The Impact of the home country on internationalization

We analyze how a firm’s home country influences its internationalization. We propose two complementary types of influence. First, we conceptualize a firm’s international trade as shaped by four drivers: comparative advantage, comparative disadvantage, country-of-origin advantage, and country-of-origin liability. Second, we conceptualize the firm’s foreign direct investment as shaped by four other drivers: institutional learning, competitive learning, institutional escape, and competitive escape. Taken together, these eight drivers help pull together recent theoretical advances on topics such as emerging-market multinationals, investment in tax havens, and cross-border acquisitions of firms in advanced countries. We also highlight other home-country related issues, such as strategic responses and home-host country links, in the spirit of fostering future research on home-country effects that warrant a more nuanced understanding.     

Coevolution of home country support and internationalization of emerging market firms

This study explores the role of diverse home country support for the internationalization of emerging market firms through a coevolutionary approach. A coevolutionary approach can improve our understanding of the complexities of comprehensive institutional transition in emerging market economies which allows firms to adapt and leverage institutional support for internationalization. Based on institutional theory and the strategic choice perspective, we present a coevolutionary model of mutualism and competition among businesses, government officials and industry players through multidirectional interactions. Our research offers an alternative and nuanced explanation of selective and relevant home country support, the role of independence of firms, support criteria and reinforcement of governance for internationalization of emerging market firms. This study contributes to the literature of home country support for internationalization through an enrichment of the institutional framework and strategic choice with a political perspective.     

Host country risk and foreign ownership strategy: Meta-analysis and theory on the moderating role of home country institutions

Empirical evidence for the relationship between host country risk and a firm’s ownership level in its foreign entry strategy is inconclusive. We revisit this relationship by integrating the internalisation logic with an institution-based view to examine the moderating effects of formal and informal institutions in the home country. By meta-analysing 64 empirical studies involving 52,229 ownership decisions on foreign market entry, this study gives support to theoretical arguments that the focal relationship is positively moderated by institutional constraints on policymakers and risk-taking tendencies in the home country but is negatively moderated by the joint effect of these two institutional factors. These findings shed new light on the literature of host country risk and foreign ownership strategy. Besides describing the implications of the findings for theory and practice, we discuss the agenda for future theory development in international business.     

The role of experiential and non-experiential knowledge in cross-border acquisitions: The case of Indian multinational enterprises

This paper investigates the antecedents of the internationalization of emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) through cross-border acquisitions. Using a panel data set of 1138 cross-border acquisitions made by 515 Indian multinational enterprises (MNEs) during 2000–2013, it examines interactions of in-house resources with experiential and non-experiential knowledge to explore how EMNEs manage and exploit their knowledge base when internationalizing. The results show that Indian multinational enterprises have ‘interface competence’. They combine in-house resources with experiential market and externally sourced technological knowledge for undertaking cross-border acquisitions. The Uppsala model provides insights in analyzing the role of market knowledge and the Global Factory model helps in analyzing the role of technology in cross-border acquisitions by EMNEs.     

Home country institutions and the internationalization of state owned enterprises: A cross-country analysis

National institutions shape the ability of civil society and minority shareholders to monitor and influence decision-makers in listed state owned enterprises (SOEs), and thereby their strategies of internationalization. We argue that the weaker are such controls, the more likely such decision makers pursue self-serving motives, and thus shy away from international investment. Listed SOEs’ strategies will thus be more similar to those of wholly privately owned enterprises (POEs) when these controls are more effective. Building on Williamson's (2000) hierarchy of institutions, we examine how home country institutions exerting normative, regulatory, and governance-related controls affect the comparative internationalization levels of listed SOEs and POEs. Based on a matched sample of 153 majority state owned and 153 wholly privately owned listed firms from 40 different countries, we confirm that, when home country institutions enable effective control, the internationalization strategies of listed SOEs and POEs converge.     

The interplay between home and host country institutions in an emerging market context: Private equity in Latin America

This study examines how the interplay between home and host country regulatory institutions affects the investment strategy of private equity (PE) firms in an emerging market context. To answer this question, we consider three different mechanisms: (1) the institutional hazard avoidance effect, (2) the institutional escapism effect, and (3) the dysfunctional institutions effect. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we argue that regulatory institutional differences between home and host countries can sometimes have a positive rather than a negative effect on investment likelihood. Our findings show that when a host emerging market has a strong regulatory institutional system relative to other emerging markets, it is more likely that this country will attract PE investments from firms based in home countries with very strong and very weak institutional systems. The empirical analyses, based on a polynomial specification and a dataset covering more than 300 PE firms that made close to 1500 investment transactions in Latin America during 1996–2011, are consistent with our main theoretical arguments.     

Emerging market multinationals’ role in facilitating developed country multinationals’ regional expansion: A critical review of the literature and Turkish MNC examples

The recent expansion of emerging market multinationals into world markets has generated a rich literature. While this literature has addressed the potential motivations, behaviors, and strategic implications of these firms’ moves abroad, their possible role as facilitating agents in regional expansion has not been adequately explored. In this paper, we explore this question through a critical review of the literature and examples from Turkish multinationals. We also offer questions for future research.     

Liability of emergingness and EMNEs’ cross-border acquisition completion: A legitimacy perspective

This paper contributes to the literature on emerging multinational enterprises (EMNEs) by revealing how the conditions in their home countries influence their cross-border acquisitions. The study focuses on the liability of emergingness (LOE). It develops an integrative theoretical framework based on neo-institutional theory and the concept of legitimacy to explain the relationship between LOE and EMNEs’ cross-border acquisitions completion and the situational conditions that shape this relationship. The study uses data on 27,648 announced acquisitions conducted by EMNEs from 24 emerging economies in 175 host countries to estimate the relationships. The results reveal that, while two types of LOE (economic and institutional) have negative impacts on cross-border acquisition completion, the negative impacts become less important or disappear when the host country’s unemployment rate is too high, and the host country’s institutional quality is too low. This finding suggests that EMNEs can mitigate the negative effect of the LOE by carefully choosing a good time and a suitable location to enter into these transactions.     

A co-evolution perspective of EMNE internationalization and institutions: An integrative framework of 5Cs

While significant progress has been made on the contextual role of institutions, scholarly research on the dynamic process of emerging economy multinational enterprises’ (EMNEs) international activities interacting with home country and host country institutions still seems to be in its infancy. Therefore, in order to move the current academic debate forward, we examine the intersection between the internationalization of EMNEs and their institutional environments by undertaking a critical review of the existing literature, given that institutional forces not only shape organizational behavior but also affect EMNEs’ internationalization strategies and organizational outcomes. We propose an integrative framework of 5Cs (context, capability, change, concomitance and configuration) underlying the co-evolution of EMNEs’ internationalization and institutions, and position all the papers included in this Special Issue within this framework in order to point towards a number of directions for future scholarship.     

DIY: How internationalization shifts the locus of indigenous innovation for Chinese firms

We elaborate theories of indigenous innovation by explaining how internationalization choices help emerging market firms transition from dependence on external knowledge to self-reliance on internal knowledge. Using a 1998–2007 census dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms, we theorize and test the moderation effect of foreign equity and export orientation on the relationship between knowledge and indigenous innovation. We show that foreign equity dis-incentivizes, while export orientation incentivizes, investments in internal knowledge. We contribute by showing that internationalization choices may radically change indigenous innovation outcomes by shifting the locus of problem solving outside or inside the firm. Our study corroborates the negative direct and indirect effects of external knowledge on indigenous innovation at the firm level previously suggested by China-centric scholars but also shows how two types of internationalization choices may gradually relieve firm-level dependence on imported technology. We bridge the gap between Western research and Chinese thought and practice by introducing a do-it-yourself (DIY) explanation of how firms may implement China’s indigenous innovation (zizhu chuangxin) policy.     

Local and international knowledge search and product innovation: The moderating role of technology boundary spanning

Drawing on the external knowledge search literature and the literature on international diversification, this study examined the interactive effect of local and international search for new knowledge on product innovation and the moderating role of a firm's technology boundary spanning activities. Specifically, it proposed that extensive local and international search interact to positively predict product innovation success and this relationship is weaker for firms entering a new technology domain. The results using data on 343 Chinese manufacturing firms across 5 industries indicated the support for the predictions.     

Impact of domestic and foreign knowledge mechanisms on the innovation performance of Indian firms

Research on emerging market firms (EMFs) has acknowledged the role of innovation in catching-up with advanced economies. Although we know that EMFs’ innovation increasingly depends on collaborations and cross-border knowledge flows, less has been said about the effectiveness of foreign and domestic knowledge mechanisms adopted to improve EMFs’ innovation performance. We hypothesize that foreign mechanisms rely on diverse knowledge and foster explorative innovation (i.e. innovation that extends the existing local competencies), while domestic mechanisms are more likely to be associated with the exploitation of the local existing competencies. Additionally, we claim that the breadth of EMFs’ absorptive capacity strengthens the impact of foreign knowledge mechanisms on explorative innovation, while depth increases the impact of domestic knowledge mechanisms on EMFs’ exploitative innovation, thus highlighting that the interplay of knowledge resources internal and external to the firm involve different levels of recombination. Our empirical analyses conducted on a sample of 161 Indian bio-pharmaceutical firms observed from 1997 to 2018 confirm our hypotheses, thus contributing to the literature on EMFs’ catching up via internationalization and innovation.     

国际化进程中的中国股票市场研究

国际化既是中国股票市场发展的必然选择,又深刻影响着股市制度和结构。文章在回顾中国股票市场国际化进程的基础上,探讨了股市国际化的本质要求、基本条件和影响。研究表明,中国股票市场发展的逐步成熟与坚持国际化方向紧密相关。但要实现国际化的最终目标,还有诸多制约条件需要克服,国际化的步伐应当在逐步解决现实问题中稳步推进。     

Home country institutions,social value orientation,and the internationalization of ventures

We examined how home country formal institutions and the venture’s value orientation influenced the venture’s likelihood of internationalization based on a data set that was adapted from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data in the year 2009, covering 7668 individual ventures in 25 countries. Better-developed home country formal institutions are found to have a supportive impact on the venture’s likelihood of internationalization. The supportive impact is also found to be weaker for socially oriented ventures than for profit-oriented ventures. The venture’s social value orientation negatively moderates the home country formal institutions–likelihood of internationalization relationship. The negative moderating effects can be explained as follows: Socially oriented ventures in the better-developed home country institutional environment are less likely to develop coping skills against uncertain and risky institutional environments, which are common in their host countries. Besides the theoretical contributions, this paper also highlights the implications for both business researchers and policy makers.     

The moderating role of local embeddedness on the performance of foreign and domestic firms in emerging markets

This paper examines the impact of the firm’s degree of local embeddedness on its performance in emerging markets using the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey Manufacturing Sector Module data on 15,715 firms covering 78 emerging markets. We use the degree of localization of sourcing and sales to measure the degree of embeddedness in the host country market. We argue that since embeddedness brings the firm into closer interaction with local firms and institutions, the costs of embeddedness should be lower for local firms than for MNE subsidiaries, since local firms can be assumed to be better able to decipher local institutions. We find that both dimensions are subject to a reversed U-shaped function. That is, by extending the degree of local sales and local sourcing up to a certain percentage, a firm can realize positive performance growth by becoming more embedded into the emerging market, but beyond this point, the performance impact is negative. We also find that foreign firms involved in local sales seem to lose part of their ability to exploit their ownership advantages as compared to foreign firms that export their production.     

Business under adverse home country institutions: The case of international sanctions against Myanmar

We expand the institutional perspective of international business by exploring the range of institutions outside the host country that influence international business. We use a critical case, Myanmar, to explore the dynamics of institutional constraints and the reaction of business to such constraints. Our in-depth case analysis focuses on four industries for the period 1996–2011. On this basis, we develop the concept of ‘low profile strategy’ and propose a conceptual framework of home country pressures influencing multinational enterprises’ international operation, and the variation of their impact across industries and firms. This framework provides a foundation for future work on the extra-territorial effects of institutions in international business.     

Institutional compatibility and the internationalization of Chinese SOEs: The moderating role of home subnational institutions

This study investigates the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through the lens of the mechanism of institutional compatibility. Drawing on institutional theory, we argue that institutional compatibility (thus legitimacy) at home and institutional incompatibility (thus lack of legitimacy) abroad reduce SOEs’ OFDI activities. However, we also argue that home-country subnational factors (coercive, normative, and mimetic forces) provide a potentially offsetting effect. Using a sample of publicly listed Chinese firms, we find that coercive and mimetic forces generated from home subnational institutions reduce the negative effect of state ownership on OFDI activity.     

Selecting the country in which to start internationalization: The non-sequential internationalization model

The paper analyses the selection of the country in which a firm starts internationalization. It proposes that some firms strategically choose a non-sequential internationalization, that is, they select a country that is dissimilar to their country of origin for their first foreign expansion. The reason for this is that some firms develop, in their home country, three types of knowledge that are useful to overcome foreign expansion difficulties: knowledge to manage complexity, developed by having multiple operations at home; knowledge to manage differences in competitive conditions, developed by operating in business-to-business industries, and knowledge to manage differences in institutional environments, developed by allying to a foreign firm at home.     

How home country industry associations influence MNE international CSR practices: Evidence from the Canadian mining industry

We explore how national industry associations influence the international CSR practices of MNEs. Drawing from a longitudinal case study of the evolution of CSR in the Canadian mining industry, we show how the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) aimed to influence the CSR practices of its member firms operating outside of Canada. Our findings reveal how MAC utilized multiple strategies to influence member firms in both the regulative and normative realm. We uncover the key mechanisms underpinning these strategies and factors that constrained or enabled the degree of their influence. Our study contributes to research on home country influences on MNE CSR practices and research on industry associations as institutional actors.     

An integrative model of the role of knowledge in the internationalization process

Knowledge is considered an essential resource in a company’s internationalization process, both from the sequential point of view and from the perspective of International Entrepreneurship. This paper proposes a model to integrate the influence of knowledge on international behavior based on proposals taken from the literature on organizational learning in multinational companies. The model comprises several phases: prior knowledge; acquisition of new knowledge; integration of both sets of knowledge; action and feedback. Using the proposed model, different courses of action are identified for further research into the process of company internationalization.