Sjoerd Beugelsdijk

Sjoerd Beugelsdijk
University of Groningen | RUG · Department of Global Economics and Management

PhD Tilburg University

About

131
Publications
106,951
Reads
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9,453
Citations
Additional affiliations
July 2013 - June 2014
University of South Carolina
Position
  • Professor
January 2005 - December 2008
Radboud University
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
January 2004 - December 2004
Tilburg University
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
Education
January 2000 - September 2003
Tilburg University
Field of study
  • Economics/Business

Publications

Publications (131)
Book
Fully updated with the latest theoretical insights, data, and statistics, this third edition combines the dual perspectives of international economics and international business to provide a complete overview of the changing role of nations and firms in the global economy. International Economics and Business covers the key concepts of an introduct...
Chapter
Fully updated with the latest theoretical insights, data, and statistics, this third edition combines the dual perspectives of international economics and international business to provide a complete overview of the changing role of nations and firms in the global economy. International Economics and Business covers the key concepts of an introduct...
Chapter
The models of Chapter 3, based on technology- and factor endowment differences can explain inter-industry trade but not intra-industry trade – the simultaneous import and export of similar types of goods and services – which is empirically important, especially between rich countries. Competitive pressure by foreign firms and strategic interaction...
Chapter
This chapter analyses global value chains. First, we explain how globalisation leads to fragmentation of production and dispersion of activities. Global value chains consist of nodes, where each node represents the value added received from the previous node. Countries can now specialise in activities and functions – nodes of the global value chain...
Chapter
The rising importance of international firms is demonstrated by two main aspects. First, firms are heterogeneous; they differ substantially in the margins of trade and in economic size. The extensive margin indicates if a firm is active in trade flows. The intensive margin indicates the intensity with which firms engage in trading activities. Tradi...
Chapter
This chapter argues that it is important to get the numbers right, to know the sources of information on international trade- and financial flows and multinational activity, And to familiarise yourself with the basics of accounting identities as this may lead you to avoid common pitfalls. We discuss the relationships between the current account and...
Chapter
All firms have to deal with risks and uncertainty, but international firms face additional risks and uncertainties, as analysed in this chapter. The first part of the chapter deals with largely manageable risks that international firms are familiar with, can quantify, and know how to confront, such as foreign exchange risk and spreading risks via d...
Chapter
We analyse the difficulties and opportunities of managing firm activities across national borders. Firms can enter foreign markets via six entry modes, where three are non-equity-based (exporting, licensing, franchising) and three are equity-based (greenfield investments, acquisitions, joint ventures). First, we discuss the advantages of and risks...
Chapter
When firms interact with foreign markets, they have to deal with challenges not faced on the domestic market as transport- and interaction costs are higher. This holds for all types of interactions, such as geographical, socio-economic, cultural and institutional distance. When interacting with foreign markets, firms have to overcome this liability...
Chapter
Fully updated with the latest theoretical insights, data, and statistics, this third edition combines the dual perspectives of international economics and international business to provide a complete overview of the changing role of nations and firms in the global economy. International Economics and Business covers the key concepts of an introduct...
Chapter
Fully updated with the latest theoretical insights, data, and statistics, this third edition combines the dual perspectives of international economics and international business to provide a complete overview of the changing role of nations and firms in the global economy. International Economics and Business covers the key concepts of an introduct...
Chapter
Our analysis in this chapter focuses on comparative advantages, perhaps the most fundamental insight of international economics. If countries either completely or partially specialise production according to their comparative advantages, they can reap the benefits of the gains from specialisation in terms of achieving higher total production and we...
Chapter
We provide an introduction to the world economy. World population levels have risen drastically since 1800, in conjunction with (per capita) income levels. Economic leadership regularly shifts from one country to another. Rich countries are usually well connected in terms of international trade, contacts, investments, migration and capital flows. H...
Article
Full-text available
Does national culture influence entrepreneurship? Given that entrepreneurship and the economic, formal institutional, and cultural characteristics of nations are deeply intertwined and co-vary, it is difficult to isolate the effect of culture on entrepreneurship. In this study, we examine the self-employment choices of second-generation immigrants...
Article
Full-text available
The field of international business (IB) has been successful in developing a unique body of knowledge on the multinational corporation and on country-level contexts. A recurring debate concerns its claim to uniqueness, and to associated scholarly characteristics that distinguish IB from other fields of research. I discuss what makes IB research uni...
Article
We analyse the nature of contemporary societal conflict in Europe, conceptualizing conflict in terms of oppositional identities, represented by the archetypal extreme corner positions between which contestation takes place. By analysing key characteristics of 28,565 Europeans from seven countries in four distinct time periods, we find three archety...
Article
Full-text available
The disaggregation and geographic dispersion of global value chains (GVCs) have expanded the responsibility of international buyers from firm-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) towards social sustainability of their emerging country suppliers. We theorize, in this paper, that the effectiveness of lead firms’ GVC governance strategies for s...
Article
Full-text available
We assess how social capital relates to individuals’ initial interest in becoming an entrepreneur, formally setting up a venture, and subsequent survival of the venture. Conceptualizing and measuring entrepreneurship as a sequential process inferred from cross-sectional data for 22,878 individuals living in 110 regions across 22 European countries,...
Article
The management of cross‐national differences is of central concern in international business (IB) and international management (IM). Thus, it is not surprising that the concept of distance which captures such differences has received much attention in this field. Lumineau, Hanisch, and Wurtz, in their Point article, seek to strengthen distance rese...
Article
Full-text available
Meta-analyses summarize a field’s research base and are therefore highly influential. Despite their value, the standards for an excellent meta-analysis, one that is potentially award-winning, have changed in the last decade. Each step of a meta-analysis is now more formalized, from the identification of relevant articles to coding, moderator analys...
Article
Full-text available
Recent debates on transparency and replicability suggest that JIBS needs to update its approach on data access and research transparency (DART). We propose a series of initiatives, knowing well that there is a balance to be struck. There are clear benefits on the one hand, chief among these the potential for learning and knowledge accumulation, and...
Chapter
Distance is a central concept in international business research, yet there is debate about the construct as well as its operationalization. In this editorial, we address three of the most important recurring questions posed by authors, editors, and reviewers by examining the theory, methods, and data of distance research. We discuss (1) how to the...
Chapter
Social science research has recently been subject to considerable criticism regarding the validity and power of empirical tests published in leading journals, and business scholarship is no exception. Transparency and replicability of empirical findings are essential to build a cumulative body of scholarly knowledge. Yet current practices are under...
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents a review and critique of the 20-year-old literature on institutional distance, which has greatly proliferated. We start with a discussion of the three institutional perspectives that have served as a theoretical foundation for this construct: organizational institutionalism, institutional economics, and comparative institutional...
Article
Full-text available
Research Summary Business group (BG) affiliation affects the strategic behavior and performance of firms. Until now it has been theoretically unclear and insufficiently empirically tested whether affiliation advantages extend to the foreign subsidiaries of group members. We attempt to determine if they do, and if so, to identify the boundary condit...
Article
Full-text available
We assess the relationship between regional social capital and individuals’ propensity to transition through the entrepreneurial establishment process. We predict that regional social capital reduces entrepreneurs’ liabilities of smallness, newness, and outsidership. Conceptualizing and measuring entrepreneurship as a sequential four-staged process...
Chapter
Full-text available
In this chapter we analyzed whether certain groups in society differ in their views on what is typical for the Netherlands, and what is important for their sense of belonging to the country. Groups are defined based on classic socio-demographic characteristics: age, gender, income, education level, voting behavior, employment status, migration stat...
Chapter
Full-text available
Dutch people identify with the Netherlands on various grounds. For that reason we cannot speak of the Dutch identity. Despite the differences, belonging to a certain group only has a limited influence on one's identification with the Netherlands. At the same time, there is debate about national identity. People have a (firm) opinion about political...
Data
ONLINE_APPENDIX_final – Supplemental material for Dimensions and Dynamics of National Culture: Synthesizing Hofstede With Inglehart
Article
Full-text available
Distance is a central concept in international business research, yet there is debate about the construct as well as its operationalization. In this editorial, we address three of the most important recurring questions posed by authors, editors, and reviewers by examining the theory, methods, and data of distance research. We discuss (1) how to the...
Article
Full-text available
Cross-national research on cultural differences across space and time intersects multiple disciplines but the prominence of concepts varies by academic fields. Hofstede’s dimensional concept of culture, to begin with, dominates in cross-cultural psychology and international management. Inglehart’s dynamic concept of culture, by contrast, prevails i...
Article
This paper investigates the relationship between subsidiary decision-making autonomy and their development of product innovations. Using survey data from 563 subsidiaries located in six European countries, we show how the degree of decision-making autonomy, as well as the functional area in which the subsidiary has decision-making autonomy, affect...
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents the most comprehensive review and meta-analysis of the literature on cultural distance and firm internationalization to date. We analyze the effects of cultural distance on key strategic decisions throughout the entire process of internationalization. For the preinvestment stage, we examine the decisions on where to invest (loca...
Article
Full-text available
Regional economic development in Europe: the role of total factor productivity. Regional Studies. This paper documents the fact that the large and persistent differences in economic development across subnational regions in European Union countries can largely be attributed to differences in total factor productivity (TFP). Applying the technique o...
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Full-text available
We investigate the link between culture and regional economic development within European countries. Considering a variety of cultural values, we provide evidence that it is the degree of diversity in these values at the regional level that strongly correlates with economic performance rather than the prevalence of specific values. In particular we...
Article
Integrating distance research with the behavioral strategy literature on MNC headquarters-subsidiary relations, this paper explores how the distance between headquarters and subsidiaries relates to value added by the headquarters. We show for 124 manufacturing subsidiaries in Europe that, on average, distance is unrelated to value added by headquar...
Article
Social science research has recently been subject to considerable criticism regarding the validity and power of empirical tests published in leading journals, and business scholarship is no exception. Transparency and replicability of empirical findings are essential to build a cumulative body of scholarly knowledge. Yet current practices are under...
Chapter
Diversity research has shown that ethno-linguistic, religious, and genetic diversity are related to a variety of socio-economic outcomes. We complement this literature by focusing on a dimension of diversity so far ignored in diversity research for lack of data: Diversity in key human values. Using data from all available waves of the World Values...
Article
Full-text available
Kirkman, Lowe, & Gibson’s (2006) JIBS article summarized and critiqued international business research inspired by the most cited book in the field Hofstede’s 1980 Culture’s Consequences: International differences in work-related values (Hofstede [1980]2001). They identified a number of issues in this research and offered several recommendations fo...
Article
Full-text available
Extant practice in international management is to measure cultural distance as a nation-to-nation comparison of country means on cultural values, thereby ignoring the cultural variation that exists within countries. We argue that these traditional mean-based measures of cultural distance should take within-country cultural variation into account. T...
Article
Social diversity has been linked to a range of socio-economic and political outcomes, generally showing that higher diversity is associated with lower socio-economic performance. In this paper we focus on the extent to which key human values and beliefs are shared in society, which captures a dimension of diversity not previously discussed. We asse...
Article
Full-text available
Hofstede's framework, which is based on survey data collected in the late 1960s and early 1970s, dominates quantitative culture research in international strategic management. However, as countries develop economically, modernization theory predicts shifts in cultural values, which likely affect countries' scores on Hofstede's work-related values d...
Article
Well-functioning institutions, both formal (i.e. rule of law) and informal (i.e. trust), facilitate economic exchange. To investigate the nature of the relationship between formal and informal institutions, we analyze bilateral trade patterns in a sample of 16 European countries between 1996-2009. Our results show that trust and rule of law are sub...
Article
Research on how multinational firms deal with home–host cultural differences argues that cultural differences are minimized and assumes that foreign cultures are homogenous. In this paper we relax the cultural homogeneity assumption. In the presence of cultural variation in host countries the minimization of cultural differences leads existing mean...
Chapter
Full-text available
Spurred by the classic work of Dunning, MNE location has become the focus of a growing body of research in the field. In this paper we argue that international business (IB) research examining the spatial dimension has serious weaknesses, stemming from its traditional assumption of the country as the location unit of analysis. While border-crossing...
Book
With a new title (following the successful first edition of Nations and Firms in the Global Economy), this second edition undergraduate textbook combines the dual perspectives of international economics and international business, providing a complete overview of the changing role of nations and firms in the global economy. International Economics...
Article
Full-text available
Spurred by the classic work of Dunning, MNE location has become the focus of a growing body of research in the field. In this paper we argue that international business (IB) research examining the spatial dimension has serious weaknesses, stemming from its traditional assumption of the country as the location unit of analysis. While border-crossing...
Article
This paper provides the first systematic attempt to measure cultural diversity at national and subnational levels. Our measure reflects the degree to which values and beliefs are shared in society and captures a dimension of diversity not previously discussed. We assess the importance of cultural diversity for socioeconomic outcomes by focusing on...
Article
Full-text available
Prior studies have argued and regularly found that cultural distance is negatively related to bilateral export flows, which are the sum of arm’s length and intra-firm exports. However, these macro-level studies overlook the firm-level insights that arm’s length exports are a substitute for arm’s length affiliate sales, and that firms’ choices betwe...
Article
Full-text available
To investigate the relation between trust and formal institutions, we analyze bilateral trade patterns in a sample of 16 European countries between 1996-2009. Trust in trading partners has a significant positive effect on bilateral trade. However, our results suggest that trust and formal institutions are substitutes, as the positive effect of trus...
Article
Location-specific advantages (LSA) and the liability of foreignness (LOF) are key concepts in international business and management research. To combine these concepts in a systematic framework, I develop a two-by-two matrix focusing on the nature of International Business (IB) research using four key terms: firm, context, comparative and interacti...
Article
Full-text available
Many international business (IB) studies have used foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks to measure the aggregate value-adding activity of multinational enterprises (MNE) affiliates in host countries. We argue that FDI stocks are a biased measure of that activity, because the degree to which they overestimate or underestimate affiliate activity va...
Article
Full-text available
Prior studies have argued and regularly found that cultural distance is negatively related to bilateral export flows, which are the sum of arm's length and intra-firm exports. However, these macro-level studies overlook the firm-level insights that arm's length exports are a substitute for arm's length affiliate sales, and that firms' choices betwe...
Article
Full-text available
Many international business (IB) studies have used foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks to measure the aggregate value-adding activity of multinational enterprises (MNE) affiliates in host countries. We argue that FDI stocks are a biased measure of that activity, because the degree to which they overestimate or underestimate affiliate activity va...
Article
Full-text available
This article discusses the current links between international trade theory, economic geography and strategy and international business. We offer a way forward for building further links between these literatures that focusses on the notions of place, space and organization, and we document how the papers in this special issue contribute to this de...
Article
We investigate how national cultural distance, defined as the extent to which the shared values and norms in one country differ from those in another, affect the number of Web site visits. Based on a sample of 2,654 U.S. households visiting Web sites in 38 countries over 25 different Web site categories, we find that cultural distance has a negativ...
Article
Full-text available
We investigate how national cultural distance, defined as the extent to which the shared values and norms in one country differ from those in another, affect the number of Web site visits. Based on a sample of 2,654 U.S. households visiting Web sites in 38 countries over 25 different Web site categories, we find that cultural distance has a negativ...
Article
Full-text available
Prior studies have shown that institutional hazards in the form of formal governance deficiencies and informal cultural distance are both negatively related to the amount of foreign multinational activity in countries. We argue that the strength of these negative relationships varies systematically with the type of foreign activity (horizontal or v...
Article
Gravity equations are a widely used tool in the International Business (IB) literature to explain country-level trade and FDI flows. Against the background of its increased popularity and data availability, a range of commonly made econometric mistakes have recently been discussed in the literature, mostly pertaining to the (omitted) characteristic...
Book
Many economists now accept that informal institutions and culture play a crucial role in economic outcomes. Driven by the work of economists like Nobel laureates Douglass North and Gary Becker, there is an important body of work that invokes cultural and institutional factors to build a more comprehensive and realistic theory of economic behavior....
Article
The concept of social capital serves as a structural hole in the landscape of scholarly disciplines in social science. This article argues that the unifying strength of the concept is based mainly upon the semantics of trust and networks and is, therefore, superficial, and that various levels of analysis may yield fundamental differences in its app...
Article
The authors extend previous research on relationship management by investigating the potential effect of differences in organizational culture on relationship performance among 124 dyads. Theory suggests that partner similarity may improve the feeling of we-ness thereby contributing to the perceived success of inter-firm cooperation. The findings r...
Article
In this paper we develop a formal model of economic growth and two types of social capital. Following extant literature, we model social capital as participation in two types of social networks: first, closed networks of family and friends, and, second, open networks that bridge different communities. Higher levels of social capital may crowd out e...
Article
Following the recent critical debate on the role of the firm versus that of the region, this article contends that for a true test of the importance of the role of the region for a firm's innovative performance firm-specific heterogeneity needs to be minimized. Empirical studies have tended to deduce that the region matters from the macrophenomenon...
Article
This paper examines the foreign bias in international asset allocation. Following extant literature in behavioral finance, we argue that a society’s culture and the cultural distance between two markets play an important role in explaining the foreign bias. In particular, we hypothesize that the degree of a nation’s uncertainty avoidance affects th...
Article
A bstract We reestimate McClelland's (1961) thesis on entrepreneurial culture and economic development. McClelland found a strong positive correlation between measures of need for achievement ( N achievement) imagery in school textbooks and the subsequent rate of economic growth. Benchmarking our findings against generally accepted empirical growth...
Article
In this paper, we contribute to the literature investigating the impact of FDI on host country economic growth by distinguishing between the growth effects of horizontal (market seeking) FDI and vertical (efficiency seeking) FDI. Using a new database, we estimate the growth effects of vertical and horizontal US MNE activity into 44 host countries o...
Article
In this study we discuss and empirically test the assertion that over the last two decades multinational enterprises' (MNEs') configuration of value-adding activities has shifted from a sparse and simple (host–home) international division of labor among the foreign affiliates to a more specialized and ‘advanced’ global value chain configuration in...
Article
In his critical reply on my article, Uslaner points to several issues, amongst others the lack of observations in the principal components analysis, and the fundamental relationship between micro and macro trust on the one hand and institutions on the other hand. Of these two I hold the second one to be most important and I will therefore focus on...
Article
Full-text available
Using creativity theory as a heuristic device, I develop hypotheses on the relation between strategic human resource practices and a firm's capability to generate product innovations. My empirical tests in a sample of 988 Dutch firms indicate the importance of task autonomy, training and performance- based pay for generating incremental innovations...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper, we empirically study the relationship between entrepreneurial culture and economic growth. Based on a micro based comparison of entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, we develop a measure reflecting entrepreneurial attitude at the regional level. We subsequently relate this newly developed variable, ‘entrepreneurial culture,’ to innova...
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Full-text available
This paper investigates the relationship between entrepreneurial culture and the rate of nascent entrepreneurship. Embedded in trait research, we develop a new composite measure of entrepreneurial culture using data from the World Values Survey. To corroborate the results obtained when regressing this newly developed measure on 2002 levels of nasce...
Article
Full-text available
This paper takes issue with the trend to attribute differences in economic growth rates to differences in interpersonal trust. I discuss the World Values Survey (WVS) measure that is used to operationalise trust at the macro level. I hypothesise that there is a mismatch between the theoretical argument and the empirical operationalisation of trust....
Article
In this paper we argue that organizational culture is an important factor influencing relationship skills, defined as a firm’s ability and behavioral tendency to actively cultivate and manage its ties with other firms. Testing our model on a sample of 102 inter-firm relations, we find that firms with organizational cultures characterized by an orie...
Article
Full-text available
The concept of the 'Europe of the regions' has given rise to the question of whether there is a process of cultural unification discernible among European regions. The paper reports the results of an empirical analysis of cultural differences among a panel of 55 European regions. Modernization theorists argue that cultural convergence can be expect...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper we argue that organizational culture is an important factor influencing relationship skills, defined as a firm's ability and behavioral tendency to actively cultivate and manage its ties with other firms. Testing our model on a sample of 102 inter-firm relations, we find that firms with organizational cultures characterized by an orie...
Article
In this paper we argue that organizational culture is an important factor influencing relationship skills, defined as a firm's ability and behavioral tendency to actively cultivate and manage its ties with other firms. Testing our model on a sample of 102 inter-firm relations, we find that firms with organizational cultures characterized by an orie...
Article
Full-text available
Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips stock price has been predicted using the difference between core and headline CPI in the United States. Linear trends in the CPI difference allow accurate prediction of the prices at a five to ten-year horizon.
Article
This paper studies the intangible costs of international trade by extending the basic gravity equation with measures of cultural and institutional distance, and institutional quality. Analyzing a sample of bilateral trade flows between 92 countries in 1999, we find that institutional distance has a negative effect on bilateral trade, presumably bec...
Article
We study a cross section of 54 European regions. The central question is whether regional differences in economic growth are related to social capital, in the form of generalized trust and associational activity. Substantiated by extensive robustness tests, we present evidence that growth differentials in European regions are positively related to...