Shige Makino

Research Summary: We examine how a subsidiary's host country experience affects the way in which multinational corporations' (MNCs) subsidiary termination decisions are geared toward subsidiary‐level social performance comparisons. For a subsidiary, social comparisons can be made against external peer subsidiaries (in the same industry and country but under different parents) and internal peer subsidiaries (in the same industry, country, and parent) whose performance levels constitute external social aspirations (ESA) and internal social aspirations (ISA), respectively. Using unpublished survey data on Japanese MNCs that offer subsidiary‐level performance data, we found that a subsidiary's below‐ESA performance is a stronger predictor of subsidiary termination than below‐ISA performance. However, as a subsidiary's host country experience increases, the effect of below‐ISA performance is amplified and even surpasses the effect of below‐ESA performance. Managerial Summary: A subsidiary's performance relative to comparable peers serves as a critical criterion for MNC managers when evaluating the subsidiary's efficacy. However, little is known about how MNC managers' subsidiary termination decisions are geared toward subsidiary‐level performance comparisons against different reference groups and under what conditions these decisions vary. Using data on Japanese MNCs, we found that a subsidiary is at greater risk of termination when it underperforms relative to external peer subsidiaries (in the same industry and country but under different parents) than to internal peers (in the same industry, country, and parent). However, a subsidiary's host country experience amplifies MNC managers' sensitivity to underperformance relative to internal peers, while having less effect on their sensitivity to underperformance relative to external peers.

Research summary : M ost strategic management studies adopt an average‐centered view that uses the central tendency to explain between‐group variation in performance (i.e., performance differences between business units, firms, industries, and countries). In this study, we explain within‐group variation using a variance‐centered view that focuses on the peripheral characteristics of performance distributions as defined by skew and heavy tails (i.e., variance and kurtosis). Drawing on performance feedback theory, we hypothesize that successful firms tend to develop a positive skew in their performance distributions, which we call a “positive skew effect” in this study, and that heavy tails moderate this effect. Our analysis of the performance of a group of foreign affiliates provides general support for our hypotheses at both the firm and segment (industry and country) levels . Managerial summary : M anagers of multi‐business firms use various approaches to improve the aggregate performance of their business units. Some expand the range of upper performance outliers (exploration) or reduce the range of lower outliers (downsizing); others improve the performance of current business units (exploitation). We find that firms with superior performance tend to have a balanced mix of the three approaches. We also find that segments (countries and industries) with higher mean performances provide environments that facilitate the entry of productive firms and the exit of unproductive firms and provide environments in which incumbents can further improve their performance by learning from others. We observe that successful firms and segments have a positive skew in their performance distributions, which we call a “positive skew effect.” Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.