Seminar (Dept. of General Management)

Theme：Categories as Lenses: How Country-of-Origin Affects Financial Market Reactions to Firms’ Product Diversification

Speaker：Jane LU (City University of Hong Kong)

Time：2022-06-03 10:00

Address：Online Meeting

Language：Chinese/English

ABSTRACT：

Prior research on the relationship between diversification and performance has mostly focused on the firm-side characteristics and ignored stakeholder-side influences. Recent developments in organizational theory suggest that a firm’s optimal distinctiveness rests on a constant interplay between managerial agency and stakeholders evaluation and we argue that one possible way for firms to attain optimal diversification is to use audiences’ category taken-for-grantedness. We situate our study in the reactions from two important types of stakeholders, security analysts and mass investors, to diversification of two categories of firms, developed economy firms and emerging market firms. In a sample 2, 163 US listed firms in the manufacturing industry between 2003 and 2017, we find that the “diversification discount on legitimacy”, in terms of analyst coverage, is mitigated in the category of emerging market firms but less so among those with less developed institutions while “diversification discount on valuation,” in terms of corporate market value, is mitigated in the category of emerging market firms and is especially so among those with less developed institutions.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY：

Jane W. Lu is a Chair Professor and Head of Department of Management at the City University of Hong Kong. She received her Ph.D. from the Ivey School of Business, Western University. Her research centers on the intersection between organization theory and strategy with a focus on international strategy and non-market strategy. Her work has appeared in Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management and Journal of International Business Studies, and other leading journals. She served as Editor-in-Chief of Asia Pacific Journal of Management (2016-2018). She is currently a Senior Editor of Journal of World Business and a Consulting Editor of Journal of International Business Studies. Jane is a fellow of the Academy of International Business. She is currently the President of Asia Academy of Management.