Place, Space and Geographical Exposure: Foreign Subsidiary Survival in Conflict Zones
Journal of International Business Studies, Forthcoming
50 Pages Posted: 18 Mar 2013
Date Written: March 16, 2013
Abstract
This study focuses on the role of geography in foreign subsidiary survival in host countries afflicted with political conflict. We argue that survival is a function of exposure to conflicts, which depends on the characteristics of place (the conflict zone) and space (geographic concentration and dispersion of other home-country firms). The roles of place and space are explored using street-level analysis of geographic information systems data for 670 Japanese MNE subsidiaries in 25 conflict-afflicted host countries over 1987–2006. Through dynamic modeling of conflict zones as stretchable and shrinkable places relative to subsidiary locations, we develop a means of characterizing a foreign subsidiary’s exposure to multiple threats in its geographic domain. Our results show that greater exposure to geographically defined threats, in both a static and a dynamic sense, reduces the likelihood of MNE survival. The findings indicate moreover that both concentration and dispersion with other firms affect survival; however, the effects depend on where (whether the firm is in a conflict zone) and with whom (home-country peers or sister subsidiaries) the firm is spatially located.
Keywords: geography, distance, political conflicts, political risk, subsidiary survival, subsidiary exit, place, space, exposure, Coulomb’s Law, concentration, dispersion, static exposure, dynamic exposure
JEL Classification: N4
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation