This study examines whether financial dependence upon a few customers is negatively related to the allocation of innovation resources of supplier firms. Furthermore, this study investigates whether these negative effects of supplier dependence on research and development (R&D) intensity are reduced when the supplier leverages social capital conceptualized in terms of eigenvector centrality and interconnectedness. Using panel data, we find that a supplier firm's dependence upon major customers has a negative relationship with the supplier firm's R&D intensity. Our results, however, reveal that a dependent supplier having high eigenvector centrality or working with other companies that are densely connected to each other mitigates the negative effects of supplier dependence on R&D intensity. These findings highlight the importance of external information or resources being available in supply networks when suppliers that are dependent upon major customers explore and exploit opportunities for new product development.

PurposeThe paper is in the domain of marketing strategies of multinational firms. Specifically, it aims to focus on target market selection of multinational firms.Design/methodology/approachUsing the cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic distance framework proposed by Ghemawat, the authors offer empirical support for the role of different distance factors on firms' foreign market acquisition behavior. In addition, they examine the moderating role of market potential of a target country on the relationship between distance factors and target market selection. The context of the paper is multinational firms from developing countries. The sample consists of cross‐border acquisitions (CBAs) completed by firms from 18 emerging countries between 1990 and 2006. The authors use ordinary least squares and moderated regression analysis to determine the main effect of distance factors and the interaction effect of market potential.FindingsThe authors find that while cultural and geographic distance factors have a significant, negative impact on the number of CBAs, administrative and economic distances have a significant, positive effect. They also find that the market potential of target countries significantly moderates the relation between the distance factors and the number of CBAs.Research limitations/implicationsThe results show that the market potential of countries compensates and sometimes even overrides the role of distance. Future studies should expand this research to include industry‐specific factors.Originality/valueThe paper provides an empirical illustration of Ghemawat's distance framework. In addition, the paper highlights several boundary conditions of the impact of distance factors on firms' internationalization processes. Finally, the study enhances knowledge on foreign market entry behavior of firms from developing countries.

This study examines how extraversion, a personality trait that signifies more or less positive affect, assertive behavior, decisive thinking, and desires for social engagement, influences chief executive officers' (CEOs') decisions and the ensuing strategic behavior of firms. Using a novel linguistic technique to assess personality from unscripted text spoken by 2,381 CEOs of S&P 1500 firms over ten years, we show that CEOs' extraversion influences the merger and acquisition (M&A) behavior of firms above and beyond other well-established personality traits. We find that extraverted CEOs are more likely to engage in acquisitions, and to conduct larger ones, than other CEOs and that these effects are partially explained by their higher representation on boards of other firms. Moreover, we find that the acquisitive nature of extraverted CEOs reveals itself particularly in so-called ''weaker'' situations, in which CEOs enjoy considerable discretion to behave in ways akin to their personality traits. Subsequent analyses show that extraverted CEOs are also more likely than other CEOs to succeed in M&As, as reflected by stronger abnormal returns following acquisition announcements. Keywords: personality, chief executive officers, mergers and acquisitions, extraversionThe personalities of chief executive officers (CEOs) affect not only their own individual behavior but also the behavior of the firms they lead (e.g., Hambrick and Mason, 1984;Hiller and Hambrick, 2005). A dominant area in the field of strategic management focuses on the role of top executives in consequential strategic choices, such as engaging in mergers and acquisitions (M&As). For CEOs, the choice to acquire involves many decisions, such as whether, what, when, and for how much to acquire. As outcomes are highly uncertain and ambiguous, and opportunity costs are difficult to determine, there is considerable room for subjective influences in the form of personal preferences, biases,

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To examine the impact of acquisition announcements on the stock market returns of rivals of the acquiring firms, we propose a growth probability hypothesis: when an acquisition is announced, it signals the potential for future growth in the acquirer's industry to the market, resulting in positive stock market reactions to rivals of the acquiring firms. We test the growth probability hypothesis with a longitudinal sample of Chinese domestic and cross‐border acquisitions during 1993–2008. The results provide robust support for this hypothesis as a means to explain market reactions to rivals of acquiring firms. We also empirically test and negate alternative theoretical explanations advanced in prior literature to explain positive market reactions to rivals of the target firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Anchoring is a ubiquitous heuristic by which decision makers heavily rely on a piece of information (anchor) that appears prior to a decision. Yet, we know little about its role in strategic decisions. This study considers its influence on acquisition premiums by examining whether a focal premium decision may be anchored on the premium that another firm paid for the acquisition that directly preceded the focal acquisition in the same market because it presents a salient and compatible premium to decision makers. Our results support this premise, particularly when preceding acquisitions happened more recently and were similar in size to the focal deals, when focal deals were in a foreign market, and when acquirers lacked acquisition experience in the target market or had a higher acquisition rate. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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