Title: The impact of internationalisation and proprietary assets on firm performance: an empirical analysis of Taiwanese high-tech firms

Authors: Chwo-Ming Joseph Yu, Yu-Ching Chiao, Chiung-Jung Chen

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, College of Commerce, National Chengchi University, 64, Sec. 2, Chihnan Road, Taipei, Taiwan. ' Department of Business Administration, College of Management, National Changhua University of Education, 2, Shi Da Road, Changhua 500, Taiwan. ' Department of Business Administration, College of Commerce, Chung Yuan Christian University, 22, Pu-Jen, Pu-Chung Li, Chung-Li, TaoYuang, Taiwan

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of internationalisation and proprietary assets on the performance of 170 Taiwanese TSE-listed high-tech firms notable for their OEM and ODM businesses. Our results clearly show an inverted U-shaped relationship between internationalisation and performance. Although increased levels of internationalisation brought significant benefits to performance during the period studied, the benefits generally began to decline when this level reached 44.9%. R&D assets were found to be positively associated with performance, whereas marketing assets were found to have a negative relationship with performance. We argue that the advertising intensity of these firms was too low to reach the threshold necessary to achieve economies of scale. Based upon our findings, future research directions and suggestions for firms are also discussed in the paper.

Keywords: internationalisation; proprietary assets; organisational performance; Taiwanese high-tech firms; Taiwan; R&D; research and development; marketing; globalisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2005.006007

International Journal of Technology Management, 2005 Vol.29 No.1/2, pp.116 - 135

Published online: 19 Jan 2005 *

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