Is Group Affiliation Profitable in Emerging Markets? An Analysis of Diversified Indian Business Groups

32 Pages Posted: 16 Dec 1996

See all articles by Tarun Khanna

Tarun Khanna

Harvard University - Strategy Unit

Krishna Palepu

Harvard University - Harvard Business School; Harvard University - David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Research; Harvard Business Review; NBER; International Academy of Management

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: October 1996

Abstract

Emerging markets like India have poorly functioning institutions, leading to severe agency and information problems. Business groups in these markets have the potential to offer benefits to member firms, but they also have potential to destroy value. We analyze the performance of affiliates of diversified Indian business groups relative to unaffiliated firms. We find that accounting and stock market measures of firm performance initially decline with group diversification and subsequently increase once group diversification exceeds a certain level. Stock market measures suggest that, unlike U.S. conglomerates' lines of business, and similar to the affiliates of U.S. LBO associations, affiliates of the most diversified business groups outperform unaffiliated firms.

JEL Classification: G30, L20

Suggested Citation

Khanna, Tarun and Palepu, Krishna, Is Group Affiliation Profitable in Emerging Markets? An Analysis of Diversified Indian Business Groups (October 1996). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=7985 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7985

Tarun Khanna (Contact Author)

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