Russian transnationals and international investment paradigms

This paper explores the main features of outward foreign direct investment by Russian transnational corporations – referred to as ‘eagle multinationals’ in the literature – and some of the implications of their recent rise to global prominence (since the 1990s) for the paradigms of international investment. Surprisingly, lower middle-income Russia is already a net capital exporter, and some of its firms, to mention Gazprom, Lukoil, Mechel, Norilsk Nickel and Severstal, for example, have already leapfrogged to a global status. The paper aims also at identifying issues for further analysis, such as the growing role of the state in controlling natural resource-based firms and its implications for the future of the Russian transnationals. This paper suggests that different investment paradigms fare divergently in trying to explain outward FDI from the Russian Federation. For example, the eclectic paradigm could be applied to Russian transnationals with some extension on home-country factors. Other theories, however, would require more radical re-thinking in future research.