征稿期刊

Journal of International Business Studies

期刊级别

IF 9 (JCR 2024)

SSCI

Q1 (BUSINESS 17/316)

Q1 (MANAGEMENT 19/420)

征稿主题

The outcomes of foreign divestment at the firm, individual, and societal levels

细分领域

Firm-level outcomes of foreign divestment

What are the post-divestment strategies of MNEs? To what extent are divested operations replaced with alternative means to serve or source from host countries? If voluntarily divested operations are replaced with market-based transactions, under what conditions do the resultant benefits outweigh the additional transactions costs? Where are divested operations relocated (e.g., home country vs third country)? What types of operations are relocated, and do these choices vary by location? What are the short-term and long-term effects of foreign divestment on MNEs’ organizational structure, financial stability, or operational flexibility?

Are foreign divestments a means for MNEs to reallocate resources to other foreign market entries? How can the resources released through foreign divestment be transferred and re-deployed in other parts of the MNE? What challenges are associated with an MNE’s redeployment of various types of resources and how can MNEs retain or augment the value and utility of these redeployed resources? How/where do MNEs integrate/exploit these redeployed resources, and what are the implications of different resource redeployment strategies on firm performance?

To what extent can MNEs salvage resources depending on the divestment mode and timing of the divestment, and other characteristics such as the distance to the host country (Dai, Eden, & Beamish, 2017, Dai, Eden, & Beamish, 2023, Liu, Li, Eden, & Lyles, 2022)?

How does voluntary and involuntary foreign divestment differently affect MNEs’ strategies, performance, geographic diversification, and operational flexibility? What are the implications of involuntary foreign divestment for MNEs’ risk exposure and risk management? How do voluntary foreign divestments affect MNEs’ external relationships and ties to policy makers and other stakeholders in host countries (Tandon, Asgari, & Ranganathan, 2023)?

How do the outcomes of foreign divestment vary by the mode (partial vs. full divestment) and timing (Dai, Eden, & Beamish, 2023), the method (liquidation, spin-off, vs. carve-out), the nature (e.g., voluntary vs. involuntary divestment, buyer driven vs seller driven sell-offs), and the characteristics of the host country at both sub-national and national levels (Dai, Eden, & Beamish, 2013)?

How do domestic firms improve their performance by acquiring formerly foreign-owned units/subsidiaries? What conditions determine/facilitate domestic firms’ exploitation of acquired assets, e.g., by retaining employees? How or to which extent do domestic owners (re)structure and manage acquired units? How do they integrate acquired units within their internal networks?

What are the effects of the change of ownership from foreign to domestic or to a third country on the divested firm’s performance, innovation, employment, wages, exports, corporate governance, sustainability, environmental practices and performance, and legitimacy?

Considering different types of buyers (e.g., state-owned enterprises, sovereign wealth funds, private firms, venture capitalists, family businesses, and other institutional investors) may have varying tendencies to acquire divested assets from MNEs, how do their approaches to acquiring and exploiting these divested assets differ?

What factors moderate post-divestment outcomes? For example, in what situations are MNEs more likely to experience reduced levels of post-divestment outcomes, and under what conditions can they improve their outcomes?

Foreign divestment decisions may not only affect the focal firm’s future FDI, but also that of other firms because of firms’ interdependencies or mimetic behavior (Chan, Makino, & Isobe, 2006, Soule, Swaminathan, & Tihanyi, 2014). Thus, how do rival MNEs (domestic and foreign) respond to MNEs’ divestment decisions from specific markets?

How does foreign divestment affect an MNE’s legitimacy, both at home and overseas? To what extent does the effect differ between voluntary and involuntary divestment?

Individual-level outcomes of foreign divestment

How (internationally) transferable is the specific human and social capital developed by managers and employees at the divested subsidiary? How does this experience impact expatriates’ career trajectories and future employment prospects?

How do expatriates and local employees of divested subsidiaries experience and respond to foreign divestments? How do these divestments affect their status and career prospects, given that voluntary foreign divestments may be regarded as failures and managers may suffer from stigmatization in their future career trajectory both within and outside the divesting MNE? How does involuntary foreign divestment influence the career trajectories of employees who are displaced, and how does this compare to the career impacts of voluntary divestment?

How does foreign divestment affect the professional identities of expatriates and local employees? How do they adapt to significant changes to their work roles? Under what conditions do expatriates and local employees view foreign divestments as opportunities rather than threats to their professional identities?

How do foreign divestments influence expatriates’ motivation to take on future global work assignments? To what extent are there differences between situations of involuntary and voluntary foreign divestment? How does the need to relocate after foreign divestment affect expatriates’ work and family role adjustment in the new location? What happens to expatriates of divested subsidiaries? Do they return to headquarters, move to other subsidiaries of the MNE, or leave the MNE altogether? What happens to local employees of divested subsidiaries? Are they offered opportunities within the MNE’s internal network? Which factors determine these outcomes?

How do recent developments such as geopolitical fragmentation, techno-nationalism, 4IR technologies, and ESG issues shape the individual-level outcomes of foreign divestment?

Which competencies, experiences or facilitating conditions enable global leaders to effectively lead expatriates and local employees through foreign divestment and unit closures? How do foreign divestments alter an MNE’s HR strategy and global talent management architecture?

Societal outcomes of foreign divestments

What are the macro-level impacts of MNEs’ foreign divestment and how do these impacts interrelate? The macro-effects of MNEs’ foreign divestment could be potentially positive, e.g., creation of an additional pool of qualified employees that domestic firms can draw on (Sofka, Preto, & de Faria, 2014). Under what conditions can a MNEs’ foreign divestment have positive outcomes for local communities, firms and individuals? To what extent do the effects of voluntary and involuntary foreign divestment on the economic stability or social infrastructure of host communities differ?

Which factors shape the nature of the macro-level effects of MNEs’ foreign divestment? For example, how do factors, such as size, location, ownership structure, and entry/establishment mode of an investment affect the outcomes of an MNE’s foreign divestment? Are the outcomes more pronounced for greenfield investments compared to acquisitions? Does the impact differ depending on the types of foreign divestment, the context in which the divestment takes place (e.g., voluntary vs involuntary divestments) (Cumming & Zahra, 2016) or on the nature of external force that led to an externally driven divestment , e.g., techno-nationalism?

To what extent does an MNE’s’ foreign divestment contribute to or impair various elements of sustainable development in host countries? Because MNEs could bring about negative effects to the host economy (such as corruption, anti-competitive behavior, non-ethical/exploitative behavior, pollution), how do these aspects manifest after an MNE’s divestment? What are the differences in the effects between involuntary and voluntary foreign divestment?

How does foreign divestment affect MNEs’ industry, as well as their upstream and downstream industries (e.g., in terms of industry-level competitiveness and restructuring)?

How do various key stakeholders, e.g., investors and governments, respond to foreign divestment? This is of importance because geopolitical changes might lead to a shift in MNEs’ key stakeholders (Devinney, et al., 2013). For instance, research has shown that firms divest in response to stricter environmental regulation (Niu & Wang, 2023), but does such divestments reduce pollution in the divested location and/or merely shift pollution to other locations?

重要时间

Submission Deadline: 31 October 2025