Ralf Bebenroth | Kobe University (original) (raw)
Papers by Ralf Bebenroth
Review of International Business and Strategy
Purpose This study aims to examine how the effect of host country formal institutional uncertaint... more Purpose This study aims to examine how the effect of host country formal institutional uncertainty on the percentage of equity sought in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) is moderated by the host country industry (i.e. targets from the technology versus those from the non-technology industry). Design/methodology/approach This study is based upon the legitimacy perspective of institutional theory and uses Tobit regression analysis on a sample of 1,340 CBAs. Findings Results show that cross-border acquirers prefer a lower equity level for targets in institutionally less developed countries and that this negative effect of the host country institutional risk on the equity percentage sought is more pronounced for technology-based targets. Research limitations/implications Three major limitations of the study are as follows: The data were collected from only Japanese acquirers. The study measured formal institutional uncertainty by applying only secondary data. The study used the Bloomber...
International Journal of Management Practice
Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies
The aim of this research is the investigation of strategic behavior of Chinese investors in Japan... more The aim of this research is the investigation of strategic behavior of Chinese investors in Japan when making cross-border acquisitions in recent times. While previous literature on acquisitions tended to show that Chinese acquirers were merely resource-driven, i.e. their main purpose was to acquire products, brands, and knowledge to be transferred back to the (Chinese) home market, our study suggests that the behavior of many Chinese firms has changed lately. In a pivotal study with 39 Chinese bidders taking over Japanese targets, we find that their strategy has become increasingly market-driven instead. As far as industry-wise acquisitions are concerned, Chinese firms are taking over Japanese hotels and recreation facilities in recent years for the purpose of providing services to Chinese tourists.
International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management
This study is aimed at quantifying the job satisfaction trajectory of new hires. The authors comp... more This study is aimed at quantifying the job satisfaction trajectory of new hires. The authors compared job satisfaction of 815 new hires to 1,925 remaining (non-new) employees, asking all participating employees a simple question daily for ten months: "How happy are you today at work?" With a full sample of 177.000 data points, we found high heterogeneity in job satisfaction among employees from 12 different companies that participated in our study. Also, supporting previous research, new hires started with very high levels of satisfaction compared to the remaining employees. The level of job satisfaction kept on decreasing (until 64 th day), continuing at a slower pace, gradually bottoming out around the middle of the 7th month (195 th day), when job satisfaction began an upward trend.
International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management
We investigate how Japanese returnees' job satisfaction is influenced by their organizational ide... more We investigate how Japanese returnees' job satisfaction is influenced by their organizational identification, their cultural openness and the degree of the 'Japaneseness' of the business system in their firms. On the tenets of social identity and cultural fit theory, we find that stronger identified Japanese returnees are more job satisfied. Furthermore, the degree of "Japaneseness" of the business system is negatively related to the job satisfaction of returnees, indicating that firms with a rather Western business system have more job satisfied returnees in their workforce. Also, even though we do not find any direct relationship between cultural openness and job satisfaction, we receive weak support, that cultural openness moderates the influence of the Japanese business system on a returnee's job satisfaction. That is, the group of culturally more open returnees has a higher job satisfaction when working in a rather Japanese business system.
Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how emerging and developed market multinationals (EMM... more The purpose of this paper is to investigate how emerging and developed market multinationals (EMMs and DMMs) differ in their acquisition behavior (vis-à-vis the choice of partial versus full acquisitions) when entering a developed market economy, Japan. We hypothesize that EMMs prefer partial acquisitions, whereas DMMs prefer full acquisitions due to what we call the country-of-origin effect. Additionally, we hypothesize that this country-of-origin effect is more pronounced for smaller firms. The results, based upon 224 strategic cross-border acquisitions in Japan, support these two hypotheses. This study contributes to the literature on EMMs.
Academy of Management Proceedings
European Journal of Training and Development
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the conceptualization of knowledge transfer and t... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the conceptualization of knowledge transfer and technology transfer to seek answers to the question: Why should an organizational manager need to know the difference between knowledge transfer (KT) and technology transfer (TT)? Design/methodology/approach An extensive literature review method was used to identify and analyze relevant international publications. The literature sources are categorized as follows: literature on KT only, literature on TT only and literature on comparative analysis on KT and TT. The conceptualization of KT and TT is based on signaling theory. Findings The authors identified differences between KT and TT based on six dimensions, namely knowledge versus technology characteristics, usage of KT and TT in national development, sender versus receiver, intra-firm versus inter-firm transfer, foreign direct investment (FDI) and workers’ mobility. Research limitations/implications This is a conceptual analysis that s...
Corporate Board: role, duties and composition, 2007
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance impact at the board level in the corp... more The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance impact at the board level in the corporate governance of Japanese companies. We investigated the composition of outside directors and outside auditors for three years and found evidence, that a higher outside ratio leads to a better performance. As a second step, we cluster Japanese companies into three groups, companies without outside directors, companies which appointed outside directors and companies who apply to the “US-style system.” Companies without outside directors every single year show the weakest performance and US-style Japanese companies the strongest what leads to the conclusion that Japanese companies might be better off having a high ratio of outside directors and outside auditors.
Human Systems Management, 2016
大阪経大論集, Jan 15, 2007
Method Participants. 154 Japanese college students took part in this survey, 90 from Osaka Univer... more Method Participants. 154 Japanese college students took part in this survey, 90 from Osaka University of Economics and 64 from Kwansei Gakuin University. The former came from a mid ranked college with localized rather than international programs and faculty. These ...
We use an institutional perspective to develop a framework for understanding the contexts, mechan... more We use an institutional perspective to develop a framework for understanding the contexts, mechanisms and processes associated with institutions and institutional changes related to foreign investment in Japan. We examine power dynamics and relational boundaries between diverse actors and analyze why and how some components of institutions have changed and others have not. Also explored in this paper are the conflicting discourses that have been raised in regards to the participation of foreign investors. We also examine purposive efforts of various institutional entrepreneurs to change prevailing institutions in Japan. We assess structural factors working as sources of inertia in Japan's openness to FDI including the nature of capitalism, power of bureaucracy and culture and analyze various internal and external sources associated with exogenous shocks and gradual changes in institutions.
Discussion Paper Series, 2005
1 Discussion Paper Series No.172 German Corporate Governance Code and Unaccepted Recommendations ... more 1 Discussion Paper Series No.172 German Corporate Governance Code and Unaccepted Recommendations Ralf Bebenroth Kobe University June 2005 Page 2. ... AND UNACCEPTED RECOMMENDATIONS1 Ralf Bebenroth Kobe University June 2005 Corresponding address: ...
Review of International Business and Strategy
Purpose This study aims to examine how the effect of host country formal institutional uncertaint... more Purpose This study aims to examine how the effect of host country formal institutional uncertainty on the percentage of equity sought in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) is moderated by the host country industry (i.e. targets from the technology versus those from the non-technology industry). Design/methodology/approach This study is based upon the legitimacy perspective of institutional theory and uses Tobit regression analysis on a sample of 1,340 CBAs. Findings Results show that cross-border acquirers prefer a lower equity level for targets in institutionally less developed countries and that this negative effect of the host country institutional risk on the equity percentage sought is more pronounced for technology-based targets. Research limitations/implications Three major limitations of the study are as follows: The data were collected from only Japanese acquirers. The study measured formal institutional uncertainty by applying only secondary data. The study used the Bloomber...
International Journal of Management Practice
Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies
The aim of this research is the investigation of strategic behavior of Chinese investors in Japan... more The aim of this research is the investigation of strategic behavior of Chinese investors in Japan when making cross-border acquisitions in recent times. While previous literature on acquisitions tended to show that Chinese acquirers were merely resource-driven, i.e. their main purpose was to acquire products, brands, and knowledge to be transferred back to the (Chinese) home market, our study suggests that the behavior of many Chinese firms has changed lately. In a pivotal study with 39 Chinese bidders taking over Japanese targets, we find that their strategy has become increasingly market-driven instead. As far as industry-wise acquisitions are concerned, Chinese firms are taking over Japanese hotels and recreation facilities in recent years for the purpose of providing services to Chinese tourists.
International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management
This study is aimed at quantifying the job satisfaction trajectory of new hires. The authors comp... more This study is aimed at quantifying the job satisfaction trajectory of new hires. The authors compared job satisfaction of 815 new hires to 1,925 remaining (non-new) employees, asking all participating employees a simple question daily for ten months: "How happy are you today at work?" With a full sample of 177.000 data points, we found high heterogeneity in job satisfaction among employees from 12 different companies that participated in our study. Also, supporting previous research, new hires started with very high levels of satisfaction compared to the remaining employees. The level of job satisfaction kept on decreasing (until 64 th day), continuing at a slower pace, gradually bottoming out around the middle of the 7th month (195 th day), when job satisfaction began an upward trend.
International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management
We investigate how Japanese returnees' job satisfaction is influenced by their organizational ide... more We investigate how Japanese returnees' job satisfaction is influenced by their organizational identification, their cultural openness and the degree of the 'Japaneseness' of the business system in their firms. On the tenets of social identity and cultural fit theory, we find that stronger identified Japanese returnees are more job satisfied. Furthermore, the degree of "Japaneseness" of the business system is negatively related to the job satisfaction of returnees, indicating that firms with a rather Western business system have more job satisfied returnees in their workforce. Also, even though we do not find any direct relationship between cultural openness and job satisfaction, we receive weak support, that cultural openness moderates the influence of the Japanese business system on a returnee's job satisfaction. That is, the group of culturally more open returnees has a higher job satisfaction when working in a rather Japanese business system.
Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how emerging and developed market multinationals (EMM... more The purpose of this paper is to investigate how emerging and developed market multinationals (EMMs and DMMs) differ in their acquisition behavior (vis-à-vis the choice of partial versus full acquisitions) when entering a developed market economy, Japan. We hypothesize that EMMs prefer partial acquisitions, whereas DMMs prefer full acquisitions due to what we call the country-of-origin effect. Additionally, we hypothesize that this country-of-origin effect is more pronounced for smaller firms. The results, based upon 224 strategic cross-border acquisitions in Japan, support these two hypotheses. This study contributes to the literature on EMMs.
Academy of Management Proceedings
European Journal of Training and Development
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the conceptualization of knowledge transfer and t... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the conceptualization of knowledge transfer and technology transfer to seek answers to the question: Why should an organizational manager need to know the difference between knowledge transfer (KT) and technology transfer (TT)? Design/methodology/approach An extensive literature review method was used to identify and analyze relevant international publications. The literature sources are categorized as follows: literature on KT only, literature on TT only and literature on comparative analysis on KT and TT. The conceptualization of KT and TT is based on signaling theory. Findings The authors identified differences between KT and TT based on six dimensions, namely knowledge versus technology characteristics, usage of KT and TT in national development, sender versus receiver, intra-firm versus inter-firm transfer, foreign direct investment (FDI) and workers’ mobility. Research limitations/implications This is a conceptual analysis that s...
Corporate Board: role, duties and composition, 2007
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance impact at the board level in the corp... more The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance impact at the board level in the corporate governance of Japanese companies. We investigated the composition of outside directors and outside auditors for three years and found evidence, that a higher outside ratio leads to a better performance. As a second step, we cluster Japanese companies into three groups, companies without outside directors, companies which appointed outside directors and companies who apply to the “US-style system.” Companies without outside directors every single year show the weakest performance and US-style Japanese companies the strongest what leads to the conclusion that Japanese companies might be better off having a high ratio of outside directors and outside auditors.
Human Systems Management, 2016
大阪経大論集, Jan 15, 2007
Method Participants. 154 Japanese college students took part in this survey, 90 from Osaka Univer... more Method Participants. 154 Japanese college students took part in this survey, 90 from Osaka University of Economics and 64 from Kwansei Gakuin University. The former came from a mid ranked college with localized rather than international programs and faculty. These ...
We use an institutional perspective to develop a framework for understanding the contexts, mechan... more We use an institutional perspective to develop a framework for understanding the contexts, mechanisms and processes associated with institutions and institutional changes related to foreign investment in Japan. We examine power dynamics and relational boundaries between diverse actors and analyze why and how some components of institutions have changed and others have not. Also explored in this paper are the conflicting discourses that have been raised in regards to the participation of foreign investors. We also examine purposive efforts of various institutional entrepreneurs to change prevailing institutions in Japan. We assess structural factors working as sources of inertia in Japan's openness to FDI including the nature of capitalism, power of bureaucracy and culture and analyze various internal and external sources associated with exogenous shocks and gradual changes in institutions.
Discussion Paper Series, 2005
1 Discussion Paper Series No.172 German Corporate Governance Code and Unaccepted Recommendations ... more 1 Discussion Paper Series No.172 German Corporate Governance Code and Unaccepted Recommendations Ralf Bebenroth Kobe University June 2005 Page 2. ... AND UNACCEPTED RECOMMENDATIONS1 Ralf Bebenroth Kobe University June 2005 Corresponding address: ...