Performance dispersion of North American firms has been analyzed, in the strategy field, using the variance components technique. Firm effects have been identified as the most relevant ones, followed by industry and year effects. This research expands this line of study considering a sample of firms from 78 different countries. A new type of effect was created: the country effect reflecting the influence of country of origin in performance. A Compustat global sample of 12,592 firms with 60,092 observations (1997/2001) was used. Results indicate that country effects do exist and are relevant. Variance composition varies by economic sector. In Mining, Construction and Transport, total country effect (adding pure country effect to country x industry interaction) is the largest variance component, being more important than firm effects. In most remaining economic sectors it is the second most important effect and only in Services it does not show up. Results demonstrate empirical evidence of the influence of the institutional context in performance and indicate that transposition of theories and conclusions derived in particular contexts may need relevant adaptations to be applied to different countries and settings.
performance; strategy; variance components; country
