Päivi Karhunen

Aalto University School of Business, Helsinki, Finland · Center for Markets in Transition

Bringing in insights from sociolinguistics, this conceptual paper advances the theorizing on language and identity in the MNC, viewed as socially constructed by individuals in interaction when they cross fluid linguistic and geographical boundaries. We posit that the identities of global business professionals in the MNC are not intrinsically tied...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in offshore financial centers (OFCs) is gaining increased attention in business ethics research. Much of this research tends to focus on OFCs as locations where firms can avoid taxes, considering such behavior as unethical. Yet, there is dearth of studies on capital round-tripping by emerging market firms, which is a...

The purpose of the paper is to find out how chain affiliation, an important strategic choice and a key determinant for hotel performance, influences the strategy-performance nexus in the emerging economy context. It combines the resource- and institution-based views to investigate how chain affiliation moderates the relationship between competitive...

This paper explores the assumptions underlying the core concept of language used in the growing field of language‐sensitive research in international management. We reviewed 92 articles on the topic of language(s) in multinational corporations published during the period 1997‐2015, and applied a linguistic lens to uncover how these articles “talk a...

This article addresses corruption as a negative practice displaying the ‘darker side’ of social capital in Chinese guanxi and Russian blat/svyazi networks. It presents a conceptual framework integrating several research streams to establish a conceptual linkage between social network characteristics and three forms of corruption between business pe...

Recent economic geography research has identified the round-tripping of capital from emerging economies to offshore financial centers (OFCs) and back as foreign direct investment (FDI) as a central element of the global offshore FDI network. However, the factors behind this phenomenon are not yet fully understood. Our study develops a general frame...

In recent years, the use of English has become everyday practice in multinational companies (MNCs), and it has been investigated in three disciplines: applied linguistics, international management, and corporate communication, all of which can be housed in international business schools. While reviewing research in these disciplines, we ask the que...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of institutional distance, extended to capture subnational institutional variation, on foreign entry mode choice. Design/methodology/approach – As an empirical study, it focuses on manufacturing firms established in Russia by foreign investors from developed countries. The dependent vari...

We examine the effects of subnational variations in corruption and democratization on the location decisions of foreign investors in Russian regions using firm-level panel data for the period 1996–2007. We link these effects to the level of corruption and type of political regime in the country of origin of a foreign investor. We find a relationshi...

In this paper we analyze the link between corruption money laundering and round-trip investment via offshore jurisdictions utilizing Russian firm-level data. In particular we empirically explore location strategies of round-trip investors (namely, from Cyprus and British Virgin Islands) across Russia and compare them with the benchmark group of gen...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show how the institutional context in an emerging economy, Russia, moderates the “do or buy” decision of international firms operating in the country. This is examined through the influence of institutional voids on transaction costs and definition of core competencies. Design/methodology/approach The paper...

Purpose This paper seeks to discover whether and how a subsidiary located in a high‐corruption host country can pursue its parent's corporate non‐corrupt strategy, rooted in a low‐corruption home country. Theoretically, it aims to apply the construct of institutional duality. It also aims to argue that the subsidiary's strategic response is conting...

This paper empirically examines the impact of the recent global economic crisis on foreign investment from EU countries in Russia by estimating a location choice model for foreign firms' entry in Russian regions for the period 1997-2011. It also examines the relative importance of various determinants of location choice on the redistribution of for...

This article contributes to the study of women's entrepreneurship in transition economies by examining Russian self-employed women's experiences and interpretations of gender in the context of entrepreneurship. It traces how gender articulates the opportunities for and the constraints on entrepreneurial activities in Russian society. As such, this...

This paper illustrates subsidiary evolution in a transition economy through the development of a multinational company’s Russian subsidiary. Building on the concept of subsidiary evolution, we analyze how knowledge transfer from headquarters and application of the subsidiary management’s local knowledge contributed to the process of change. Our emp...

We examine the effects of subnational variations in corruption and democratization on the location decisions of foreign investors in Russian regions using firm-level panel data for the period 1996–2007. We link these effects to the level of corruption and type of political regime in the country of origin of a foreign investor. We find a relationshi...

This paper, examines the determinants of entrepreneurial interest and risk tolerance among Russian university students using the ordered logit model. The data for the paper was retrieved from a survey conducted in spring of 2008 involving 200 students from three St Petersburg-based universities. The paper produced three main findings. Firstly, the...

This article demonstrates how the nature of the post-socialist transition shapes the institutional business environment over time, and how this shows in foreign firms' strategies. We analyze this question through Finnish business operations in two post-socialist countries, Russia and Estonia, drawing on 169 semi-structured interviews. We show how a...

This article advances the institutional view of business strategy by analyzing the post-socialist institutional transition in Russia and its implications for business strategies in the St. Petersburg hotel industry. The development of the institutional context is divided into three periods: socialist, early transition and late transition. The strat...

This article develops a conceptual model linking two interrelated dimensions of foreign business operations in transition economies: resources committed to the entry in terms of ownership, and resources committed to control the operations. The model outlines four types of foreign operations in transition economies: 1) arm's length contractor (low d...

The article assesses the power of institutional organization theory in explaining enterprise adaptation in post-socialism. Empirical analysis of the hotel sector in St. Petersburg, Russia, shows that industry-level isomorphic forces are not at work during economic transition. Combined with market imperfections, this results in intra-industry strate...

Existing studies addressing the modal choice in the global hotel industry have discussed to a limited extent the restrictions posed to the choice of entry mode by the local environment, mainly the host government. This paper describes entries of foreign hotels in a market, Russia, in which the local (city) government has an active role in the hotel...