Are environmental conditions in the eyes of the beholder? Foreign and local firms in Africa

IF 1.2 Q4 MANAGEMENT

Africa Journal of Management Pub Date : 2022-12-31 DOI:10.1080/23322373.2022.2155024

Lilach Nachum, C. Ogbechie

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACT International business research has provided substantial empirical evidence that foreign firms investing in countries with adverse environmental conditions may emerge as the main competitors in those countries. Against this backdrop, the dominance of local banks in Nigeria is puzzling. Our exploratory study, designed to investigate this inconsistency, revealed that managers of foreign and local banks perceive Nigeria’s environmental resources differently and, consequently, respond to them with different strategic choices that lead to different performance outcomes. Building on environmental psychology theory, we theorize the mechanisms by which foreignness affects perceptions and the ways in which these perceptions guide strategic choices. The study makes novel contributions to IB theory by blending insights from environmental psychology with theories of international business and employing individual-level analysis to supplement the firm-level analyses that have dominated preceding studies. The research enabled us to shed light on different explanatory variables than those commonly employed in international business research and to explain the puzzle that triggered our interest.

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环境条件在旁观者眼中吗？非洲的外国和本地公司

摘要国际商业研究提供了大量的经验证据，表明在环境条件恶劣的国家投资的外国公司可能会成为这些国家的主要竞争对手。在这种背景下，尼日利亚当地银行的主导地位令人费解。我们旨在调查这种不一致性的探索性研究表明，外国和当地银行的经理对尼日利亚的环境资源的看法不同，因此，他们会做出不同的战略选择，从而导致不同的绩效结果。在环境心理学理论的基础上，我们对外来影响感知的机制以及这些感知指导战略选择的方式进行了理论化。该研究将环境心理学的见解与国际商业理论相结合，并采用个人层面的分析来补充先前研究中占主导地位的企业层面的分析，为IB理论做出了新的贡献。这项研究使我们能够阐明与国际商业研究中常用的解释变量不同的解释变量，并解释引发我们兴趣的谜题。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Africa Journal of Management Business, Management and Accounting-Business and International Management

CiteScore

2.80

自引率

15.40%

发文量

期刊介绍： The beginning of the Twenty First Century has witnessed Africa’s rise and progress as one of the fastest growing and most promising regions of the world. At the same time, serious challenges remain. To sustain and speed up momentum, avoid reversal, and deal effectively with emerging challenges and opportunities, Africa needs better management scholarship, education and practice. The purpose of the Africa Journal of Management (AJOM) is to advance management theory, research, education, practice and service in Africa by promoting the production and dissemination of high quality and relevant manuscripts. AJOM is committed to publishing original, rigorous, scholarly empirical and theoretical research papers, which demonstrate clear understanding of the management literature and draw on Africa’s local indigenous knowledge, wisdom and current realities. As the first scholarly journal of the Africa Academy of Management (AFAM), AJOM gives voice to all those who are committed to advancing management scholarship, education and practice in or about Africa, for the benefit of all of Africa. AJOM welcomes manuscripts that develop, test, replicate or validate management theories, tools and methods with Africa as the starting point. The journal is open to a wide range of quality, evidence-based methodological approaches and methods that “link” “Western” management theories with Africa’s indigenous knowledge systems, methods and practice. We are particularly interested in manuscripts which address Africa’s most important development needs, challenges and opportunities as well as the big management questions of the day. We are interested in research papers which address issues of ethical conduct in different African settings.