This research studies the phenomena of hospital groups expanding beyond their home country by setting up operations in less developed countries, and patients travelling out of their country for healthcare services, by looking at the internationalisation of private healthcare firms from Singapore. The research helps to address a gap in the literature as there is a lack of firm-level research on internationalisation of healthcare firms, and even more so for firms from Southeast Asia. For practitioners, the research offers a better understanding of the internationalisation strategies and choices adopted by healthcare firms, and more generally, service firms. With the region which Singapore is part of undergoing rapid integration, the study also offers useful insights on the impact of regional integration on internationalisation of healthcare firms. Using a multiple-case study of four private healthcare firms from Singapore, the research examines the where (market selection), how (entry modes) and when (timing) of their internationalisation, as well as their response to regional integration, in the context of existing literature on internationalisation of firms. The study shows that the internationalisation strategies of healthcare firms from Singapore, in relation to market selection, entry modes and timing of entry, were well-explained by existing theories on internationalisation of firms. Family ownership was identified as a reason for the deviation from theory for one of the cases. Specifically on the internationalisation of healthcare firms, the study shows that healthcare services in Singapore is undergoing commodification, with increasing use of and emphasis on 'marketing' to procure patients-customers; increasing emphasis on quality; and the creation of customers and consumers. This has made healthcare services increasingly 'exportable' in the sense that they can be 'sold' overseas away from the point of 'production', via representative offices, instead of having to rely on higher commitment non-export entry modes as indicated in the literature. Another deviation from literature was the case firms' stated preference to make market entry using management contract instead of joint venture. This can be attributed to their strategic need to internationalise quickly and the high cost of building new healthcare facilities. Using the findings from the analysis, the thesis proposed a characterization of the internationalisation strategies of a healthcare firm from Singapore, in terms of market selection, entry modes and timing of entry. A conceptual model on the internationalisation of healthcare firms was also developed, identifying the factors which may influence the internationalisation of healthcare firms. Besides, the study identified that the healthcare firms went through four phases of internationalisation process, namely, learning, opportunistic, de-internationalisation and maturisation, with each presenting some unique patterns of internationalisation by the firms. Further analysis showed that the four phases tied in well with the 'Link-Leverage-Learn' framework of Mathews (2006) for emerging/second wave multinational enterprises (MNEs), hence offering a new perspective for evaluating the internationalisation of such firms in future. On impact of regional integration, a possible 'ideal' model for a healthcare MNE in an economically integrated region was proposed. Applying the model, it is proposed that internationalisation by healthcare MNEs will increase as the region integrates, and there will be further consolidation within the industry. Healthcare MNEs from small countries like Singapore are likely to compete particularly strongly, as they are under even greater pressure to secure the foreign markets given the constraint of their small domestic population.

Innovation incentives are imperfectly provided in market settings: When deciding on their innovation activity, firms tend to focus on the maximization of their private benefits, poorly internalizing social benefits. This thesis analyzes how policy intervention could be designed in order to align private and social incentives. <p><p>In the three papers of this thesis, I will consider three environments where firms' choices in a laissez-faire situation may be socially inefficient. The inefficiencies arise because of learning externalities, free riding when the innovation decision is made by a group of participants, or because firms are not willing to invest in a new activity that has a higher social than private value.<p><p>In the first thesis paper, I deal with the strategies of firms in innovative consumer product markets characterized by demand uncertainty. I analyze the timing and location decision of firms in that context.<p><p>In the second thesis paper, I consider the investment incentives of financial market infrastructures (FMIs). FMIs comprise the set of institutions that allow financial market participants to engage with each other. I assess the innovation incentives for different forms of ownership (user-owned versus third-party owned) and identify infrastructure service provision equilibria. <p><p>In the third thesis paper, I address the question of how a government should allocate a subsidy budget over time in order to maximize the innovation activity in an industry. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The digital payment industry has become one of the fastest evolving markets in the world, but in the wake of its rapid advancement, an ever increasing gap between academic theory and the actual reality of this market widens - and especially so when it comes to entry theory. It is widely acknowledged that the world is moving towards an ever more homogeneous economy, but despite the fact that payment preferences differ greatly from country to country - research on this subject continues to revolve mainly around localized efforts. But as historical inequalities between poor and rich societies continue to dissipate - learning from nations at the forefront of technological advancement increases the likelihood that the developed strategy becomes applicable to an increased number of countries. By selecting a nation most conducive to technological growth, the purpose of this report is to map the present dynamics in its digital payment industry using both recent and traditional market entry theory. However, studies geared towards globalized strategy formulation cannot be assumed as having guaranteed access to internal company-data at all times. So in order to facilitate such studies, the level of dependency on primary data required for conducting such research needs to be understood first, which is why the work in this report is constrained strictly to data of secondary nature. This, not only to further map the characteristics of this market, but also to see how open the market is to public inspection. Ultimately, the academic contribution becomes that of providing a road-map towards adapting currently available market entry theory to suit the rapidly evolving conditions of the digital payment industry from a global perspective and, when failing to do so, the aim is to also explore avenues for further research towards this end goal.