Corporate reputation has roots in national beliefs about the role of the business corporation in society; these beliefs are constructed in accordance with the preferences of powerful stakeholders. Building on a stakeholder-power approach to corporate governance, we investigate whether differences in the legal rights and protections of shareholders, creditors, and workers across countries affect the general public’s reputation assessments of business corporations. Using a sample of 593 of the largest publicly traded companies in the world from 32 countries during 2007 to 2011, we find that in societies where shareholders enjoy a high degree of legal rights, the impact of stock market returns on corporate reputation becomes more positive. Likewise, the negative relationship between earnings volatility and reputation becomes greater when creditor rights are stronger. Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence of an interaction effect between labor rights and corporate social performance on corporate reputation.
Purpose
Drawing on the institutional theory and organizational learning literature, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between prior acquisition experience and the duration of the deal completion stage in cross-border acquisitions and the impacts of the quality of business institutions in the host country and the institutional distance between home and host countries on this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses the sixth wave of mergers and acquisitions, the first truly global wave that covered a wide range of institutional settings, to test the hypotheses. Using a panel data regression method, it analyzes 8,175 cross-border acquisitions from 2003 to 2009, conducted by acquirers from 47 advanced and emerging economies in 56 advanced and emerging economies.
Findings
This study finds that host-country acquisition experience has more impact on shortening deal completion duration. Home-country acquisition experience is more effective in host countries with less developed business institutions than in those with more developed ones. The results of this study show that the quality of business institutions in the host country and the institutional distance between the home and host countries amplify or attenuate the effect of past acquisition experiences, depending on their origin and the quality of business institutions and institutional distance of where they are used.
Originality/value
The growing popularity of cross-border acquisitions among emerging country acquirers calls for a systemic study of the cross-border acquisition process. One of the critical and less understood stages in this process is the deal completion stage. This study examines how the institutional environments in the home and host countries impact the effectiveness of past acquisition experiences on shortening this stage.
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