Ishtiaq Ahmad

The successful internationalization process of Chinese firms which enhances the sustainability of the Chinese economy receives massive research attention. Studies emphasize that firm’s motives and institutional voids play a pivotal role in getting benefits from the internationalization process, but the factors that initiated this process have been overlooked. The objective of this study is to explore the impact of those institutional factors which initiated the internationalization process. This study reveals that institutional factors of cross listing and increased financial availability induced the internationalization process of Chinese firms. Using the financial data of non-financial firms for the period of 2005–2015, we demonstrate that the domestic financial reforms initiated the internationalization process that helps Chinese economies to achieve sustainable economic development. The study also finds that state-ownership helped firms to gain more from increased financial availability than the stand-alone firms. The study concludes that the open business environment helped firms to survive and sustain the international pressure successfully and maintain their sustainable performance.

Business groups have been described as improving the value of the affiliated firms they control, which is often beyond the capability of standalone firms. The purpose of the current study is to analyze the financial performance of affiliates of diversified Pakistani business groups relative to standalone firms. The current study employs data from 284 Pakistani listed non-financial firms from 2008–2015. In order to test the hypotheses, two dependent variables are used, namely, accounting (Return on Assets (ROA)) and stock market (Tobin’s Q) measures of performance. Specifically, this study probes and compares the performance measures of group member and standalone firms. The findings of the study suggest that business group memberships have statistically significant effects on accounting and stock market measures of firm performance. In addition, size and sales growth have an increasing effect on the performance of firms. We believe that business groups in Pakistan are efficient economic actors and can be considered responses to high transaction costs and market failures.