This article responds to recent calls for organizational research to address larger, more globally relevant questions and to pay attention to history, by analyzing the crucial debate over intellectual property rights (IPR) between the United States and China. Despite the recent US position, the United States has not always been a leading IPR advocate. Rather, it was a leading IPR violator during the nineteenth century. An institution-based view of IPR history suggests that both the US refusal to protect foreign IPR in the nineteenth century and the current Chinese lack of enthusiasm to meet US IPR demands represent rational choices. However, as cost-benefit considerations change institutional transitions are possible. We predict that to the same extent the United States voluntarily agreed to strengthen IPR protection when its economy became sufficiently innovation-driven, China will similarly improve its IPR protection.

This study draws on the resource dependence theory and institution-based view to examine political connections in the home market and home formal institutions for their impact on the internationalization of emerging market firms in the context of China. The results suggest that political connections at home may prevent emerging market firms from implementing internationalization strategies by reducing the dependence constraints imposed by local governments and foreign firms, whereas home formal institutional development may promote the strategy transition of emerging market firms from building political connections to international expansion and also reduce the negative impact of political connections. Overall, our findings indicate that political connections and formal institutions at home play an important role in shaping emerging market firms’ strategies of outward internationalization.

The principal–principal (PP) perspective of corporate governance shows that multiple large shareholder (MLS) structure has competing monitoring and entrenchment governance effects. We argue that the dominant effect depends on contest for control among large shareholders and the number of large shareholders involved. Using data from Chinese family listed companies from 2004 to 2007, this study shows inverse U-shaped relationships between contest for control and corporate market value, as measured by Tobin's Q, and between the number of large shareholders and corporate market value. Findings indicate that at low to medium levels of contest for control or number of large shareholders, formal institutions can strengthen MLS structure's monitoring effect and can help this effect last longer. As a whole, the findings extend the institution-based view in the context of family corporate governance by showing that formal institutions can shape the ability of MLS structure to exert governance.