Capturing the role of societal affinity in cross-border mergers with the Eurovision Song Contest

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Siganos, Antonios; Tabner, Isaac T.
• 署名单位: University of Glasgow; University of Stirling
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2506
• DOI: 10.1057/s41267-019-00271-3
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 263-273
• 关键词: Eurovision Song Contest; societal affinity; cross-border mergers

摘要

This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of voting bias in the Eurovision Song Contest as a means of capturing societal affinity. More than 180 million viewers from more than 40 countries watch the Eurovision Song Contest every year and vote for their favorite songs. Societal affinity between participating countries leads to systematic bias in voting patterns as each song represents a country. Using cross-border mergers as a proxy for international business exchanges, we demonstrate how voting bias provides a simple, freely available, and dynamic means of capturing societal affinity between countries that complements other metrics of affinity and distance.