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There is an increased interest in research and explanation for emerging markets and multinational corporations (MNCs). This paper aims to study emerging markets and MNCs.

The paper takes help of existing literature and industry examples.

The success record of MNCs from developed countries in emerging market has been mixed. The MNCs from emerging markets are now expanding and acquiring companies in developed countries at a rapid pace in recent years. This is reflected in the increasing number of emerging markets MNCs in the Fortune Global 500 list. Emerging market MNCs are giving tough competition to developed country MNCs in other emerging markets as well as Third World countries. The emerging market MNCs' power and impact has increased significantly and many of them have become household names across the world.

MNCs play a very important role in global business. Multinationals and emerging markets have become a popular subject of research.

MNCs from developed countries need to understand emerging markets better. Emerging markets multinationals need to learn further in conquest for global markets.

This paper looks at various issues involved in multinationals and emerging markets.

International Journal of Emerging Markets (IJoEM) is a leading journal that publishes high-quality research focused on emerging markets. In 2020, IJoEM celebrated its fifteenth anniversary, and the objective of this paper is to conduct a retrospective analysis to commensurate IJoEM's milestone.

Data used in this study were extracted using the Scopus database. Bibliometric analysis, using several indicators, is adopted to reveal the major trends and themes of a journal. Mapping of bibliographic data is carried using VOSviewer.

Study findings indicate that IJoEM has been growing for publications and citations since its inception. Four significant research directions emerged, i.e. consumer behaviour, financial markets, financial institutions and corporate governance and strategic dimensions based on cluster analysis of IJoEM's publications. The identified future research directions are focused on emergent investments opportunities, trends in behavioural finance, emerging role technology-financial companies, changing trends in corporate governance and the rising importance of strategic management in emerging markets.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of IJoEM. The study presents the key themes and trends emerging from a leading journal considered a high-quality research journal for research on emerging markets by academicians, scholars and practitioners.

Strategic contingency theory maintains that a successful strategy should fit the features of the environment in which it is implemented, suggesting that different strategies are required in different world markets. In contrast, Porter posited three generic strategies, and asserted that to be effective firms should consistently use only one of the three. This paper aims to address this apparent disagreement by discussing the transfer, by developed‐country multinational companies (MNCs), of a cost‐leadership strategy to emerging markets.

Presenting theoretical arguments, based on deductive reasoning and examples reported in business publications, the authors focus on why firms from developed countries may find a cost‐leadership strategy ineffective in emerging markets. This focus on both emerging markets as a group and on the ease of the transfer of the cost‐leadership strategy fills a gap in the international management literature.

It is argued that implementation of a cost‐leadership strategy by developed‐country MNCs is rarely effective in emerging markets, and that MNCs may benefit from using different strategies in different markets.

The paper provides at least a partial explanation as to why developed‐country firms may struggle when they apply a generic competitive strategy across countries. The contribution of this paper is two‐fold. First, it explores the question of emerging market strategies by focusing on developed‐country MNCs that use a cost‐leadership strategy in these markets. Second, the paper contributes an important critique of the claims made by some business strategy theorists that MNCs need to use a single generic strategy globally in order to achieve high performance.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on valuation practices applied by analysts to derive target price forecasts in Asian emerging markets. The key objective of this study is to understand valuation model preference of analysts and to compare the predictive utility of target price forecasts derived through heuristics-driven price-to-earnings (PE) model and theoretically sound discounted cash flow (DCF) model.

Each research report in the sample of 502 research reports has been studied in detail to understand the dominant valuation model (PE or DCF) applied by analyst to derive target price forecasts. These research reports have been issued on stocks trading in seven emerging markets including India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines, Korea and Thailand during a six-year period starting 2008. Standard OLS and logit regression analysis has been performed to derive empirical findings.

The study finds that lower regulatory and reporting standards prevailing in emerging markets have no significant bearing on analyst choice of valuation model (PE or DCF). Time-series analysis suggests that emerging market analysts did not rely upon the usage of DCF model and preferred PE model during and immediately after the financial crisis of 2008. Multivariate regression results show weak evidence that PE model produces better results than DCF model after adjusting for the complexities associated with analyzing emerging market equities. The results imply that PE model, to some degree, is better equipped to capture market moods and sentiment in dynamic emerging markets rather than theoretically sound DCF model.

Most past studies on valuation model practices have focused on developed markets and this study provides a fresh perspective on analyst valuation model practices and performance in a new institutional setting of Asian emerging markets. The marginally better predictive utility of PE model as compared to DCF model is possibly a feature limited to Asian emerging markets.

Upon entering developed markets, emerging market multinational corporations (EMNCs) from China and India must compete with both host companies and other developed nation MNCs to attract and recruit necessary local talent. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent EMNC firms will be perceived as less attractive employers than their developed nation counterparts due to a perceived liability of origin bias. Major demographic and psychographic factors that may affect this bias will also be identified.

Seven hypotheses were tested on a total of 626 German, French and American respondents. Participants were randomly presented identical job descriptions from four hypothetical MNCs (American, European, Indian and Chinese) and were asked to evaluate the perceived attractiveness of working for, as well as their intent to pursue employment with, the offering firm.

Using hierarchical linear regression testing, combined with analysis of variance testing, EMNCs were found to have significantly lower organizational attractiveness than equivalent European or American owned MNCs. Mixed results were found for the various hypotheses based on the moderator variables.

Because the study included three distinct sub-groups, supplemental analyses controlling for possible variances between the sub-groups themselves are included. This multicultural study is one of the first to address the human perspective of EMNC outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by identifying the existence of a potential liability of origin bias toward emerging market firms manifested by potential developed market job applicants. Furthermore, this study is one of the first to examine the influence of applicant age, professional status, gender and nationality with respect to the differences in the perceived level of organizational attractiveness between emerging market and developed nation firms.

This paper extends the literature in three important research areas. First, an extension to the literature on the highly relevant topic of OFDI by Chinese and Indian firms is made. Second, traditional research in the field of organizational attractiveness is further extended by combining it with the timely subject of Chinese and Indian OFDI into developed markets. Finally, this study extends international business literature by studying the influence of demographic and psychographic moderators on the perceived level of organizational attractiveness between emerging market and developed nation firms.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework that addresses the question of how and why multinational corporations (MNCs) from developed economies engage in divergent patterns of institutional entrepreneurship (IE) in emerging markets.

The authors combine IB’s concept of institutional voids with comparative capitalism’s insights into the institutional embeddedness of firm capabilities and IE. This theoretical cross-fertilisation is instrumental in developing a refined understanding of institutional voids and how MNCs proactively engage with them.

The authors emphasise the notion of institutional voids as a relative concept and, thereby, move away from an ethnocentric view of emerging markets as “empty spaces” that are void of institutions. The authors’ framework proposes that MNCs from liberal and coordinated market economies experience institutional voids differently and engage in different patterns of IE.

The main limitation of this work is that the propositions are restricted to the country-of-origin effect and that the observations are based on anecdotal evidence only. Against these limitations the authors call for a more comprehensive research agenda in their conclusion.

The paper sensitises policymakers in emerging markets for the potentially different patterns of involvement of MNCs in their institutional environments. Specifically, the authors argue that MNCs may have a strong inclination to rebuild critical elements of their home country’s institutional setting in emerging markets. This touches upon questions of national sovereignty and highlights the need for emerging market policymakers to decide which kinds of institutional settings they would like or not like to see imported.

The paper provides a new and critical perspective of the mainstream IB concept of institutional voids. The authors’ key contribution is to highlight that the home country institutional context may substantially matter in how MNCs perceive and respond to institutional voids in emerging markets.

Research on international retailing has generally emanated from Europe and North America. Nonetheless, retailers from emerging countries can also be important players in regional markets. The purpose of this paper is to explore how retailers from emerging markets can become strong enough to compete internationally.

The study examines a longitudinal case study of the internationalisation process of Falabella, a Chilean retailer that has recently become an important player in the Latin America retail industry. Drawing on 32 interviews with company managers, as well as industry data and corporate reports, this paper provides insights into the successful internationalisation process of a retailer from an emerging country.

The paper offers insights into emerging market internationalisation. In particular, these findings suggest that specific capabilities and resources, such as local and regional partnerships, organisational learning, innovation orientation, adaptation to the local markets, and an experienced management team, are required for emerging market retailers to internationalise and improve their likelihood of success in foreign markets.

This paper explores an underdeveloped topic through the analysis of a longitudinal case study. Thus, it is necessary to further expand this line of research and investigate other emerging market retailers.

This study raises a number of important issues for emerging market retail managers that are reluctant to expand abroad and compete with large multinationals from developed markets, or that are struggling with their actual internationalisation process.

To date, the retail internationalisation literature has focused on the international experiences of firms from developed nations. However, there is a gap in the literature as to how retailers from emerging countries can become strong enough to compete internationally.

Despite the increasing attention on consumers in emerging markets, there is limited research on the emerging market consumers’ evaluation of global brands. The purpose of this paper is to address this research gap by examining the role of consumer dispositions – cosmopolitanism, need for uniqueness and materialism in attitude and purchase intentions toward global brands from emerging vs developed markets.

A mall intercept method was used to collect responses from shoppers in four major cities in India. The intercept method produced a usable sample of 613 respondents. Each respondent was asked to mark his or her response concerning two global brands – one each from developed and emerging markets separately.

The findings show that cosmopolitanism and need for uniqueness determine emerging market consumers’ attitude toward global brands. Specifically, the authors find that while cosmopolitanism has a higher positive impact on global brands from the developed market, need for uniqueness has a negative impact on global brands from emerging market.

The study findings show that need for uniqueness negatively affects attitude toward global brands from emerging markets. This presents a significant challenge for global brands from emerging market when competing with the counterparts from developed markets.

The findings show that managers of global brands in emerging markets should develop unique brand positioning that differentiates from international brands. By carefully managing their marketing mix elements (e.g. price, design, distribution), they can induce counter-conformity among consumers for brands that originate in emerging markets.

While prior studies suggest that emerging market consumers prefer foreign brands than domestic brands, little attention was focused on the antecedents for such preference. This study considers consumer dispositions, which were not examined in prior research in addressing this research gap.

The purpose of this paper is to examine what happens to key brand performance metrics as brands change in market share, in the context of packaged goods. The metrics are: penetration—the number of buyers a brand has; and loyalty—measured as purchase frequency (PF) and share of category requirements (SCR).

The study utilizes 24 data sets in 17 packaged goods categories in three emerging markets: China, Malaysia and Indonesia. The authors examine changes in penetration, loyalty and SCR in the context of volume and value market share change. In addition, the authors examine whether initial price point and price movements influence the results.

The primary finding is that market share change is accompanied by a greater change in penetration than in any other metric. This finding is very consistent across categories and countries. The relative importance of the two loyalty metrics varies by country. SCR was a stronger factor in Indonesia, while PF was stronger in Malaysia. Analysis indicated that pricing strategy (initial price and promotional depth) did not alter the main pattern of results, suggesting the results hold for brands with different price levels and tactics.

Irrespective of circumstance, to grow in value or volume market share, brands should aim to grow in penetration, while the importance of changes in specific loyalty measures depends on market conditions.

This research extends past research on brand growth to the very different economic, geographic and cultural conditions of three crucially important emerging markets. Its main value lies in recommendations on how much to invest in building the size of the customer base vs consumer retention.

The vast majority of literature relating to operations management originates from studies in developed markets. Emerging markets are increasingly important in global business. With this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to analyze differences in outsourcing strategies between manufacturing firms from emerging markets and from developed markets.

The paper is based on statistical analyses of a large data set of manufacturing firms obtained from the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS).

The findings suggest that companies that outsource internationally focus on achieving cost benefits, while companies that outsource domestically focus on achieving capacity flexibility. In addition, the reasons to outsource were found to be independent of the location of firms in both emerging and developed markets. However, within the group of firms from emerging markets, strategies seem to differ according to whether firms are domestically owned or are subsidiaries of companies from developed markets.

The decisions of firms to outsource do not differ much whether the firms are located in developed‐ or in emerging‐market economies. Firms outsource domestically when they want to increase their capacity flexibility; they outsource internationally when looking for cost advantages.

The value of the paper is that it illuminates an important contemporary phenomenon based on analyses on data from a large‐scale international survey encompassing firms both in developed and in emerging markets.