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The purpose of this paper is to examine the theories used to study the international equity-based entry mode strategies of emerging market multinationals (EMMs) and the contribution of these studies to extant literature.

The authors conducted a systematic review of the literature. A total of 73 articles were identified from key management, international business and international marketing journals published between 2000 and June 2015. Articles were analysed according to the theory(ies) used, thematic area, methodology, home/host countries studied and findings.

Despite the great interest around the topic of how the antecedents and outcomes of EMMs’ international entry mode strategies may challenge and amend existing theories, the findings that come out of this research mirror patterns observed in the entry mode literature in general. Whilst traditional perspectives such as internalisation theory and the OLI paradigm remain prevalent, a growing number of studies draw on institutional theory and combine multiple theoretical perspectives. Newer theories developed specifically to study EMMs (e.g., the springboard perspective) are used in only five studies and challenged to differentiate their theoretical underpinnings from extant literature. Overall, the theoretical contribution of EMM studies is simply a change in emphasis from the role of firm-specific factors towards the influence of home country institutions on entry mode strategies. The authors conclude that the literature has only made tweaks at the edge of theories with no significant changes to extant theorisations.

This is the first systematic review of the literature focusing specifically on the international equity-based entry mode strategies of EMMs.

Prior research on joint venture (JV) formation often examines a single focal firm and assumes it has a single motive for collaboration. This study seeks to investigate how formation motives of partner firms are symmetrically coupled. It considers motives in the context of different European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs) characteristics and partner firm characteristics.

Self‐administered surveys were employed and a total sample of 104 partners cooperating in 47 different JVs (EEIGs) was used for data analysis.

The paper observes the coupling of different formation motives and finds that different rationales to establish international JVs are held simultaneously by partners. Furthermore, it finds that the number of partners increase when partners hold motives primarily to develop knowledge.

Current theorising might focus too narrowly on particular motives or at best on combinations of motives within a specific theoretical approach. Such a single approach might be rather simplistic due to the multiple rationales to enact EEIGs by partners. Future studies that accommodate multiple perspectives simultaneously in a single paper would significantly advance the field and hold more explanatory power.

The paper finds that in general partner motives are symmetric, but some motives are more natural candidates for partners to couple together. Furthermore, smaller firms can also benefit by forming more complex collaborations and hold multiple motives simultaneously.

The paper reinvigorates theoretical development by showing the amalgamation of different motives and theories for JV establishment. It also provides new guidelines to practitioners and scholars alike by examining various combinations of collaborative motives and how they are coupled across partners in alliance dyads.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of IJV performance expectations for a sample of international joint ventures with parent firms from Europe, North America and Australia. A conceptual framework is proposed which identifies the determinants of IJV performance as the dominant control of the IJV by one parent firm, the level of autonomy granted to the IJV management, the level of trust between the partner firms, the effect of differences in the national cultures of IJV partners and the differences in the organizational cultures of IJV partners.

The study adopts a self‐administered questionnaire approach to examine the determinants of performance in the sample firms. The starting point for obtaining a sample of parent firms was the OSIRIS database. Paper copies of the questionnaires were posted to potential respondents. This was followed by an e‐mail to the same potential respondents with the questionnaires attached. In total, 109 usable questionnaires were obtained from respondent companies – 22 questionnaires were returned from the postal survey and 87 questionnaires were returned from the follow‐up e‐mail.

Predicted positive relationships between performance expectations and dominant control of the IJV, autonomy granted to the IJV management, and trust between the partner firms are supported by the data. The predicted negative relationship between performance expectations and national culture differences was not supported, however, the expected negative relationship between performance expectations and corporate culture differences was partially supported.

This study adds to the international business literature on IJVs and provides new empirical evidence in the context of Europe, North America and Australia.

This paper delineates some basic trends and patterns of European foreign equity venture formations in Turkey over the 1996‐2003 period.

Drawing on a Turkish Government database, key statistics on European equity venture formations in Turkey are examined across several dimensions: trends in FDI over time, country of origin of investment, sector of investment, size of investment, geographical location and foreign equity shareholding.

A structured analysis of the dataset and government statistical publications makes it possible to ascertain patterns with respect to FDI dimensions. FDI operations in Turkey are dominated mainly by European and US MNEs. The analyses also revealed that new FDI operations have changed the structural composition of overall FDI activity in Turkey. Another finding is that European equity venture formations tend to be located in the concentrated industries and also in the relatively fast growing industries. It is shown that there exist some differences among European investors when they are classified by country of origin. There are also locational differences by sector, entry date and country of origin. It appears that as European investors gain experience of the host country market, their entry mode may change over time.

While the findings cast further light on the nature and pattern of European FDI activity in Turkey, it would be particularly useful in future research to investigate the core dimensions of the activity recorded in the dataset reported on here, in terms of motives for a particular mode of entry, forms of management control and performance outcomes by means of primary data collection from the parents and management of European equity ventures. The examined relationships set out in the present study are essentially univariate, so they cannot gauge which of the dimensions are likely to be more important in identifying trend and patterns of European FDI in Turkey, which constitutes a limitation of the survey.

These findings cast new light on the nature and pattern of European FDI activity in Turkey where there is a paucity of systematic information.

Findings on the nature and practice of strategic planning are presented from a sample of 135 large companies based in Turkey. Attitudes towards a range of strategic planning issues and the use of a variety of tools and techniques of strategic planning are reported.

Economic forecasting models, strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, scenario construction and financial analysis of competitors are the most frequently used tools/techniques of analysis.

Respondents indicate a very favorable attitude towards strategic planning which is seen as important by firms in the sample. Comparison of foreign‐owned firms and local firms indicates that the foreign‐owned firms adopt a broader and deeper repertoire of tools and techniques of strategic planning than do local firms, and they tend to believe that the strategy process is more deliberate than do local firms.

Need to look at the relationship between strategic planning and organizational performance.

Indicates a need for longer‐term planning horizons and more emphases on the implementation and evaluation of strategy.

One of few studies to examine strategic planning of firms in a transitional economy.

To succeed in an industry an organization must select a mode of strategic behaviour which matches the levels of environmental turbulence, and develop a resource capability which complements the chosen mode. Investigates UK building societies and identifies three distinct modes of strategic behaviour. One group of societies are reactive and driven by their environment. A second group are pre‐emptive and seek to anticipate future events and prepare for them while the third group exhibit the most aggressive stance; not only do they seek to identify future scenarios, they actually work to bring these about. The groups are compared across a range of marketing and strategy variables to establish the extent to which these approaches are supportive of the selected mode of behaviour. Clear differences are apparent between the reactive and proactive groups although, surprisingly, few differences of substance are evident between the two proactive groups.

The Chinese government has liberalized the foreign investment environment considerably in order to encourage inward investment, primarily through joint ventures. Reviews the changes in the regulatory environment and presents new data from UK partners engaged in Chinese joint ventures. The findings indicate that the main force motivating UK firms to form joint ventures is to gain faster entry to the Chinese market. The joint ventures allow UK firms access to largely intangible inputs that they would otherwise have difficulty acquiring. While choice of Chinese partners appears to be highly constrained, on the whole the UK partners analysed the joint venture decision thoroughly and generally concluded that they had joined forces with the “right” partner.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the nature and practice of strategic planning in two different environmental contexts, the UK and Turkey.

Employing a structured mail questionnaire, the study collected data from a sample of UK and Turkish firms. Using a sampling frame of 500 firms from the EXTEL database of UK listed companies, 113 usable responses were received for the UK firms. In total, 135 responses were obtained from the Turkish firms based on a sampling frame of 638 firms derived from the database of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry's 500 largest Turkish manufacturing companies and the database of companies quoted on the Istanbul Stock Exchange.

There are a number of significant differences between the strategic planning practices of Turkish firms and UK firms. Contrary to expectations, it appears that Turkish firms rather than UK firms are more favourably disposed to strategic planning. The exception to this is the adoption and use of a range of tools/techniques of strategic analysis, which are more regularly employed by UK firms than by Turkish firms.

Organisations should be aware that strategy formulation is futile without appropriate strategy implementation and should seek a coherent interface between those responsible for the strategic planning process and those responsible for implementation to ensure that each group is working to the same set of objectives. With the development of the market economy in Turkey, and the increased competition from foreign firms as globalisation proceeds, it may be necessary for the Turkish firms to increasingly adopt the techniques and tools of strategic planning.

This paper provides some important insights to the applicability of Western strategic management thinking to the business environment in emerging countries.

Drawing on institutional and transaction cost theories, the purpose of this paper is to examine the location choice for a sample of 522 foreign affiliates of Turkish multinational enterprises (MNEs).

Binary logistic regressions are conducted to test a number of hypotheses on the functional relationships between the hypothesized effect of variables and location choice of Turkish MNEs based on a secondary data drawn from official sources.

In general, the findings provide support for the majority of the study's hypotheses and tend to confirm the theoretical perspectives adopted. The level of political constraints, the level of knowledge infrastructure in the host country market, subsidiary density, industry R&D intensity and subsidiary size are found to have the expected impact on the Turkish MNE's location choice among geographic alternatives. No support is found for the impact of ownership mode of subsidiary and the group affiliation on Turkish MNEs' location choice for their subsidiaries.

The paper focuses on Turkish MNEs and the findings may not be generalizable to other emerging country (EC) MNEs. Also, the classification of geographic location into developed versus emerging countries may be too crude.

In general, the paper posits that Turkish MNEs have a motive of strategic asset seeking to enhance their global competitiveness when they enter developed countries, whereas they simply attempt to exploit their firm‐specific advantages or competencies when they access emerging countries.

Given the increasing number of EC MNEs entering other emerging and developed markets, this paper adds to the understanding of the determinants of location strategies of Turkish MNEs by identifying key regional characteristics that lead Turkish MNEs to select particular locations, among the several geographic alternatives.

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.