AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings - Academy of International ...

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amounts for assets protected by IIAs than similar unprotected assets, an effect moderated by firm size. (For
more information, please contact: Robert J Weiner, George Washington University, USA: rweiner@gwu.edu)
Does the Origin of the Firm Matter Institutional Determinants of Acquisition Strategies in Russia
Marie-Ann Betschinger, Higher School of Economics
Olivier Bertrand, SKEMA Business School
Tomi Laamanen, University of St.Gallen
We aim at deepening the existing understanding of the antecedents of acquisitions by emerging market firms
by providing a multi-layered analysis of the firm, industry, and region level determinants of acquisition behavior.
We are interested in what causes firms to engage in a series of acquisitions and grow to become regionally,
nationally, and eventually internationally influential firms. Based on a sample of 1500 of medium-sized and large
firms in different regions of Russia, we examine what drives firms with little prior experience or capabilities to
engage in acquisitions. Consistent with prior research, we find that firm size, slack, and low overall industry
growth increase a firm's likelihood to engage in acquisitions. As a novel, to some extent counter-intuitive,
finding we find that also the level of corruption in a region is a highly important determinant of acquisition
behavior. Our paper contributes to an improved understanding of how informal institutions in emerging
economies can affect firms' acquisition behavior. (For more information, please contact: Marie-Ann Betschinger,
Higher School of Economics, Russia: mbetschinger@hse.ru)
Session: 2.4.6 - Competitive
Track: 1 - Institutions, Governance, and CSR
Politics and International Business
Presented On: July 2, 2012 - 14:30-15:45
Chair: Bernard M. Wolf, York University
Fortress Europe: ISO 9000 as a Device to Form an EU Standardization Union
Joseph Clougherty, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and CEPR-London
Michal Grajek, ESMT European School of Management and Technology
Considering the trade-effects of one particular international standard (ISO 9000), we allow standardization to
manifest via multiple (quality-signaling, information/compliance-cost, and common-language) channels, and use
instrumental variable techniques to overcome endogeneity concerns. We find the quality-signaling and
common-language effects to enhance country-pair trade, though host-nation standardization can impede trade
flows. In particular, ISO-rich nations (most notably European) uniquely benefit from host-nation standardization,
while the majority of nations (e.g., the US and all developing nations) actually find worldwide diffusion to
represent a trade barrier due to compliance-cost effects. (For more information, please contact: Joseph
Clougherty, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and CEPR-London, USA: jaclough@illinois.edu)
Can the State be Trusted The Antecedents and Consequences of Institutional-Based Trust in the Russian
Bank Deposit Market
Andrew Spicer, University of South Carolina
Ilya Okhmatovskiy, McGill University
We extend research into the antecedents and consequences of institutional-based trust to the study of stateowned
enterprises in emerging markets. We propose that if market participants trust the top political
leadership in a country to oversee and monitor state-owned enterprises, then they may come to view state
AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings
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