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This research aims to assess variations of motivations when studying international location decisions. In particular, this study aims to assess the influence of diverse motivations – seeking technology, seeking brand assets, seeking markets, seeking resources and escaping institutional constraints – as determinants of the international location choice of emerging market multinational enterprises (EM MNEs) entering least developed, emerging, and developed countries.

The authors develop a set of hypotheses based on the ownership–location–internalization framework and complement it with an institutional perspective. The conceptual model posits that the different internationalization motivations (seeking technology, seeking brand assets, seeking markets, seeking resources and escaping institutional constraints) will impact the location choice of EM MNEs in developed economies, emerging markets or least developed countries. This study uses the 2013 survey data collected by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. The final sample of analysis of this research includes 693 observations.

After controlling for several variables, two-stage Heckman regressions show there is a variation of motivations when EM MNEs enter least developed countries, emerging markets and developed economies. EM MNEs are motivated to enter least developed countries to seek markets and resources. Conversely, those firms enter developed countries in their search for technological assets and to escape institutional constraints at home. While the present study findings show a clear difference in the motivations that lead to location choice in least developed vs developed countries, the results are not as clear for location in other emerging countries.

The paper offers empirical support for the importance of motivations as crucial determinants of location choice.

This paper provides a detailed quantitative study on the internationalization location choice of EM MNEs based on their motivations. Though theoretical models underscore the importance of motivations, we know very little about how, in practice, motivations drive location choice. This study contributes to the international location choice literature a deeper understanding of how diverse motivations drive choices of expansion into developed economies, emerging markets or least developed countries.

Internationalization has witnessed rapid growth of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in emerging markets, requiring reflection on how to operate within these markets. The purpose of this paper is to assist MNEs to adapt to these markets, and adopt corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy with social initiatives (SIs), relevant to stakeholders, including their employees and the communities they reside in. The current paper does this by examining the relationships between employee identification with the organization’s SIs (SI-I) and their engagement in them (SI-E), alongside their perspective on the general importance of CSR (ICSR) and employee values to help with CSR (VCSR). The findings will better prepare managers in pre-emerging and emerging markets to design CSR strategy and SIs relevant to these markets and their communities.

Guided by social identity theory, this paper examines local employee identification of SI (SI-I) and engagement in SI (SI-E), in two MNE subsidiaries across varying emerging market levels in developing countries, utilizing a quantitative survey design. Structural equation modeling is utilized to analyze responses of N=544 employees in two South East Asian countries, namely, Indonesia (as an emerging country) and Vietnam (as a pre-emerging country), to determine any differences that may exist between the two countries.

The findings reveal that SI identification (SI-I) has a strong effect on employee engagement in SIs (SI-E) and also the importance they attach to organizations conducting CSR (ICSR). However, employee values to help with CSR activities (VCSR) has an effect on Vietnamese employees but not Indonesian employees. Likewise, SI-I mediates the effect between ICSR and SI-E for Vietnamese employees but not for Indonesian, suggesting differences exist between these two developing countries where the less developed country, Vietnam, is defined as pre-emerging and Indonesia as an emerging market (MSCI, 2016).

An awareness of the differences that may exist across employees in emerging markets will assist managers to design CSR strategy relevant to the level of market emergence of the host country, allowing for better CSR SIs identification and engagement in these countries.

The research model for this analysis utilizes constructs based on past Identification literature, while including new constructs for this study adapted from past literature, and underpinned uniquely by social identity theory in an International Business setting. The findings indicate differences between emerging and pre-emerging markets for particular constructs, which suggests the importance of considering the market level when implementing MNE CSR strategy. Limited research has been conducted examining the differences between emerging and pre-emerging markets, so further research is required to replicate these findings and provide insight into the differences that may exist for CSR SIs in emerging markets.

Despite prior studies on cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) have analyzed the determinants of ownership strategies; there is still a quest for evidence on how the differences between home and host market characteristics affect the ownership percentage. Prior studies have acknowledged that entering host countries with greater uncertainty makes multinationals reluctant to acquire high levels of ownership. Nevertheless, emerging multinationals (EMNEs) are usually used to operating under greater levels of uncertainty than multinationals from advanced countries (AMNEs), which can imply different ownership strategies. The purpose of this study is to analyze the ownership percentage acquired by MNEs when designing a CBA in emerging or in advanced countries, and to analyze the extent to which the ownership strategy in emerging countries differs between EMNEs and AMNEs.

Mobile telecommunications industry is used as research setting to provide empirical evidence of the interaction effect of the advanced versus emerging nature of the host and home countries on the ownership acquired in CBAs.

Results confirm that both home and host countries' characteristics are relevant in explaining the ownership strategies of MNEs.

The authors contribute to the strategy and IB literatures by providing empirical evidence on the recent debate on whether the internationalization strategies followed by EMNEs are similar to the traditional patterns of AMNEs, and analyze how EMNEs differ from AMNEs in their ownership strategies in emerging countries. Focusing in the mobile telecommunications industry, the authors also contribute by extending the analysis to an international and cross-cultural setting that includes 48 mobile groups that come from 35 home and 81 host countries.

This paper aims to clarify the challenge of emerging countries’ firms regarding their brand policy. The purpose of the paper is to examine the branding options offered to emerging countries companies when expanding internationally.

After having clarified the two paradoxes faced by emerging countries’ brands by way of synthesizing various works, the author formulates a model that provides a representation for the possible brand strategy choices of emerging country companies.

The authors formulate a framework with four brand management options which may be put into practice in emerging countries’ companies and suggest how an emerging country’s company could create and develop the best-adapted international brand policy depending on its specific situation regarding localness emphasis and customers’ risk reduction acceptance.

Results lead to the conclusion that the notion that only global brands are associated with higher product quality or prestige (in relation to local brands) is not a universal truth and thus needs to be interpreted with caution. The research provides support for a branding strategy embedded in the local emerging countries context and tally with research showing that more and more firms from emerging economies are using foreign image association strategies as important components of their branding and marketing strategies.

The proposal reinforces the contingency perspective of international marketing according to which brand policy may depend on company criteria, as well as foreign market specificities. The research confirms the competitive capacity of emerging countries’ companies’ brands, broadens the scope of international branding knowledge by shifting the focus to under-researched regions of the world.

Amid the rising concerns about the unbalanced globalization, there has been a renewed interest in examining the pattern of international trade and investment, especially between emerging and mature economies. In this study, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role of different institutional and market-related determinants in shaping the pattern and mode of foreign investments in emerging and developed markets.

The empirical investigation is based on a balanced panel sample of 45 countries (28 developed countries and 17 emerging economies) over an 11-year period from 2002 to 2012. A series of multivariable regressions are conducted to evaluate both the trend and the mode of foreign investment with rigorous robustness checks.

Overall, the authors find that market openness and capital market development are the main determinants of a country’s ability to attract foreign investment in developed countries, while the governance environment is the key consideration in emerging markets. Regarding the mode of foreign investment, the authors find that, in developed markets, foreign investors tend to choose direct investment in the countries with more open markets. In emerging markets, however, the choice between direct and indirect (portfolio) investments is mainly driven by arbitrage activities, where investors opt for portfolio investment when the stock market is undervalued.

First, the findings may aid foreign investors in their strategic choice between emerging vs mature markets based on the governance environment, market openness, capital market development and arbitrage opportunities. Second, the findings may be used to aid governments in prioritizing institutional improvement in market openness, stock market development and policies aimed at balancing different investment channels.

The study may enhance the social understanding on the current debate on the winners and losers of globalization. A main complaint from mature economies is that the emerging economies took their jobs away and, therefore, they should adopt protectionism (which implies closing their own markets) in order to preserve jobs. The study shows that such a reaction may not be in the best interests of the mature economies since they will be able to attract more foreign investment (which implies creating or at least keeping more jobs) if they make their markets more open.

Existing studies on foreign investment have primarily focused on direct investment. The study examines both the direct and indirect investments and the way in which they affect the foreign investment markets in emerging and mature economies. From the institutional perspective, the authors show how the governance environment and market factors affect foreign investors’ strategic choice between direct and indirect investment, contingent upon the stage of a country’s economic and institutional development.

Discourses on emerging markets have gained momentum in the literature as companies in slow‐growing developed economies are intensifying their entrepreneurship and search for new growth opportunities in emerging economies. Emerging markets are countries that are restructuring their economies along market‐oriented lines and offer a wealth of opportunities in trade, technology transfers and foreign direct investment (FDI). They serve as regional economic powerhouse, reminiscent of transitional societies undertaking political and economic reform, fast growing outward‐oriented economies with efficient production for the domestic and export markets, political economy oriented towards entrepreneurship and free enterprise, market transparency, among others. After decades of economic turmoil, many African countries have started to make steady progress towards creating market‐enabling institution. Based on a synthesis from the literature and using Nigeria as a context, this review paper argues that Nigeria has fallen short of most of the fundamental characteristics necessary to transition to an emerging economy categorization. This means that Nigeria is weakly adapted to the changed view of market‐led development. Although the country is considered a regional economic powerhouse, she is only listed as a “Frontier country” because of weak critical institutional characteristics, more evident in areas such as infrastructural development; privatization of state owned enterprises (SOEs); outward orientation; political and economic reforms and market transparency. The paper concludes, by arguing that for Nigeria to ascend a higher grade in the emerging market taxonomy, some important institutional refinements are necessary. These include: macro‐economic reform and development to drive exports; improved infrastructure, especially power supply; serious political reforms to ensure credible political leadership; and disciplined and ethical revolution to ensure credible corporate governance in both the private and public sectors of the economy.

The purpose of the study is to heighten intrinsic advantages, dis-advantages, being enjoyed by emerging country firms and the motivational factors that influence multinational enterprises (MNEs) to establish long-lasting relationship with emerging economies. The study also highlights the steps initiated by India by executing reform friendly foreign direct investment policy to attract foreign investments.

The study is descriptive in nature, based on secondary data, sourced from various reports of India Government and the Central Bank of India.

The Indian economy has undergone profound and substantial liberalization and made sweeping reforms in most of its sectors besides adopting internationalization policy agendas to upkeep their domestic firms in “going global”. However, India needs to amend the existing restrictive labour and land laws besides providing efficient employable workforce. India further needs a less cash economy, which ultimately marches into digitized credit system to build India as one of the best attractive countries in the eyes of global investors.

As the study is based on secondary data, it may be general, in explicit and may not be perfect in concluding decision.

MNEs play a major force in driving globalization of the world economy. However, MNEs face a variety of complex and multiple challenges in establishing strategic control over emerging economies. In spite of all odds, MNEs generate and capture value to host country firms by applying unique business models besides combining with or buying a foreign business.

Investment flows to India for the past 15 years (2005-2019) are critically analysed to justify research questions. Further, in the literature “Preparedness of India”, a lot of new interesting insights, incorporated.

This study investigates how the association between national culture and earnings management compares between developed and emerging countries.

The empirical analysis relies on a sample of 6,313 firm-year observations from 11 emerging markets and 27,605 firm-year observations from 22 developed countries. The authors use ordinary least squares regression methods to test the hypotheses of the study.

Based on Hofstede's (2011) cultural dimensions, the authors find that firms from countries with a higher level of uncertainty avoidance and individualism are less likely to engage in earnings management, but the effect of uncertainty avoidance (individualism) is more (less) pronounced in the emerging countries. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that firms from emerging (developed) countries with higher levels of power distance and masculinity are less (more) likely to engage in earnings management. Finally, the authors find evidence of a trade-off between accruals-based and real earnings management in firms from countries with greater long-term orientation and an indulgence cultural dimension.

This paper adds to the literature by theoretically discussing and empirically analysing the role that developed and emerging countries' development plays on the effect of national culture on earnings management.

This study aims to investigate how brand name (home-emerging-country vs foreign-developed-country brand name) applied by emerging market company in conjunction with revealing the actual country-of-brand-origin (COBO) (revealed vs non-revealed origin from developed vs emerging country) affects purchase intensions of durable goods.

An experimental conjoint analysis and multilevel linear models were applied.

Results demonstrate that brand name differentiates consumers’ purchase intentions. However, not every foreign-developed-country brand name may lead to the increase of purchase intentions. Revealing the actual emerging market’s COBO for brands with developed-country brand name may lead to lowering purchase intentions. Moreover, consumer ethnocentrism and materialism moderate the relationship between the brand type in terms of brand name and purchase intentions.

This study contributes to the international marketing literature by simultaneous examination of the impact of brand name type and revealing actual COBO on purchase intentions and the moderating effects of ethnocentrism and materialism, in emerging markets’ context. It also offers novel insights for brand managers regarding the influence of emerging markets’ companies branding strategies on consumer purchase intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of location in the relationships established between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries.

The empirical study is based on three in‐depth case‐studies of French multinationals. The authors conducted 31 interviews with managers from both the headquarters and foreign subsidiaries.

The findings of the study indicate that headquarters‐subsidiaries relationships are shaped by the location of subsidiaries in emerging economies, and more specifically by the cultural, administrative, geographic and economic distance between the headquarters and foreign subsidiaries.

The analysis focuses on new challenges faced by multinational enterprises (MNEs) from mature economies, considering the growing importance of subsidiaries located in emerging countries.