Explore the vast range of titles available.

With the more complex investment environment of China’s power grid, the accurate prediction of the investment ability of power grid enterprises has become an important prerequisite for managers to make precise investment decisions. This paper first selects the factors affecting the investment capacity of the power grid from the internal and external environment, and establishes the index system of the factors affecting the investment capacity. Secondly, the path analysis is used to deeply explore the interaction relationship and influence degree of each index and investment capacity. Finally, the maximum investment capacity of the power network can be predicted based on the BP neural network prediction model. The results show that the BP neural network prediction model can achieve higher prediction accuracy when predicting the power grid investment capability.

While research has shown that investments in IT capability may translate into improved firm performance, how and why they do is still a source of debate. Drawing on financial options thinking, recent research suggests that managers can support appropriate investment decisions by examining digital options. However, current research has not effectively translated the financial options construct into the IT domain, which makes it difficult to rigorously examine digital options. To address this void, we revisit general options theory and review current notions of digital options. To support understanding, we extend current theorizing by offering a rigorous conceptual foundation that defines the digital option lifecycle and relationships to neighboring constructs. To support practice, we present principles for examining digital options for a specific business process. To illustrate the detailed workings of the theory, we examine a production planning process in the dairy industry to arrive at a set of desirable and feasible IT capability investments. Our proposed theory supports managerial practice by offering a rigorous and actionable foundation for digital options thinking. It also sets an agenda for academic research by articulating theory-based constructs and principles that are subject to further empirical and theoretical investigation.

The impact of good governance on investment management and performance is immense. Several key factors contribute to good governance within pension funds, appropriate governance structures; well-defined accountabilities, policies, and procedures; and suitable processes for the selection and operation of governing bodies and managing institutions. Not surprisingly, good governance requires leadership by individuals with the expertise, professionalism, and integrity to navigate a fund's direction and withstand pressures from multiple constituencies. In the current context of aging populations in many countries, fiscal burdens on pension funds are increasing. At the same time, the necessity of delivering on pension commitments in contributory schemes means that governance, transparency, and accountability should be of utmost importance to pension fund managers. With these concerns in mind, part three of this book provides useful perspectives from senior managers of public pension funds, international pension authorities, and multilateral institution representatives on the structures, policies, and processes that aim to support good governance. Principally reflecting on the characteristics that have been conducive to good governance, including reform measures undertaken, they also consider policy and investment management measures taken to effectively manage fiscal risks, including those that emerged from the financial crisis.

Using a Markov-perfect equilibrium model, we show that the use of customer data to practice intertemporal price discrimination will improve monopoly profit if and only if information precision is higher than a certain threshold level. This U-shaped relationship lends support to a popular view that knowledge is good only if it is sufficiently refined. When information accuracy can only be achieved through costly investment, we find that investing in profiling is profitable only if this allows to reach a high enough level of information precision. Consumers expected surplus being a hump-shaped function of information accuracy, we show that consumers have an incentive to lobby for privacy protection legislation which raises the cost of monopoly's investment in information accuracy. However, this cost should not dissuade firms to collect some information on customers' tastes, as the absence of consumers' profiling is actually detrimental to consumers.

Research summary: We investigate the extent to which firms rely on supranational institutional safeguards versus their non-market capabilities to offset the risks of investing abroad. We argue that firms with non-market capabilities are insensitive to supranational institutional safeguards when choosing the location of their international investments. We show that supranational agreements between an investor's home and host nation, operationalized as bilateral investment treaties (BITs), increase the likelihood of investment, but there is substantial firm heterogeneity with respect to this relationship. Firms with various forms of non-market capabilities are not sensitive to BITs, whereas other firms are more likely to invest under BITs. We advance the understanding of how firm non-market capabilities can substitute for supranational institutional arrangements in addressing risks associated with host country institutional weaknesses. Managerial summary: The risk of expropriation is one of the main concerns companies have when investing abroad. Because of this, many countries implement bilateral investment treaties (BITs) to safeguard foreign investments, alleviate foreign investor concerns, and promote investments. We show that only those companies without political competence or political connections favor countries with BITs when choosing where to invest. Companies with political competence or political connections, on the other hand, ignore BITs and apparently rely on their ability to influence governments whenever their foreign investments face expropriation threats. As a result, politically connected or competent companies can enter markets most of their competitors lacking these capabilities shy away from. They can, therefore, do business in environments in which they face less competition.

Whereas conventional wisdom holds that multinational enterprises (MNEs) invest less in host countries that pose greater policy risk—the risk that a government will opportunistically alter policies to expropriate an investing firm's profits or assets—we argue that MNEs vary in their response to host-country policy risk as a result of differences in organizational capabilities for assessing such risk and managing the policy-making process. We hypothesize that firms from home countries characterized by weaker institutional constraints on policy makers or greater redistributive pressures associated with political rent seeking will be less sensitive to host-country policy risk in their international expansion strategies. Moreover, firms from home countries characterized by sufficiently weak institutional constraints or sufficiently strong redistributive pressures will seek out riskier host countries for their international investments to leverage their political capabilities, which permit them to attain and defend attractive positions or industry structures. We find support for our hypotheses in a statistical analysis of the foreign direct investment location choices of MNEs in the electric power generation industry during the period 1990-1999, the industry's first decade of internationalization.

Despite the fragile economic and political environment in conflict-affected countries, a significant number of multinational enterprises (MNEs) enter these markets, particularly as conditions begin to improve. To better understand how MNEs respond to positive institutional changes in challenging markets, we examine the relative effects of peace agreements and MNE capabilities on foreign direct investment. We expect that MNEs can engage in institutional arbitrage by leveraging political capabilities in their home market as well as their environmental, social, and governance capabilities to enter conflict-affected countries. Thus, rather than focusing solely on managing downside risk, we also analyze the relative value of MNE capabilities as countries strive to become more peaceful. Specifically, we hypothesize and find that peace agreements and the associated positive changes in the political environment in the host country are less important for MNEs with political capabilities and strong environmental and social governance than they are for other MNEs. The results raise important questions about why and how certain firms may thrive in challenging environments and reveal the differential impact of positive institutional change.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of exploration and exploitation capabilities on competitive advantage (hereafter CA) and performance, considering the mediating role of innovation capabilities (hereafter ICs) and the moderating role of organizational learning capability (hereafter OLC) on the proposed relationships. This investigation proposes a theoretical model tested using structural equation modelling (SEM), and a multi-group analysis is performed to understand the moderating role of organizational learning capability. A 90-item questionnaire exploring the relationships between dynamic capabilities (hereafter DCs) and innovation was developed, and a total of 387 valid questionnaires were collected from a sample of Portuguese’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a case of a transition economy. Therefore, this study contributes to the understanding of the direct and indirect impact of exploration and exploitation on CA variables, the mediating role of IC on CA and performance and the moderating effect of OLC in a transition economy.

How firms’ dynamic capabilities lead to their competitive advantage and improved firm performance has been a core issue and full of debates. In this research, we theorize that dynamic capabilities, which could be defined by three distinct dimensions (sensing capability, integration capability, and reconfiguration capability), facilitate different types of innovation that in turn improve firm performance. Based on a sample of 204 Chinese firms, results from partial least squares structural equation modeling analyses generally support our arguments despite some nuanced differences existing among different dimensions of dynamic capabilities. This study contributes to dynamic capabilities literature by reducing the scarcity of empirical research and by uncovering the mechanisms through which dynamic capabilities influence firm performance.

This chapter seeks to answer the question of what lessons Africa can learn from the experiences in Latin America given the changing global landscapes that both regions face in pursuing economic transformation today with the “new geography” of growth, production, trade, and innovation as a result of the rise of emerging economies, especially China.