Decomposing Firm Performance in Emerging Markets: The Difference Between Growth and Profit
基于资源基础观，研究企业利润和增长的不同决定因素，发现企业效应对利润的影响大于增长，且发达国家企业效应比新兴市场更显著。
Abstract This study adopts the resource-based view (RBV) to explain the difference in firm profit and growth determinants. We argue that profit is driven more by valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable (VRIN) resources, and growth is driven more by versatile resources. Since some versatile resources, such as cash, are less firm-specific, the firm effect is more critical in determining profit than growth. We also expect that emerging market firms are more capable of utilizing versatile resources than developed market firms, and developed market firms are more capable of utilizing VRIN resources than emerging market firms. As a result, the determinants of firm performance also differ between emerging and developed markets. The study employs multilevel mixed models to decompose firm performance in US, Chinese, and global samples. The findings confirm that the firm effect is more important in influencing profit than growth, persisting across all three samples. The firm effect is also more important in influencing performance in developed countries than in emerging markets.