IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/iburev/v17y2008i1p103-117.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

National cultural values and the purpose of businesses

Author

Listed:
  • Harris, Simon
  • Carr, Chris

Abstract

We need measures and tests of the effects of national values if we are not to over- or under-attribute management behaviour differences to them, but complex institutional and industrial influences make this difficult. Here, we examine international differences in the purposes of firms as expressed by CEOs, which subject to institutional and industrial factors as well as national values. Having explored these purposes in investment decisions of large public companies, we adopted a 'quasi-experimental' approach to measure and test national values' influence in owner-managed firms in different cultures. We found national values influencing business aims, but not time frames or stakeholders, where other forces were acting. So they are important, but we can only reliably attribute behaviour to them on the rare occasions where other forces are not at play. Good measures of values' effects may themselves aid understanding of the background to international business negotiations and partnerships.

Suggested Citation

  • Harris, Simon & Carr, Chris, 2008. "National cultural values and the purpose of businesses," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 103-117, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:17:y:2008:i:1:p:103-117
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593107001072
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Lubatkin & William S. Schulze & N Dino Richard, 2003. "Exploring the agency consequences of ownership dispersion among the directors of private family firms," Post-Print hal-02311676, HAL.
    2. Michael Lubatkin & William S. Schulze & Richard N. Dino, 2003. "Exploring the agency consequences of ownership dispersion among the directors of private family firms," Post-Print hal-02276698, HAL.
    3. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    4. Torben Pedersen & Steen Thomsen, 1997. "European Patterns of Corporate Ownership: A Twelve-Country Study," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 28(4), pages 759-778, December.
    5. Karen L Newman & Stanley D Nollen, 1996. "Culture and Congruence: The Fit Between Management Practices and national Culture," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 27(4), pages 753-779, December.
    6. J. Randall Woolridge & Charles C. Snow, 1990. "Stock market reaction to strategic investment decisions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(5), pages 353-363, September.
    7. Pascale, Richard Tanner & Athos, Anthony G., 1981. "The art of Japanese management," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 83-85.
    8. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    9. Torben Pedersen & Steen Thomsen, 1999. "Business Systems and Corporate Governance," International Studies of Management & Organization, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 43-59, June.
    10. Pedersen, Torben & Thomsen, Steen, 1999. "Business Systems and Corporate Governance," Working Papers 1-1999, Copenhagen Business School, Department of International Economics and Management.
    11. James P Neelankavil & Anil Mathur & Yong Zhang, 2000. "Determinants of Managerial Performance: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of the Perceptions of Middle-Level Managers in Four Countries," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 31(1), pages 121-140, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roth, Kendall & Kostova, Tatiana & Dakhli, Mourad, 2011. "Exploring cultural misfit: Causes and consequences," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 15-26, February.
    2. Blocker, Christopher P., 2011. "Modeling customer value perceptions in cross-cultural business markets," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 533-540, May.
    3. Joanna Szydło & Justyna Grześ-Bukłaho, 2020. "Relations between National and Organisational Culture—Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-23, February.
    4. Buck, Trevor & Liu, Xiaohui & Ott, Ursula, 2010. "Long-term orientation and international joint venture strategies in modern China," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 223-234, June.
    5. Raj Aggarwal & Joanne Goodell & John Goodell, 2014. "Culture, Gender, and GMAT Scores: Implications for Corporate Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 125-143, August.
    6. Joshua D. SHACKMAN, 2018. "Measurement Of National Culture: A Multiple Source Latent Variable Approach," CrossCultural Management Journal, Fundația Română pentru Inteligența Afacerii, Editorial Department, issue 2, pages 73-83, December.
    7. White, George O. & Hadjimarcou, John & Fainshmidt, Stav & Posthuma, Richard A., 2013. "MNE home country cultural norms and conflict strategy fit in transnational business contract disputes," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 554-567.
    8. Pablo Cardona & Ivan Malbašić & Carlos Rey, 2018. "Institutions, paradoxes, and compensation logics: evidence from corporate values of the largest Chinese and US companies," Asia Pacific Business Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 602-619, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Carney & Marc Van Essen & Eric R. Gedajlovic & Pursey P.M.A.R. Heugens, 2015. "What do we know about Private Family Firms? A Meta–Analytical Review," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(3), pages 513-544, May.
    2. Zorica Kalezić, 2015. "Ownership Concentration and Firm Performance in Transition Economies: Evidence from Montenegro," Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice, Central bank of Montenegro, vol. 4(3), pages 5-64.
    3. Isabel Abinzano & Pilar Corredor & Beatriz Martinez, 2021. "Does family ownership always reduce default risk?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(3), pages 4025-4060, September.
    4. Arosa, Blanca & Iturralde, Txomin & Maseda, Amaia, 2010. "Outsiders on the board of directors and firm performance: Evidence from Spanish non-listed family firms," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 1(4), pages 236-245, December.
    5. Hansen, Christopher & Block, Joern, 2020. "Exploring the relation between family involvement and firms’ financial performance: A replication and extension meta-analysis," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 13(C).
    6. Chan-Jane Lin & Tawei Wang & Chao-Jung Pan, 2016. "Financial reporting quality and investment decisions for family firms," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 499-532, June.
    7. Bjuggren, Per-Olof & Duggal, Rubecca & Giang, Dinh Tung, 2011. "Ownership Dispersion and Capital Structures in Family firms: A study of closed medium sized enterprises," Ratio Working Papers 175, The Ratio Institute.
    8. González, Maximiliano & Guzmán, Alexander & Pombo, Carlos & Trujillo, María Andréa, 2012. "Family involvement and dividend policy in listed and non-listed firms," Galeras. Working Papers Series 034, Universidad de Los Andes. Facultad de Administración. School of Management.
    9. Marguerite Schneider, 2000. "When Financial Intermediaries are Corporate Owners: An Agency Model of Institutional Ownership," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 4(3), pages 207-237, September.
    10. Azzeddine Allioui & Badr Habba & Taib Berrada El Azizi, 2023. "The Dilemma between the Pursuit of Sustainability and the Cultural Heritage of Moroccan Family Businesses: A Contextualization Study," RAIS Conference Proceedings 2022-2023 0272, Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.
    11. Chakrabarty, Subrata, 2009. "The influence of national culture and institutional voids on family ownership of large firms: A country level empirical study," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 32-45, March.
    12. Li, Changhong & Li, Jialong & Liu, Mingzhi & Wang, Yuan & Wu, Zhenyu, 2017. "Anti-misconduct policies, corporate governance and capital market responses: International evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 47-60.
    13. Otten, J.A. & Heugens, P.P.M.A.R., 2007. "Extending the Managerial Power Theory of Executive Pay: A Cross National Test," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-090-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    14. Yuan George Shan, 2019. "Managerial ownership, board independence and firm performance," Accounting Research Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 32(2), pages 203-220, July.
    15. Erbetta, Fabrizio & Menozzi, Anna & Corbetta, Guido & Fraquelli, Giovanni, 2013. "Assessing family firm performance using frontier analysis techniques: Evidence from Italian manufacturing industries," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 106-117.
    16. Kuo-Pin Yang & Gavin M. Schwarz, 2016. "A Multilevel Analysis of the Performance Implications of Excess Control in Business Groups," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(5), pages 1219-1236, October.
    17. Audretsch, David B. & Hülsbeck, Marcel & Lehmann, Erik E., 2013. "Families as active monitors of firm performance," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 118-130.
    18. Annalisa Croce & José Martí, 2017. "Financial constraints in family firms and the role of venture capital," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 44(1), pages 119-144, March.
    19. Wang, Boya, 2018. "Ownership, institutions and firm value: Cross-provincial evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 547-565.
    20. Adriana Schiopoiu Burlea & Joop Remmé, 2017. "The Dangers of Dispersal of Responsibilities," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 19(45), pages 464-464, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:17:y:2008:i:1:p:103-117. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.