R&D Investment in the Global Paper Products Industry: A Behavioral Theory of the Firm and National Culture Perspective

Krista B. Lewellyn and Bao, Shuji ‘Rosey’

Journal of International Management, 2015, vol. 21, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Investing in R&D is particularly relevant for firms competing in today’s globalized knowledge-based economy. This multilevel study offers a national culture perspective integrated with the behavioral theory of the firm to test whether outperforming industry peers motivates subsequent R&D investment in a sample of paper products industry firms from 13 countries. We also hypothesize and find that home country cultural dimensions (institutional collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance) create a context that either encourages or discourages firm-level R&D investment. Additionally, we evaluate the cross-level moderating effects of culture to explore how the strength of the firm-level relationship between outperforming industry peers and R&D investment changes as a function of cultural context. Our multilevel analysis demonstrates outperforming industry peers and national culture are both important for explaining variance in firm-level R&D investment in the global paper industry.

Keywords: Research and development (R&D); National culture; Behavioral theory of the firm; GLOBE measures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1075425314001124
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:intman:v:21:y:2015:i:1:p:1-17

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/601266/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 601266/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.intman.2014.12.001

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Management is currently edited by M. Kotabe

More articles in Journal of International Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().