Time, Firm and Country Effects on Performance: An Analysis under the Perspective of Hierarchical Modeling with Repeated Measures

The literature is unclear about how firm and country effects influence performance over time. Under the initial hypotheses that there are significant changes in the performance of companies operating in Brazil in recent years and that these variations are due to existing characteristics in each firm and to the country of origin, this study considers, through the use of hierarchical modeling with repeated measures, an approach that allows analyzing random effects as an alternative to evaluate the evolution of profitability. The findings, based on a sample of 523 firms from 18 countries over 8 years (1998-2005), for a total of 2,545 observations, is that only the firm effect is representative to differentiate the average performance and growth rates of this performance among companies in the period studied. The results contribute to the understanding of the multilevel factors that determine firm performance over time.