This study investigates the impact of formal and informal institutional differences on the investment decisions of international joint venture (JV) sponsors of multinational enterprises (MNEs) engaged in liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects. Although this study is anchored in institutional theory, an economic geography approach is supported to understand the direct effects of distance and the interaction effects of various contextual factors. Multiple regression analysis reveals that the institutional and cultural distance between the JV sponsor and host country significantly affects the JV sponsor’s investment decisions. Conversely, the geographic, institutional, and cultural distances between JV sponsors have no statistically significant impact on investment decisions. These findings highlight the important role of collaboration between the host and JV sponsors, suggesting that collaborative synergies among JV sponsors may mitigate the effect of distance. Our findings make a theoretical contribution by filling a research gap on how the distance paradigm shapes MNEs’ investment strategy decisions and provide valuable insights for international business practitioners. Meanwhile, the difficulty of eliminating the subjectivity arising from measuring institutional differences limits this study. Therefore, future research should increase the reliability of results by triangulating from multiple data sources.

Since Japan’s economy turned toward stagnation, decline in the on-site capabilities and creativity of Japanese companies have been pointed out. This paper focuses on revealing the causes of this phenomenon by constructing a model based on the theory of dynamic managerial capabilities (DMC). However, because addressing such a large phenomenon using a single model is difficult, I constructed an extended DMC model that incorporates another relevant model, namely the Kimura model (Kimura, 2024), which is based on theories of group creativity in psychology and cognitive science.

The hypotheses I deduced were that the major causes of decline in on-site capabilities and the low levels of creativity in Japanese companies were decline in employee morale due to delay in increasing employee remuneration caused by insufficient DMC among senior management, decline in group learning primarily caused by decline in employee morale, and the lack of adequate offsetting SO-HRM measures.

In addition, as another objective of this paper, I propose application of muti-model analysis to the above phenomenon.