LUBS590101M
Quantitative Methods for International Business
Semester Two 2022/2023
Question 1.
Expatriates are employees of multinational enterprises (MNEs), who are sent to the foreign subsidiary on a temporary basis to complete a time-based task or to accomplish an organisational goal. A research project is carried out in UK to examine the expatriates’ host country language proficiency and their social categorisation – as outgroup members – by host country national (HCN) employees in foreign subsidiaries.
The UK researchers conducted the study in Japan, a very linguistically challenging environment for expatriates due to particularities in grammar, syntax, and writing style. The difficulty of learning Japanese thus allows for a high degree of variation in expatriate language proficiency.
The data was collected through online survey from a wide range of foreign subsidiaries on the following criteria: HCNs working full-time in privately-owned subsidiaries of foreign MNCs in the Tokyo region and having an expatriate co-worker in the same functional department. Approximately 300,000 HCNs met the criteria.
The survey was translated from English to Japanese. Participation in the online survey was voluntary, and respondents received small incentives for participation. Among 1,678 HCNs who were randomly selected by the researchers, 1,498 participated and completed the survey (89% response rate).
Required:
Define the population of the research project. Evaluate the applied sampling strategy and the representativeness of the sample. Propose an alternative sampling strategy and justify its effectiveness. [20 marks]
Question 2.
Due to the negative impact of COVID- 19, a manufacturing firm is considering shutting down two out of four foreign subsidiaries (labelled as A, B, C, and D). The firm analysed the sales performance (in 10-thousand pounds) of the subsidiaries in the last four years and presented them in the boxplot (see Figure 2.1).
Figure 2.1 Boxplot of sales performance (£10k) of the four foreign subsidiaries
In addition, the CEO of the firm is aware that the performance of foreign subsidiaries can be influenced by host-country related factors, such as political instability and GDP growth. The relationships are visualised in Figures 2.2 and 2.3. Accordingly, the CEO collected the information on those three factors for each of the four foreign subsidiaries and reported in Table 2.1.
Figure 2.2 Scatter plot between (host- country) political instability and foreign sales
Figure 2.3 Scatter plot between (host- country) GDP growth and foreign sales
Table 2.1 The inflation, political instability, and GDP growth in host countries
|
Subsidiary A |
Subsidiary B |
Subsidiary C |
Subsidiary D |
Political instability |
2.5 |
3.2 |
0.9 |
1.8 |
GDP growth |
0.1 |
0.5 |
1.4 |
2.2 |
Required:
Referring to the information provided, advise the firm which two subsidiaries to shut down and explain your answer. [20 marks]
Question 3.
Families represent the dominant form of firm ownership in much of the developing world. However, it is still not clear how this influences equity ownership strategies when firms venture abroad. A project thus aims to examine the effects of board composition and family ownership on the equity ownership strategies of multinational enterprises from emerging markets (EM MNEs) in their affiliates.
Six hypotheses are developed:
Hypothesis 1a. The ratio of family directors will be negatively associated with the extent of equity ownership of EM MNE affiliates.
Hypothesis 1b. The ratio of inside directors (that is directors who are employed by the firm, but not family members), will be negatively associated with the extent of equity ownership of EM MNE affiliates.
Hypothesis 1c. The ratio of independent directors (that is, neither family members nor employed by the firm), will be positively associated with the extent of equity ownership of EM MNE affiliates.
Hypothesis 2a. Institutional distance strengthens the negative relationship between the ratio of family directors and the extent of equity ownership of EM MNEs in their affiliates.
Hypothesis 2b. Institutional distance strengthens the negative relationship between the ratio of inside directors and the extent of equity ownership of EM MNEs in their affiliates.
Hypothesis 2c. Institutional distance weakens the positive relationship between the ratio of independent directors and the extent of equity ownership of EM MNEs in their affiliates.
The hypotheses were tested using a sample of 374 foreign affiliates of 71 publicly listed Turkish MNEs on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST). The results are reported in Table 3.1.
The variables involved in the analysis include:
. Equity ownership of EM MNEs in foreign affiliates , measured by the proportion of equity shareholding held by the Turkish MNEon its affiliates operating in host country;
. Ratio of family directors, measured by the number of family directors divided by the total number of board directors;
. Ratio of inside directors, measured by the number of inside directors divided by the total number of board directors;
. Ratio of independent directors, measured by the number of independent directors divided by the total number of board directors;
Table 3.1 Regression results
. Institutional distance, the differences of the institutional environment between EM MNE and its affiliates in 11 sub-items (i.e., property rights, intellectual property rights, judicial independence, burden of government regulation, efficiency of legal framework, transparency of government policymaking, ethical behaviour of firms, strength of auditing and reporting standards, efficacy of corporate boards, quality of management schools, and local availability of specialized research and training services);
. Linguistic distance, the differences of languages between the EM MNE and its affiliate;
. Cultural distance, the differences of national culture between the EM MNE and its affiliate;
. Country risk, measured by CPEFR risk rating including political, financial, and economic risks.
You are required to answer the following questions:
a) Write down the statistical model for Model 4. [2 marks]
b) Suggest whether the results in Table 3.1 are consistent with any of the six hypotheses. Please support your answer with the detailed analysis (in terms of the directions and statistical significances of the key explanatory variables ’ coefficients). [8 marks]
c) The CEOs of family firms in the emerging markets would like to knowhow the results can help their equity ownership strategies when venturing broad. How would you respond? [12 marks]
Question 4.
A research team is investigating the impact of internationalisation speed on firm performance. Specifically, the speed of internationalisation is examined in two dimensions, breadth and depth. The breadth of internationalisation speed describes the increase in the number of foreign markets where an MNE operates within one year,
Number of countries t Number of countries t一1
一 1.
The depth of internationalisation speed describes the increased commitment to the existing foreign markets where an MNE operates by investing more managerial and non-managerial resources within one year,
NumbeT OffOTeign subsidaTies t
NumbeT Of cOuntTies t 一 1.
NumbeT Of cOuntTies t一1
A sample of 100 firms over 5 years (2016 to 2020) is collected, including the information below:
. Firm performance (ROA);
. Breadth of internationalisation speed;
. Depth of internationalisation speed;
. CEO tenure (the number of years the CEO has been appointed);
. Firm age (the number of years since the firm’s foundation);
. Firm size (the natural logarithm of the number of employees).
. Liquidity ratio (dividing the firm’s current assets by its current liability)
. Y2020 (dummy variable, 1 if in Year 2020 and 0 otherwise)
. Y2019 (dummy variable, 1 if in Year 2019 and 0 otherwise)
. Y2018 (dummy variable, 1 if in Year 2018 and 0 otherwise)
. Y2017 (dummy variable, 1 if in Year 2017 and 0 otherwise)
The researchers conduct a linear regression analysis. The results are reported as follows:
Figure 4.1 Scatter plot of ROA and the breadth of internationalisation speed
Figure 4.2 Scatter plot of ROA and the depth of internationalisation speed
Figure 4.3 Scatter plot (̂(y) against e)
Figure 4.4 Residual histogram
Figure 4.5 P-P plot
Table 4.1 Descriptive statistics
Table 4.2 Correlations
Table 4.3 Model Summary
Table 4.4 Coefficients
You are required to answer the following questions:
a) Evaluate the use of the linear regression model in explaining the causal relationships between variables. Please include all the linear regression assumptions in your answer. [20 marks]
b) Discuss the practical implications of the study from the perspective of the managers. [12 marks]
c) The research team categorises the dependent variable into a dummy variable, with a value of 1 if the firm’s ROA is positive and a value of 0 otherwise, and run a logistic regression. The result is reported below. Compare the findings in Tables 4.4 and 4.7. [4 marks]
Table 4.5 Model summary for the Intercept-Only Logit Model
Table 4.6 Model summary for the Unconstrained Logit Model
Table 4.7 Coefficients for the Unconstrained Logit Model
d) Based on the SPSS outputs on the logit models (See Tables 4.5 and 4.6), would you recommend that the variables in the unconstrained logit model are useful to enhance our understanding on firm performance? Explain your answer. [Note that χ0(2).05, 10 = 18.307] [2 marks]
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