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The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to analyze the impact of Chinese managers’ psychic distance (PD) with Germany on their businesses; and second, to investigate whether managers’ previous experiences affect their PD.

A multiple case study research design is adopted. It is based on six Chinese companies that have recently entered Germany through FDI.

PD influences the decision making of Chinese FDI to Germany, it has an impact on Chinese businesses in Germany on 4 out of 12 dimensions, namely, legal, political, cultural aspects as well as language. Managers with no international experience (study, work, foreign investment practice) perceive a higher impact of PD dimensions on business with the host country, whereas the opposite is true for experienced ones.

While extensive research has been conducted on the PD construct under the point of view of the differences between the home and host country’s characteristics, this paper sheds lights on the impact of pre- and post- periods of investment, as well as over international experiences of managers investing abroad. It examines the environmental industry for Chinese FDI to Germany.

A high quality of corporate governance practices is important for a sustainable development of an economy. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the convergence and adaption of corporate governance practices in emerging markets. It shows how Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) firms apply international standards of good corporate governance and which factors affect the quality of corporate governance practices in BRIC countries.

The authors use country and firm-level data from the BRIC countries and apply statistical models to identify the convergence of corporate governance practices. In all, 135 largest firms from Brazil, Russia, China, and India are analyzed.

The study shows that firms from BRIC countries adapt to international best practices in corporate governance beyond the official requirements by national corporate governance codes. International institutions positively influence BRIC firms to apply international standards of good corporate governance. National corporate governance regimes (Anglo-American, Continental-European, and mixed systems) follow path dependencies and lead to differences in corporate governance practices among firms in different regimes.

Only a small number of 13 corporate governance best practices and a small number of countries have been selected and coded for this analysis. The presented results have to be interpreted with some caution.

The study concludes with practical and specific insights for investors, managers, and policy makers on the importance of national government regimes and international institutions on corporate governance practices. Investors in BRIC need to better understand the contrasting governance environments in emerging markets, and their effects on corporate governance practices in each country. The findings suggest that corporate governance should be studied by considering multilevel antecedents on a country-, industry-, and firm-level.

Chinese foreign direct investments (FDI) to developed countries, such as Germany, seems to follow unique rules, which are different to traditional international business (IB) practices in terms of entry modes, speed of internationalization, and target countries. To shed light on these unique rules, we analyze motivation and location choices of FDI from China to Germany by describing a sample of five companies from the environmental industry.

A multiple case study research design is adopted. The study is based on five Chinese companies investing in Germany in the environmental industry through FDI (Greenfield Investment and Merger and Acquisition). Chinese managers were interviewed on the basis of semi-structured questionnaires.

According to the main findings from the interviews, when investing in Germany, managers take into account a series of factors. Chinese firms go global for traditional motives such as market-seeking purposes and with the aim of improving their production process through skills and know-how acquisition. Additional motives, such as labor cost and fiscal incentives are not considered relevant as factors for internationalizing. Entry mode choices are mainly driven by legal factors in the environmental industry.

The analysis is conducted at industry level with the aim to contextualize the results within the environmental sector. The case studies are focused on Chinese investments in Germany.

The fiercely increasing dynamics in many industries, which are a result of globalization, are main reasons for the increasing number of alliances during the past decade. Firms foster the exploitation as well as the exploration processes by engaging in alliances. To do so, firms need specific capabilities, such as an alliance capability. This contribution aims at describing the development process of alliance capability. Alliance capability will be analyzed in this contribution on a theoretical and qualitative basis by performing a case study on a global acting financial institution, operating in a highly dynamic and coopetitive environment, the Deutsche Börse AG.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction between large Chinese firms as they internationalize and their home and host governments.

The approach taken is that of an analysis of relevant literature and the application of a popular theoretical framework by Rugman and Verbeke to the case of Chinese firms as they expand abroad.

First, the paper adapts a well-known business-government framework to analyze emerging economy issues, all in a Chinese context. Then the paper relates this analysis to the existing literature on the international expansion process of Chinese firms. The paper finds that in their attempt to seek strategic assets, Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) face conflicts with host countries and Western firms in which host government support for international competitiveness can be used as quasi protectionist defense mechanisms. Using the public policy and MNE framework, the paper examines several recent disputes and finds that Chinese MNEs have complementary goals with the Chinese state, but they have conflicting goals with Western governments.

These findings have important academic research, managerial, and public policy implications.

Broadband access plays a major role for economic growth and for social and cultural development of urban and rural areas. A provision of broadband infrastructure and services in these areas is not attractive for private investments because of a low or even negative expected rate on return. The purpose of this paper is to identify different modes of public private partnership (PPP) funding and organizational models of collaborations among public and private partners to establish broadband infrastructures. Decision makers get insights about innovative financial and structural models to bring broadband into rural areas.

Organizational and financial structures of PPP projects will be analyzed by six PPP case studies from the broadband sector in Sweden, Great Britain, and France. This research adopts a data triangulation approach.

A comparative case study analysis about “broadband‐PPPs” from different countries depicts that the organizational and financial funding models differ from project to project. PPPs represent a good alternative to build a broadband infrastructure through mutual collaboration between public and private partners. The examined case studies verify that a PPP is an appropriate instrument to implement broadband infrastructures, especially in case of market failure.

The paper is mainly based on case studies. Thus, the significance of the derived results is limited.

Companies in the sector of telecommunication as well as decision makers learn about different financing models to implement broadband in rural areas and to increase broadband penetration.

This contribution shows that there are relationships among three key factors of PPPs: environmental conditions (risk, social structures, density of population, etc.), organizational model, and funding modes. This knowledge helps researchers and decision makers to measure different scenarios to bring broadband access into rural areas.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the status of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications in Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) nations. The four countries are among the biggest emerging markets, forecasted to have increasing influence in economic and political spheres. How these countries manage their corporate communication in regards to CSR is, thus, the focus of the investigation.

This paper compares the extent and content of corporate communication with respect to CSR from a sample of over 100 companies from the BRIC nations by investigating the nature of CSR motives, processes, and stakeholder.

The results of the analysis show that CSR activities differ among BRIC nations with respect to CSR motives, processes, and stakeholder issues. China seems to be least communicative on a number of CSR issues.

The research shows that great variations exist in the implementation of CSR in BRIC nations. Even though India's GDP per capita is lower than that of China, for example, its communication of CSR is more intensive. This suggests that economic development alone cannot fully explain the differences in CSR communication. A full understanding of differences in CSR communications across BRIC is, thus, needed.

The paper is original in providing across BRIC country analysis of corporate communication relating to CSR activities.

Upon entering developed markets, emerging market multinational corporations (EMNCs) from China and India must compete with both host companies and other developed nation MNCs to attract and recruit necessary local talent. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent EMNC firms will be perceived as less attractive employers than their developed nation counterparts due to a perceived liability of origin bias. Major demographic and psychographic factors that may affect this bias will also be identified.

Seven hypotheses were tested on a total of 626 German, French and American respondents. Participants were randomly presented identical job descriptions from four hypothetical MNCs (American, European, Indian and Chinese) and were asked to evaluate the perceived attractiveness of working for, as well as their intent to pursue employment with, the offering firm.

Using hierarchical linear regression testing, combined with analysis of variance testing, EMNCs were found to have significantly lower organizational attractiveness than equivalent European or American owned MNCs. Mixed results were found for the various hypotheses based on the moderator variables.

Because the study included three distinct sub-groups, supplemental analyses controlling for possible variances between the sub-groups themselves are included. This multicultural study is one of the first to address the human perspective of EMNC outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by identifying the existence of a potential liability of origin bias toward emerging market firms manifested by potential developed market job applicants. Furthermore, this study is one of the first to examine the influence of applicant age, professional status, gender and nationality with respect to the differences in the perceived level of organizational attractiveness between emerging market and developed nation firms.

This paper extends the literature in three important research areas. First, an extension to the literature on the highly relevant topic of OFDI by Chinese and Indian firms is made. Second, traditional research in the field of organizational attractiveness is further extended by combining it with the timely subject of Chinese and Indian OFDI into developed markets. Finally, this study extends international business literature by studying the influence of demographic and psychographic moderators on the perceived level of organizational attractiveness between emerging market and developed nation firms.