Instead of traditional principal-agent conflicts espoused in most research dealing with developed economies, principal-principal conflicts have been identified as a major concern of corporate governance in emerging economies. Principal-principal conflicts between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders result from concentrated ownership, extensive family ownership and control, business group structures, and weak legal protection of minority shareholders. Such principal-principal conflicts alter the dynamics of the corporate governance process and, in turn, require remedies different from those that deal with principal-agent conflicts. This article reviews and synthesizes recent research from strategy, finance, and economics on principal-principal conflicts with an emphasis on their institutional antecedents and organizational consequences. The resulting integration provides a foundation upon which future research can continue to build. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2008.

Institutional theory is an increasingly utilized theoretical lens for entrepreneurship research. However, while institutional theory has proven highly useful, its use has reached a point that there is a need to establish a clearer understanding of its wide-ranging application to entrepreneurship research. Therefore, we will initially review the existing entrepreneurship literature that employs institutional theory to both understand the current status of the field, its current shortcomings, and where we need to move in the future. We then summarize and discuss the articles in this special issue and how they contribute to this process of advancing institutional theory and its application in entrepreneurship research.

State-owned enterprises represent approximately 10% of global gross domestic product. Yet they remain relatively underexplored by management scholars. Firms have often been viewed dichotomously as either state owned or privately owned. Today, however, we encourage a more nuanced view of state-owned enterprises as hybrid organizations, in which the levels of ownership and control by the state can vary. Drawing on 36 cases from four industries in 23 countries, we lay the groundwork for a richer understanding of state-owned enterprises by management scholars in the future.

Emerging economies are characterized by an increasing market orientation and an expanding economic foundation. The success of many of these economies is such that they are rapidly becoming major economic forces in the world. Entrepreneurship plays a key role in this economic development. Yet to date, little is known about entrepreneurship in emerging economies. This introductory article to the special issue on entrepreneurship in emerging economies examines the literature that exists to date in this important domain. It then reviews the research that was generated as part of this special issue on this topic. The article concludes with a discussion of the critical future research needs in this area.

Past literature on foreign direct investment generally supports an economics perspective that there is a direct relationship between firm-specific ownership advantages and international expansion. However, in emerging economies, with their institutional environment context characterized by low resource munificence and continuous economic liberalization, a theoretical extension of the current perspective is needed. This paper introduces new parameters by focusing on specific ownership advantages and strategic actions that firms have to develop in response to the institutional characteristics of the emerging economies when they decide to pursue outward FDI. The focus here is on international venturing that requires a firm to engage in activities for new business creation in a foreign country rather than simply seek to distribute a product in another nation. It is shown empirically that the relationship between firm-specific ownership advantages and international venturing is moderated by the degree of home industry competition and export intensity. In addition, such a relationship is mediated by the intensity of corporate entrepreneurial transformation in the form of innovation, new business creation, and strategic renewal. Journal of International Business Studies (2007) 38, 519–540. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400278