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A study of community college students enrolled in a for-credit study abroad program in Costa Rica sought to identify the experiences that influence intercultural competency growth during study abroad trips and to learn how the experiences influence the development of global leadership competencies. The results led to a modified global leadership development expertise model for understanding the process of global leadership development in student populations. The study revealed a key link between antecedent characteristics of participants and their transformational ability during the study. The study also revealed that there are types of transformational experiences that, when experienced sequentially, can maximize transformational potential and the development of intercultural competencies.

Purpose –– The People's Republic of China has introduced policies to encourage Chinese who have worked or studied abroad to return and bring back the knowledge and skills they have gained. This chapter reports on the experiences of these returners as agents of organisational learning.

Methodology –– The exploratory qualitative study is based on a written questionnaire and telephone interviews with 24 returners in diverse organisations and industries in China.

Findings –– The study identifies a type of returner not yet addressed in the literature, ‘experienced self-internationalisers’, which we expect will grow significantly. We find that despite expecting returners to contribute to organisational learning, management does not organise the process. It depends on the individuals themselves, who develop various strategies for sharing their knowledge with local colleagues. Organisational learning is a cross-cultural process and requires bridging a gap between the kinds of knowledge the local employees are interested in gaining and what the returners feel the organisation needs. We note that organisational learning is more likely when the returners recognise their own need to learn rather than just to teach.

Research limitations –– The sample is relatively small; we describe how to take the research forward to more organisations and additional kinds of respondents.

Practical implications –– We formulate recommendations for policymakers, returners and human resource managers seeking to stimulate organisational learning more effectively.

Value –– The chapter generates new insights into organisational learning in China, and it shows how to addresses a phenomenon at the crossroads between the fields of organisational learning, intercultural communication and international human resource management.

This study sheds light on the complex relationship between international diversification and firm performance and explores whether future performance expectations seem to drive managerial decisions related to internationalization issues.

We conducted in-depth investigation of five firms. This qualitative approach is allegedly better equipped to uncover the peculiarities of specific internationalization decisions by individual companies and the performance consequences derived from modifications in the degree of international diversification, which might go unnoticed in large-sample statistical analyses.

In line with Hennart’s (2007, 2011) and Verbeke and Brugman’s (2009) theoretical arguments, our findings indicate that no universal relationship should be expected between international diversification and firm performance. Rather, the performance consequences of internationalization-related decisions depend on the particular combinations of a firm’s characteristics and environment contingencies. Given managerial discretion, internationalization decisions would not be randomly made, but rather would be endogenous, and, as such, the relationship between multinationality and performance can only be understood if one takes a contingent approach. Additionally, internationalization decisions seem to be taken within a context of uncertainty regarding the future, which suggests that managers seem to approach internationalization with a long-term perspective and may in fact be “buying real options.”

This study examined only five cases and they all relate to a particular type of firm: all are headquartered in a large emerging market with good domestic growth prospects, and each either is the leader or stands among the largest in its industry in the domestic market. While this relative homogeneity in the selection of the cases minimizes confounding factors, it suggests that findings may be specific to this particular (firm and market) context.

Managers should be aware that decisions that modify the international configuration of a firm might have distinct implications across different firms, given the particular (firm, industry, and environment) contingencies. Therefore, no universal normative orientation should be expected between international diversification and performance.

Although it is often implicitly assumed that managers make (informed) decisions with the objective of improving their firms’ (long-run) performance, there has been little discussion as to whether managers have detailed information about the expected performance implications arising from decisions that change the degree of international diversification of their firm and whether such decisions are driven by expected performance outcomes.

Many governments stress the importance of “learning from abroad”. An analysis of official documents over a period of some 20 years examines learning from abroad in the case of funding long-term care in England through the lens of prospective policy transfer.

The paper analyses the eight “official” documents in England that examined funding LTC from 1999 to 2019. It uses interpretive content analysis in a deductive approach that focuses on both manifest and latent content.

Only four of the eight documents gave more than a token level of attention to other nations, and of the remaining four, none fully satisfied the criteria or followed the recommendations of prospective policy transfer. Moreover, a rather limited pool of lessons from other nations is examined. Much of the material is rather descriptive, with limited explicit attention towards goals, problems, settings and policy performance, and a clear recommendation explicitly associated with a clear lesson or policy recommendation is rare.

This is the first analysis of the eight official documents that have discussed funding long-term care in England.

Based on the linkage-leverage-learning (LLL) framework developed by Mathews (2006), the purpose of this paper is to examine how linking, leveraging and learning capabilities influence the choice of foreign-entry mode, and the way such influences are contingent on context factors in the emerging markets.

Contrary to a prior literature applying the LLL framework, which mainly used case studies, this paper adopts a quantitative approach and is based on a sample of 321 Chinese listed companies to test the hypotheses.

The results show that multinational firms from emerging markets (EMFs) with stronger LLL capabilities are more likely to choose the wholly owned mode in foreign entries. In addition, the relationship between linking capability and wholly owned entry mode choice is weaker at higher levels of cultural distance between home and host country. At the same time, the relationship between learning capability and wholly owned entry mode choice is weaker at higher levels of cultural distance between home and host country, and of institutional distance between prior entries and the focal entry.

An entry mode strategy for firms without ownership advantages and the identification of boundary conditions for applying different LLL capabilities are recommended. The generalizability of the findings from a single-country setting still needs further validation with other emerging economies.

This paper treats internationalization of firms from emerging countries with a different perspective. The underlying idea in this study is that internationalization is not only a process for EMFs to utilize externally accessible assets abroad, but also a process of simultaneously combining internationalization with experiential learning and capability utilization in overseas markets. In addition, the authors also contribute to the literature by providing strong empirical evidence for validating the LLL model and extending the existing entry mode studies.

The springboard theory for multinational enterprises and the upward spiral model address the expansion of emerging countries’ multinational enterprises (MNEs) abroad as a set of resource-building stages. This paper aims to analyze this model by qualifying knowledge flows in three domains: learning effects, transfer flows and global connections.

The authors use 2018 data from the ORBIS database to identify evidence concerning the springboard MNE (SMNE) phenomenon. The authors select MNE firms from 93 emerging economies with presence in 71 developed and 93 developing countries. In addition, the authors differentiate between the levels of technological intensity of emerging market MNEs’ sectors.

The results highlight the existence of learning processes taking place in subsidiaries and feeding back into parent firms, as well as the existence of capability transfer from home to host units.

The main contribution is the addition of empirical evidence on the SMNE and specifically the upward spiral model, considering the micro-level and the productivity differences between parent firm and subsidiaries.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal how the host and the home countries’ formal institutions may affect mergers and acquisitions (M&A) abandonment by Russian multinational enterprises (MNEs), and how MNE industry can influence the results. The second objective of the study is to have a separate look at the negative experience, and to uncover its influence on M&A deal completion.

In the study, a sample of 446 international M&A deals initiated by Russian MNEs in the period of 2000–2014 is empirically tested by means of logistic regression analysis.

The empirical analysis indicates that better business environment in the host country is crucially important whereas development of business freedom at home may make the international M&A less attractive and increases the likelihood of M&A deal abandonment. Thus, the larger the institutional distance by this indicator the more likelihood the deal is completed. Contrary results are implied for property rights: the larger the distance between Russia and host country, the lower likelihood of M&A deal completion. Failure experience decreases the likelihood of acquisition completion whereas international experience increases.

The study has number of limitations: individual-level variables were not included in the model; and a limited number of factors were tested due to availability of data and moderate sample size.

The study indicates that better development of business freedom and moderate property rights protection in the host country are the most favorable factors for an M&A deal completion. Russian policymakers should realize that development of property rights protection in Russia ensures success of MNEs abroad, and development of business freedom reduces the outflow of capital from the economy.

The paper makes several theoretical and practical contributions: it contributes to institutional international business literature, indicating in which particular cases institutional distance has positive or negative effect on M&A completion. It also contributes to organizational learning literature, confirming that failures inhibit learning, and firms tend to repeat previous mistakes. Finally, the paper widens the scarce research on Russian MNEs, and on the role of the home country institutions for MNE’s behavior abroad.

This article explores to what extent the long debate in England over the funding of long-term care (LTC) has involved learning from abroad.

It draws on Mossberger and Wolman’s (2003) framework which proposes criteria for assessing policy transfer as a form of prospective policy evaluation: awareness; assessment and application. The documents examined are the sources cited by the reports that examined funding LTC in England since 1999. The study uses interpretive content analysis in a deductive approach (applying the framework) that focuses on both manifest and latent content.

It finds that both the reports and the cited studies tend to focus on a fairly narrow range of nations, with most attention on Germany, Japan and Scotland. Most studies broadly do not provide much in the way of a clear rationale, and the level of details provided varies. There is relatively little focus on problems. Aims, objectives and goals are little mentioned in some studies, but they tend to be fairly abstract or “high level.” Similarly, there is limited detail on settings. Finally, only a few studies provide a clear recommendation.

It focuses on the neglected topic of the evidence behind reports which are intended to provide recommendations for policy change. The Mossberger and Wolman’s (2003) framework has been used in a small-scale but appears to be well-suited for this purpose.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of different learning sources in the process of capability building of Chinese firms (CFs) approaching international markets.

The paper is based on the case study of the company “Goodbaby.” The primary data sources are two semi-structured interviews with one of the firm’s managers, which have been triangulated with point of sale visits, interviews with industry experts, and secondary data such as corporate records, patent and trademark data, industry reports and news articles.

Both the home-country and foreign markets act as sources of learning to support the development of CFs’ marketing capabilities. Learning at home is triggered by the complexity of the national market and the exposure to foreign entrants. Foreign learning is stimulated by the relationships with leading foreign partners and the exposure to advanced final markets. Moreover, each learning source has a positive effect on the development of CFs’ marketing capabilities in both market contexts in which they compete, i.e. the home-market and international markets.

CFs’ managers should be simultaneously receptive to the domestic and foreign contexts, as both may support the development of marketing capabilities. CFs’ managers should recognize the learning opportunities embedded in each of these contexts, and identify the markets where these can be effectively redeployed.

The authors distinguish between different sources of learning in the context of CFs’ internationalization, and explore their triggering factors and their role in the development of an underinvestigated type of capabilities, i.e. the marketing capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to contextually theorise the different patterns of emerging multinational companies’ (EMNCs’) learning processes for innovation and the different influences of their technology-driven FDIs (TFDIs) on the processes.

A comparative case study method and process tracing technique are employed to investigate how and why firms’ learning processes for innovation took place, how and why the TFDIs emerged and influenced the firms’ learning processes in different ways.

The paper identifies two different patterns of learning process for innovation (Glider model vs Helicopter model) and two different roles of the case firms’ TFDIs (accelerator vs starter) in the different contexts of their learning processes. It is found that the capability building of the domestic wind energy industry has an important influence on the case of EMNCs’ learning processes and thus on the roles of their TFDIs.

The limitation of the paper lies in its small number of cases in a specific industry of a specific country. The two contextually identified learning models and roles of TFDIs may not be applied to other industries or other countries. Future research should investigate more cases in broader sectoral and geographic scope to test the models and also to identify new models.

For EMNCs, who wants to use the Helicopter model to rapidly gain production and innovation capability, cross-cultural management and integration management are crucial to practitioners. For emerging countries with ambitions to explore the global knowledge and technology pool, besides of the EMNC’s capability building, the capability building in the domestic industries should not be overlooked by policy makers.

The paper develops a dynamic and contextual analytical framework which helps to answer the important questions about how and under what context a TFDI emerges and influences firm’s learning process for innovation. It theorises the EMNCs’ learning process and TFDIs in the context of the development of the domestic industry. It strengthens the explanatory power of the learning-based view and adds new knowledge to the current FSA/CSA discourse in the international business literature.