Research

GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE, PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION AND
THE CORPORATE PERFORMANCE OF JAPANESE FIRMS

ANDREW DELIOS
Department of Management of Organizations
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Clear Water Bay, Kowloon HONG KONG
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PAUL W. BEAMISH
Richard Ivey School of Business
University of Western Ontario
London, ON CANADA N6A 3K7
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This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Grant (# XXXX), and by the Asian Management Institute at the University of Western Ontario.
This manuscript benefited from comments received from seminar participants at the Richard
Ivey School of Business, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Fisher
College of Business. We would like to thank Ayako Kira, Jo Jo Lam, Jimmy Miyoshi and
Nancy Suzuki for assistance in data collection and coding.

Key Words: Geographic scope, multinationality, corporate performance
Running Head: Geographic Scope and Performance

GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE, PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION AND
THE CORPORATE PERFORMANCE OF JAPANESE FIRMS

Abstract.
The study extends research on the geographic scope, product diversification and performance relationship by exploring both the antecedents and consequences of geographic scope. In so doing, it addresses a fundamental criticism of the geographic scope-performance relationship; namely, that the observed positive relationship between geographic scope and performance is spurious because it is the possession of proprietary assets that are the foundation of superior performance, not expansion into international markets per se. We tested the research model with data on the corporate performance of 399 Japanese manufacturing firms. In the Partial Least Squares analyses used to examine the study’s six main hypotheses, we demonstrate that geographic scope

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