국제화의 이면: 제도화 관점에서 살펴본 국제 지속가능성 규범의 매개효과

초록

Internationalization exposes firms to new knowledge and opportunities in foreign markets but can also increase pressure to conform to widely accepted institutional demands. Drawing on institutional theory, this study examines how such conformity limits the differentiation benefits of internationalization. We expect greater internationalization to increase firms’ adoption of international sustainability norms, which constrains strategic discretion and product development choices, thereby increasing product similarity with competitors. We further propose that these effects strengthen with greater exposure to developed-country markets. Using firm-year panel data on U.S. firms from 1994 to 2023, we find that internationalization increases conformity to international sustainability norms, which in turn increases product similarity. This relationship and the corresponding indirect effect are stronger when firms’ foreign subsidiaries are more concentrated in developed countries. These findings show that internationalization can standardize product strategies through institutional conformity.

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