Title: Asymmetric effect of institutional distance: MNE subsidiaries' bribery in transition economies

Authors: Kyeungrae Oh

Addresses: College of Business and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona, PA 16601, USA

Abstract: I examine how the corruption distance affects MNE subsidiaries' bribing patterns in 24 transition economies. This study challenges the conventional conceptualisation of institutional distance in prior research by adopting asymmetric features of corruption distance. The study finds that the higher the corruption difference, the less likely an MNE subsidiary is to bribe government officials when the subsidiary comes from less corrupt countries, but the more likely the subsidiary is to bribe when it comes from more corrupt countries than the host countries. It indicates that the distance effect of corruption distance is not symmetric but asymmetric.

Keywords: corruption distance; institutional duality; multinational enterprises; MNEs; MNE subsidiaries; transition economies; asymmetric effect; institutional distance; bribery; multinational corporations; MNCs; bribing patterns; MNC subsidiaries.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCS.2016.076665

International Journal of Multinational Corporation Strategy, 2016 Vol.1 No.1, pp.18 - 43

Received: 18 Sep 2015
Accepted: 29 Jan 2016

Published online: 19 May 2016 *

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