Corporate Strategy and Subsidiary Performance: The Effect of Product and Geographic Diversification
研究了跨国公司的产品和地理多元化如何影响海外子公司的财务绩效，发现产品多元化与子公司绩效呈U型关系，且地理多元化调节这一关系，对转型经济体（如中国）有启示。
ABSTRACT In this study, we argue that foreign subsidiaries may benefit from the corporate strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in different ways in terms of knowledge transfer and strategic flexibility. From this viewpoint, we explore the relationship between product diversification and financial performance of their subsidiaries under the condition of MNE geographic diversification. Using panel data on foreign subsidiaries in European countries from 2006 to 2011, we find a U-shaped relationship between product diversification and subsidiary performance and the joint effect of product and geographic diversification. Given the importance of transition economies in international business today, we conducted a subsample test contrasting the results based on the transitional (Central and Eastern European) versus Western European countries. The contrasting results provide important implications for other transition economies like China. We validate the relationship in several ways in our robustness tests.