked with their global suppliers' networks through associational learning. Social capital between the IJVs and the local component suppliers and the IJVs' willingness to initiate a knowledge transfer dialogue among local and global Tier 1 suppliers are critically important factors that enable this transfer.

We analyze how the quality of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in developing countries impacts patent applications. We extend institutional economics to propose that firms vary in their interpretation of institutions, specifically arguing that foreign and domestic inventors respond to different institutional signals because of their different positions as institutional outsiders and insiders. Thus, we propose that foreign inventors, as institutional outsiders, respond more positively to the quality of IPR protection in countries with more democratic political systems, whereas domestic inventors, as institutional insiders, respond more positively to the quality of IPR protection in countries with higher quality legal systems.

Our article considers how ‘industry architectures’ (i.e., the stable but evolving set of rules and roles through which labor is divided within a sector) shape success in international expansion. We argue that industry architectures differ between countries, are not necessarily technologically determined, shape firms' capabilities and their competitive environment, and constitute a distinct level of analysis. We develop related theory and empirically test its impact with a survey of firms expanding in four CIS countries. We find that separability and similarity of industry architectures across countries are robust and important predictors of success in international expansion. Our results suggest that industry architectures should be added to ‘firm’ and ‘country’ as an intermediate level of analysis that helps explain success in international expansion.

The global sourcing of services offers high returns but is also associated with high risks. The extent to which firms engage in ‘transformational’ global sourcing (i.e., global sourcing implying considerable changes in the home organization) chiefly depends on management's comfort zone which, in turn, is determined by managers' risk perceptions, risk tolerance, and ability to employ risk‐reducing measures. Many firms move into transformational global sourcing more or less deliberately. However, as the human asset specificity of the global sourcing operation increases, managers find themselves out of their comfort zones and a desire for a new collaborative architecture arises. An illustrative company case exemplifies the process of establishing such a collaborative architecture.

The emergence of developing country multinational companies (DMNCs) provides us an opportunity to redress the neglect of the process of cross‐border legitimation. We argue that DMNCs face three challenges to legitimation in developed country markets—liability of foreignness, liabilities of origin, and liability of advantage. By means of a qualitative inquiry into the cultural‐cognitive legitimation of Indian software services firms in the United States over the course of two decades, we identify five core legitimation dynamics that explain how DMNCs respond to the aforesaid challenges and acquire legitimacy in developed country markets. Our study suggests that global strategy is not merely about deploying competitive advantage, but is also about overcoming competitive disadvantage as reflected, say, in the absence of host country legitimacy.

Abstract Large gaps appear to exist between the evolving corporate governance practices of organizations and those of international joint ventures (IJVs). Some of these gaps might well be appropriate given some of the unique features of IJVs, while others might require new consideration and attention by organizations engaged in alliances. The expansive literatures on corporate governance and IJVs have developed separately from one another, and there are important opportunities to combine them. We argue that a need exists for a new generation of IJV governance research that considers IJVs' boards of directors as well as other dimensions of governance. We highlight some research opportunities that are illustrative for the research agenda that we are calling for that builds bridges between the literatures on corporate governance and IJVs.

Abstract I assess the theoretical basis for the existence of a relationship between the size of a firm's foreign footprint (its multinationality) and its performance. I argue that multinationality results from a firm's choice between coordinating internally the stages of its value chain and letting them be organized on the market and hence that there are no reasons to expect net gains from an increase or a decrease in multinationality, the only profitability impact coming from a firm having made the wrong choice and being over‐ or under‐integrated compared to the optimum. I then show that the way the literature has operationalized multinationality does not match the theoretical arguments it has advanced. I conclude that a reassessment of the literature is overdue and point to some new directions.