Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Twice as smart? The importance of managers' formative-years international experience for their international orientation and foreign acquisition decisions
    This study examined how top management team's (TMT) international orientation influences perceptions of environmental uncertainty and how these perceptions impact international strategic decisions, in particular regarding ownership stakes taken in foreign acquisitions. We highlighted the need for the concept of TMT international orientation to encompass executives' formative-years' international experiences along with their international career experiences and nationalities. Empirical tests based on a sample of 2122 international acquisitions completed by 561 UK firms over the period 1999–2008 showed that TMT international orientation positively moderated the negative impact of cultural differences and host country risk on acquisition ownership stakes. The results underscored the importance of considering decision-makers' attributes due to their experiences at a young age, beyond their demographic characteristics or professional experience, in the context of international strategic choices. We also discussed some implications of one of the possible consequences of executives' formative international experience, namely biculturalism, for international business.
    Scopus© Citations 84  763
  • Publication
    Role of strategic investors in Polish companies: Catalysts for organisational change or opportunists?
    The entry of large activist (or so-called 'strategic') investors has become a prevalent phenomenon in transforming economies, such as the Polish one. This paper investigates the relationship between firm performance and the likelihood of a strategic investor entry, as well as the changes firms undergo under control of an activist investor. Theoretical predictions and empirical analyses of 211 Polish companies in the period of 1994–2000 allow us to conclude that strategic investors are more likely to buy stakes in firms of higher labor productivity, and tend to catalyze changes in poorly performing firms. There is also some evidence that investors refrain from committing resources to restructuring the target firms before seizing significant control over them.
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