In the Shadow of Geopolitical Tensions: Three Essays

This dissertation focuses on geopolitical tensions and their effects on corporate global strategy. The dissertation includes two empirical studies and a measurement/database development study. Each of these three chapters introduces a novel perspective on firm strategies when faced with potential negative externalities arising from geopolitical tensions. In the first chapter, I investigate ownership complexity strategies large multinational enterprises (MNEs) use in an effort to conceal their identity and avoid the liability of foreignness. The second chapter compares strategic acquirers with financial acquirers, and investigates how geopolitical tensions influence their cross-border acquisition target selection. The final chapter draws from time-series statistics and develops a novel methodology to extract dynamic components from any given time-series, without the need for prior knowledge about the data structure of the given time-series.