Content area
Abstract
The following question is addressed: Why do strategies of firms from different countries differ? Drawing from recent research on business strategies in Asian organizations, an outline of the emergence of an institution-based view of business strategy which sheds light on why firms differ is presented. A review of 4 streams of research in a broad range of countries is presented. Some of the current work is critiqued and extended by suggesting a number of future research directions. Institutional frameworks interact with organizations by signaling which choices are acceptable and supportable. As a result, institutions help reduce uncertainty for organizations. Institutional frameworks are made up for both formal and informal constraints (North 1990). Formal constraints include political rules, judicial decisions, and economic contracts. Informal constraints, on the other hand, include socially sanctioned norms of behavior, which are embedded in culture and ideology (Scott 1995).