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I am delighted to be here today to honor the work of Alan Rugman. Alain Verbeke (Calgary) and I will discuss Alan's contributions, with me focusing primarily on his contributions to the field of international business (IB); Alain, his contributions to international management (IM).

There has been a surge of overseas investment from China, both to developing and developed countries. However, there is limited understanding of the impact the internationalization of these firms has on their value creation. This paper seeks to draw on the reconciled FSA/CSA framework with Dunning's four motives to differentiate two types of FDI: traditional FDI and strategic asset-seeking FDI. Further, the paper draws on Verbeke's FSA/CSA recombination process model to analyze the differentiated value creation of traditional FDI and strategic asset-seeking FDI for the Chinese MNEs.

The paper adopts event study methodology to measure the value created by Chinese MNE's FDI projects and hierarchical linear regression to test the hypotheses. The sample consists of 121 FDI projects publicly announced by Chinese listed companies during 2001-2009.

Both traditional and strategic asset-seeking FDI create value and traditional FDI creates more value than strategic asset-seeking FDI for Chinese MNEs. In addition, the paper empirically demonstrates that traditional FDI into developing countries creates more firm value than traditional FDI into developed countries or strategic asset-seeking FDI into developed countries.

This research makes the following original contributions: it contributes to the growing body of literature on internationalization of Chinese firms by investigating whether international expansion creates firm value and how the alignment between types of FDI and location strategies influences firm value creation; the study contributes to the literature by providing insights into the performance implications of emerging economy enterprises (EEEs); and the research contributes to FDI theory building by incorporating learning concepts in internationalization theories and by extending the context of internationalization theories to that of EEEs.

This article aims to investigate how country location, as a source of country‐specific advantage (CSA), and product innovation, as a source of firm‐specific advantage (FSA), influence the international expansion of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and their growth to become multinational enterprises (MNEs). It also aims to confirm internalization theory by testing the applicability of an extant concept, the FSA/CSA framework for the international expansion of SMEs. Developed and empirically validated largely in the context of the MNE, this paper seeks to show how the framework can be applied in the context of SMEs that develop into MNEs.

A qualitative approach is employed within a single industry setting using multiple cases. Propositions are formulated to explain the theorized relationships between innovation and the growth of SMEs in a sector which depends heavily on specific CSAs. Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews and archival data, and are analyzed in data displays, tables and matrices.

The article finds that location of the industry cases as a source of CSAs, and product innovation as a source of FSAs, are highly relevant for growing New Zealand SMEs into MNEs. The study applies internalization theory to the growth strategies of SMEs.

This research combines extant theory and a specific context in order to analyze phenomena through a distinct conceptual lens. It confirms the CSA/FSA framework by applying it in a new empirical context. It can inform decision‐makers in growing SMEs on the strategic and international implications of firm and location advantages.

The eclectic paradigm of Dunning (1980) (with its OLI and four motives for FDI framework) can be reconciled with the firm and country matrix of Rugman (1981). However, the fit is not perfect. The main reason for misalignment is that Dunning is focused upon outward FDI into host economies, whereas Rugman’s matrix is for firm‐level strategy covering MNE activity in both home and host countries

The aim of this study is to identify potentially significant differences in perception of export motives based on the variations in the firm‐specific advantages (FSAs) and the firm's export strategy. It proposes that Rugman's (1981) (FSA/country‐specific advantage (CSA)) framework provides a sound theoretical base for integrating findings from different studies.

A set of export motives are identified as key initiation stimuli and their significance is tested on an original data set of 356 British exporters. The factor analysis produced four conceptually meaningful groups of motives. Propositions were developed to test the discriminating effect of the firm‐specific resources and capabilities on export stimulation and the potential variations in critical export motivators when executing different export strategies.

Findings endorse the study's main propositions: internal proactive motives are the most significant export initiation factors; distinct firm‐specific resources and capabilities play a significant differentiating role in the firm's perception of specific export stimuli; and the spread and scope of the firm's export strategy was found to have significant impact on the firm's sensitivity to specific export stimuli.

The study's findings contribute to the body of knowledge of export initiation motives by: endorsing the FSA/CSA matrix as an integrative approach in studying export stimuli; producing novel empirical evidence of the differentiating effect of particular FSAs on export stimulation; and investigating the potential variations in critical export motives according to the number and distance of export markets entered and the number of export market entry modes adopted. The nature and characteristics of the sample present limitations.

The study provides a guideline that may help sporadic and non‐exporters to develop a strategy to migrate their activities from a passive response to unsolicited orders and customer followership to an active pursuit of international opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) performance and impact in contexts beyond their own internal objectives.

Based on an “eclectic” paradigm and the range of motivations, the framework is designed around three layers of evaluation: “efficiency” as static optimisation, “growth and development” as the dynamics of change on a purely economic view; political/economic sphere in terms of the outcomes of “distribution”, and “sovereignty” on the more purely political concern of how MNEs may undermine countries’ policy independence.

MNE and national economies have to use current sources of competitiveness efficiently while addressing the necessity to reinforce and refocus them through time. Within these broad agendas, significant interactions and outcomes reflect a range of contingencies conditioned by both MNE objectives and hosts’ competitive status.

The paper concerns economics and MNE role in globalisation. The paper defines a framework of four generic evaluative issues of MNE performance, which subsume a wider range of important but more niche concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the different international environmental strategies that multinational enterprises (MNEs) can adopt.

This study updates the traditional country‐specific advantages/firm‐specific advantages (FSA/CSA) framework. In order to do so, the concepts of environmental institutional distance between countries and MNEs' availability of slack resources are used.

First, a low environmental institutional distance between headquarters' and subsidiaries' countries contributes to creating environmental standards within the company. Second, MNEs with high availability of slack resources are willing to standardize their environmental practices. However, those MNEs that have a high availability of slack resources but have units based in high‐distance countries prefer to generate valuable and advanced environmental management practices only in specific countries. Finally, those MNEs with a low level of slack resources and with units based in low‐distance countries only comply with national environmental institutional requirements, becoming isomorphic with other local firms.

Although previous findings suggest that MNEs are increasingly standardizing their environmental practices, this generalization can be applied to those MNEs with units based in low‐distance countries that have a high availability of slack resources, which lead them to create valuable non‐location‐bound, green, firm‐specific advantages (FSAs).

This paper sheds light on the way in which MNEs' activities affect the natural environment. Since MNEs are key actors in terms of economic and environmental development, they can promote social and environmental values in society, and at the same time encourage other organizations and institutions to adopt a socially responsible attitude.

Conventional studies of international competitiveness use country‐level data, but the aim of this paper is to extend this work by using firm level data of large Asian firms.

The authors gathered the regional sales and assets data for large Asian firms listed in latest Fortune Global 500 from their annual reports. They then applied the data to the firm specific advantage/country specific advantage matrix and the regional matrix frameworks developed by Rugman.

It is found that most Asian firms do not operate globally, but focus on their home region. Thus, Asian firms exploit and develop their FSAs regionally. Only a few large Japanese and Korean firms have significant sales outside of Asia. Large Asian firms vie with their regional competitors in their home region market.

International competitiveness does not necessarily mean globalization or global competition. International strategic management should consider the reality of regional competition.

This chapter proposes a framework which relates the Firm Specific Advantages (FSAs) of the multinational enterprise with the timing of entry in VUCA-type host environments, characterised by high volatility (V), uncertainty (U), complexity (C), and ambiguity (A), and which have become extraordinarily high risk. Drawing on historical evidence, in particular on Geoffrey Jones’ research - to whom this volume is dedicated - on the evolution of international business, it shows that in extraordinarily high-risk environments multinational enterprises need to have additional FSAs beyond those considered in the traditional FSAs/CSAs (country specific advantages/firm specific advantages) framework. The proposed framework distinguishes between prevention, mitigation, avoidance and withdrawal strategies carried out before and after entry in host markets that have become of extraordinary high risk.

This article analyses the role of cluster facilitators in the Singapore maritime cluster. Singapore has been recognised for its pro-business policies and its ability to attract international shipping companies to set up the ship ownership headquarters and ship management activities in Singapore.

The research is an empirical investigation on the approach for industrial cluster development of the Singapore maritime cluster, using the case study research methodology. The case study approach leverages on multiple sources of evidence from deep interviews (of 24 Singaporean firms and 13 Norwegian firms) related observations, documentation and archival records. As a means of contributing to the cluster renewal process, Singapore as the country embarks on the next stage of maritime cluster development, a benchmarking against the Norwegian Innovation Cluster has been incorporated.

The research findings reveals that Singapore is lacking in innovation activities that entails multi-firms collaborations and collaboration between multi-firms and research institutions. The existence of cluster organisation to facilitate collaborations between firms in the cluster and between firms in the cluster with research institutions is another contributing factor that are not institutionalised in the Singapore maritime cluster.

Though the research is grounded primarily on the international business theory, particularly from firm- and country-specific advantages of location decisions, the economic geography theory and cluster theory also complement the theoretical grounding.

The findings derived from this research aim to facilitate policy makers, maritime leaders and practitioners to develop effective courses of action in current and future maritime industry development.

The research provides value to maritime industry stakeholders, maritime leaders and policy makers in their firm positioning strategy. Thus, the research adds values to the maritime industry with similar country perspectives and firm values for developing policies.