Testing critical levels in product and geographic diversification: a structural threshold approach

Abstract

[EN]This paper performs a structural threshold regression analysis to test the existence of critical diversification levels in a study of the moderating effect of diversification strategies on performance. The method is applied to a novel panel dataset comprising a sample of Spanish multinational companies from non-financial sectors in 2006–2011. The results reveal that a critical level of geographic diversification is needed to influence positively the product diversification-performance relationship. Moreover, the geographic diversification-performance relationship is not influenced by the level of product diversification. Our results are relevant for understanding the complexity of these strategies.