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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of outward foreign direct investment (O‐FDI) on the competitiveness of home‐country export.

This paper employs a six‐year data set from Taiwanese manufacturing data for 15 industries over the period between 1991 and 2007.

The authors find that exports in Taiwan are positively associated with O‐FDI by Taiwanese firms. This finding supports the view that outward FDI complements home country exports and concurs with the majority of earlier empirical findings which focus on developed home countries. The authors also find that such effect is stronger for Taiwanese FDI in China than in other countries and in traditional sectors than in modern sectors.

These findings suggest that location‐and industry‐specific characteristics moderate the strength of the relationship between O‐FDI and home country exports.

This study aims to explore how sub‐dimensions of home country influence multinational enterprise (MNE) ownership strategy in international subsidiaries.

Following a grounded theory approach, the authors interviewed 36 managers of US and Japanese MNEs. Among 36 managers, 21 worked for Japanese firms, 12 for US firms, and three for the US‐Japanese IJVs.

This study proposes a list of cultural and resource‐based explanations for MNEs' divergent ownership patterns by nationality.

This research focused on two home countries, Japan and the USA. Future studies are required to extend and validate the findings in this study.

By considering sub‐dimensions of home country effect, managers can make a more accurate prediction of the potential partner's willingness to form an IJV.

This study suggests that host countries' ownership restriction can make divergent effects on foreign investors by their nationality.

The central contribution of this paper is identifying a set of underlying factors of home country effect and explicating their individual effect on MNE ownership strategy.

The paper aims to examine the effects of outward foreign direct investment (O‐FDI) on home‐country productivity.

A panel data set for 15 Taiwanese manufacturing industries over the period between 1991 and 2007 is employed for a model in which productivity is regressed on a measure of O‐FDI.

The study finds no significant positive or negative effect of O‐FDI on productivity. Breaking down the data by location of the investment, however, we find that O‐FDI in other countries enhances productivity in Taiwan, while O‐FDI in China does not. We interpret the positive role of O‐FDI in other countries as relating to the outcome of strategic asset‐seeking nature of Taiwanese investments in these countries.

In order to analyse the productivity effect of O‐FDI more precisely, one would need to compare the firm outcomes in the presence of multinational production with the outcomes that would have prevailed in the absence of multinational production. Unfortunately, we cannot observe what would have happened to firms that did engage in multinational production had they not done so.

The findings suggest that the Taiwanese Government should distinguish the level of liberalization towards O‐FDI for different locations and in different types of industries. In particular, the government should channel more investment towards export‐oriented industries especially those in “other countries”.

The paper employs a contingency approach, examining the conditions under which O‐FDI impacts upon home productivity.

This paper aims to reveal the influencing mechanism of the interaction between institutional environments in the home and host country on the accelerated internationalization of entrepreneurial enterprises from emerging economies (EE). The authors want to open the black box of home-country institutional environments’ moderating mechanism on the relationship between host-country institutional environments and accelerated internationalization.

The authors chose a massive interview method and case study method to answer this question. According to our standards, the authors chose four high-tech companies in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces as case study samples. During investigation in the four case companies, the authors collected print data of 150 pages and electric data of 3 pages. Then, the authors excavated concepts in data through open coding, axial coding and select-type coding and identified concepts’ dimensions and connections between them.

Well-developed home-country institutions can reduce the inhibitory effect of under-developed host-country institutions on the accelerated internationalization of entrepreneurial enterprises from emerging economies. Under-developed institutional environments in the home country are beneficial for entrepreneurial enterprises from EE to develop the institutional capability for entrepreneurial enterprises with stronger institutional capability from emerging economies. The inhibitory effect of under-developed institutional environments in the host country on their accelerated internationalization is weaker. The positive moderating role played by institutional voids in the home country on the relationship between institutional voids in the host country and the accelerated internationalization are mediated by the institutional capability of entrepreneurial enterprises from emerging economies.

The authors just refined the definition of institutional capability and divided its dimensions. Issues such as operationalization of institutional capability and the development of measurement scale are also worthy for future quantitative research. Considering the inherent defect of case study and that these four case companies are from Chinese high-tech industry, the external validity our research may be limited. The theoretical model that was constructed generally captured the relationships between dual institutional environments, institutional capability and EE entrepreneurial firms’ accelerated internationalization decision. Future studies may use a large-scale sample to verify the all propositions the authors introduced to draw more steady and reliable empirical study results.

The conclusions have significant implications for governments in EE to construct friendly institutional environments for international entrepreneurship and for entrepreneurial firms to implement internationalization strategies.

Policy makers should establish well-developed normative and cognitive institutional environment by cultivating global-orientated and open national culture and organizing experience exchange conference, thereby speeding up the implementation of internationalization strategies and further improving international competitiveness for a country.

First, the authors defined institutional capability as firms’ ability of establishing relationships with institution actors, adapting to institutional contexts, changing existing institutions or creating new ones to gain potential interests and suggested that it consists of three dimensions. Second, institutional voids in the home country positively moderate the relationship between under-developed institutional environments in the host country and the accelerated internationalization of entrepreneurial firms from EE. At last, institutional capability of firms negatively moderates the relationship between under-developed institutional environments in the host country and the accelerated internationalization of entrepreneurial firms from EE.

Drawing on the bribery literature, this paper aims to examine the effect of bribes paid in the home country on firms’ decision to internationalize through exports from transition economies. It also investigates whether the effect of home country bribery may vary from new ventures to established firms, and from those firms that operate in an environment with high to low informal competition.

This paper tests several hypotheses using a panel data with fixed effects based on a sample of firms in transition economies from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey.

First, home country bribery in transition economies can make domestic markets more lenient and dampen firms’ motivation to seek opportunities abroad. Second, new ventures have a higher motivation to focus on their domestic markets after paying bribes. Finally, despite the benefits accrued in the home country through bribery, firms that face a higher level of informal competition in the home country are more likely to seek opportunities abroad.

Managers in transition economies should consider their home country bribery activities in their evaluation of foreign market opportunities. Firms that use money to influence home country government officials, especially new ventures, are advised to have a more holistic view in evaluating foreign market opportunities so they will not miss out on new opportunities.

This paper advances literature on home country institutions and the research on firm global strategies. Moreover, it also highlights several contingencies that shape the effect of home country bribery on firms’ foreign market focus.

This paper aims to develop an integrated perspective on the relationship between multinationality and performance in the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of Chinese firms. The study not only represents contrasting OFDI patterns – namely, born global-natured multiple synchronous foreign investments versus conventional internationalization process (IP)-natured steady increasing foreign investments – but also contributes to understanding the extent to which explanations of home political influence need to be rooted within the general theory of multinationality.

By testing a comprehensive panel observation of 8,635 OFDI projects from 1991-2016 in China, this study found that multinationality with the new pattern of multiple synchronous OFDIs has a superior performance effect compared with the conventional pattern of steady increasing OFDIs.

This study also finds a positive relationship between multinationality (international diversification and home political influence) and the performance effect with the new pattern of multiple synchronous OFDIs, as well as a partial positive relationship between multinationality and the performance effect with the conventional pattern of steady increasing OFDIs.

The study extends the understanding of the performance effects of Chinese multinational enterprises, which may benefit more from the new pattern of multiple synchronous OFDIs than from the conventional pattern of steady increasing OFDIs when the home-country institution is strongly positioned.

This paper concludes that multinationality needs an integrated framework that accounts for the new pattern of OFDI and the influence of diversification and home politics, particularly for the emerging country, China.

This chapter examines the role of immigrant networks on trade, particulalry through the demand effect. First, we examine the effect of immigration on trade when the immigrants consume more of the good that is abundant in their home country than the natives in a standard Heckscher–Ohlin model and find that the effect of immigration on trade is a priori indeterminate. Our econometric gravity model consisting of 63 major trading and immigrant-sending country for the United States over 1991–2000. We find that the immigrants income, mostly through demand effect has a significant negative effect on U.S. imports. However, if we include the effect of the immigrant income interacted with the size of the immigrant network, measured by the immigrant stock, we find that higher immigrants income lowers the immigrant network effect for both U.S. exports and imports. This we find in addition to the immigrants stock elasticity of 0.27% for U.S. exports and 0.48% for U.S. imports. Capturing the immigrant assimilation with the level of immigrant income and the size of the immigrant enclave this chapter finds that the immigrant network effect on trade flows is weakened by the increasing level of immigrant assimilation.

The paper aims at providing evidence on the impact on employment of outward foreign direct investment, particularly from developed countries into low‐wage countries, which is a major concern in many developed countries.

The effects of foreign production undertaken by Belgian foreign‐oriented companies on employment in Belgium are investigated by performing econometric tests for complementarity or substitution between home and affiliate employment. The data are from the Amadeus database and consist of a sample of 254 Belgian parent companies with foreign affiliates in low‐wage and other high‐wage European countries during the 1999‐2007 period.

The results show that, given the size of parent production in the home country, Belgian multinational enterprises with foreign affiliates in higher‐wage European countries tend to employ more labour at home the more they produce in the host country. This probably reflects the needs of foreign affiliates in higher‐wage European countries for management and supervisory services from parent companies. Another explanation might be that Belgian outward FDI is largely vertical. In contrast, no evidence is found about employment reallocation between parents and affiliates operating in lower‐wage European countries.

The paper provides evidence on overall effects on employment in Belgium of its outward foreign direct investment for the period 1999‐2007, i.e. using the most recent data available. In contrast to many other studies, statistical diagnostic tests were carried out to choose the appropriate model to best fit the data.

This study aims to examine the dual effects of home country institutional forces (i.e. institutional support and institutional constraints) on the internationalization of private firms in emerging markets. By doing so, this study aims to examine the applicability of the two seemingly paradoxical views (i.e. the governmental promotion view and the institutional escapism view) in explaining private firms’ internationalization. Further, this study investigates how the effect of the home country institutional environment on firms’ internationalization is contingent upon firm characteristics.

A sample of Chinese private firms is used to examine the effect of home country institutions on internationalization.

Empirical findings suggest that both institutional support and institutional constraints promote the internationalization of private firms in emerging markets. Moreover, it is found that firm resources strengthen the effect of government support on internationalization. It is also found that firms’ business ties strengthen the effect of institutional constraint on internationalization, whereas firms’ political ties weaken the effect of institutional constraints on internationalization.

By adopting an integrated and comprehensive investigation of the dual effects of home country institutional environment in emerging markets on internationalization, this study provides evidence to the applicability of the two competing views (i.e. the governmental promotion view and the institutional escapism view) in relation to home country institutional effects on internationalization. In addition, this study examines how institutional effects vary across firms with different resources and social ties, thus extends understandings of the boundary conditions of the two institutional effects.

The authors develop a theoretical framework of how foreign competition in a firm's home country jointly interacts with other environmental factors to influence the internationalization pace. This study moves beyond the debate on whether foreign competition promotes or inhibits the internationalization pace by unpacking the nature of pace across strategic and operational dimensions. By differentiating the internationalization paces of market scope and international commitment, the study results show that foreign competition has a positive effect on the former and a negative effect on the latter. This indicates that the determinants of different paces are conditional upon the different knowledge types among foreign competitors.

Using a panel data set of Chinese construction corporations over the period from 2009 to 2015, the authors extend previous research on the effect of home country environment on internationalization behavior in an emerging economy by examining the effects of the interplay between foreign competition in home country and industrial contexts. The authors also explore the moderating effect of subnational institutions on the relationship between foreign competition and internationalization pace. They use a Poisson model and a GEE model to examine the main effects and moderating effects involved.

The results indicate that industry dynamism strengthens the positive effect of foreign competition and the pace of market scope, while industry munificence weakens the negative effect of foreign competition and the pace of international commitment. The authors’ findings support the coexistence of “pushing” and “pulling” effects of environmental factors from a firm's home country. The authors extend the argument of “institutional escapism” by focusing on subnational institutions. They show that firms located in a region with a low level of marketization are more likely to respond by accelerating the pace of their international expansion to escape from their home country.

The authors’ findings have implications for practitioners and policymakers working with emerging market firms (EMFs). The authors suggest that local governments should consider building high-quality institutions that can reduce the possibility of investment opportunities escaping EMFs. The authors’ findings indicate that international knowledge from foreign competitors may also assist EMFs in understanding more about the cultural environment before entering host countries, although it cannot help them to resolve cultural uncertainty when operating in host countries. Hence, managers should carefully evaluate their competitiveness before they decide to engage in global competition at an accelerated rate.