How do linking, leveraging and learning capabilities influence the entry mode choice for multinational firms from emerging markets?

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Li ◽  
Bin Guo ◽  
Gangxiang Xu
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Markets ◽  
Host Country ◽  
Multinational Firms ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Entry Mode ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Entry Mode Choice ◽  
Learning Capabilities ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose 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. Design/methodology/approach 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. Findings 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. Research limitations/implications 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. Originality/value 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.

Governance, privatization and foreign direct investment

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-586
Author(s):  
Dongling Cai ◽  
Leonard Fengsheng Wang ◽  
Xiaokai Wu
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Host Country ◽  
Foreign Firm ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Entry Mode ◽  
Mixed Duopoly ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Entry Mode Choice ◽  
Optimal Degree

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the interplay between economic governance and privatization, and how these two instruments affect the entry mode choice of the foreign firm and the social welfare of the host country. Design/methodology/approach This study constructs a mixed duopoly model wherein one domestic public firm competes with a foreign firm and investigates the influence of economic governance investment on the domestic government’s optimal degree of privatization choice and the foreign firm’s entry mode choice. Findings This study shows that (1) better economic governance enhances the effect of privatization on output, thus resulting in a lower degree of privatization; (2) the optimal privatization policy of the domestic government is partial privatization irrespective of the foreign firm’s entry mode choice; (3) with optimal investment by the domestic government on economic governance, the optimal degree of privatization is higher under FDI than export, and the host-country welfare is also higher under FDI. In particular, this study demonstrates that better economic governance decreases the threshold of the degree of privatization when the foreign firm switches from export to FDI, implying that better economic governance stimulates the foreign firm to undertake FDI in the host country. Practical implications The findings shed some light on both the mixed ownership reform of the SOEs in China and attracting foreign capital inflow to improve the host country’s social welfare. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study constitutes the first attempt to build a theoretical framework to explore how the interactions between economic governance and privatization influence the entry mode choice of the foreign firm.

CEO characteristics and SME foreign market entry mode choice

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Laufs ◽  
Michael Bembom ◽  
Christian Schwens
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Market Entry ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Entry Mode ◽  
Foreign Market ◽  
Foreign Market Entry ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Entry Mode Choice ◽  
Foreign Market Entry Mode ◽  
Ceo Characteristics

Purpose – Using arguments from the upper echelons perspective this paper aims to examine the impact of CEO characteristics on small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) equity foreign market entry mode choice and how these associations are jointly moderated by geographic experience of the firm and host-country political risk. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical analysis draws on data gathered from German SMEs testing triple-interaction effects between CEO’s age, firm tenure and international experience, geographic experience of the firm (organizational level), and host-country political risk (environmental level). Findings – Empirical findings validate that the influence of CEO’s age and firm tenure on SME foreign market entry mode choice varies by managers’ level of managerial discretion (i.e. latitude of action) as determined by the SME’s geographic experience and the level of political risks prevailing in the foreign market. Practical implications – Empirical findings help SME owners and managers to understand how CEO’s age and firm tenure are related with individual’s risk-taking behavior and information-processing demands and how these contingencies vary by the context in which the individual CEO is nested. Originality/value – This study contributes to the growing body of literature focussing on SME foreign market entry mode choice by emphasizing the important role of CEOs in the decision to internationalize. More specific, this study contributes by an examination of the interactive effect of CEO’s age, firm tenure and international experience, geographic experience of the firm and host-country political risk and, therefore, emphasizes the context and boundary conditions under which the association between CEO characteristics and foreign market entry mode choice is more or less pronounced.

Augmenting versus exploiting entry modes in soft services

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 621-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Pla-Barber ◽  
Cristina Villar ◽  
Fidel León-Darder
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Entry Mode ◽  
Foreign Market ◽  
Foreign Market Entry ◽  
Entry Modes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Entry Mode Choice ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
High Resource

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address foreign market entry mode as a way to enhance firm’s knowledge base, providing new insights into traditional explanations of entry mode choice for soft services. The authors offer an alternative knowledge-based approach to assess foreign investment decisions by considering the role of resource-augmenting (direct investment) and resource-exploiting strategies (licenses). In addition, the authors untie the type of experiential knowledge, i.e., host country and mode experience, to analyze its interactions with environmental uncertainties such as cultural distance. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a customized database of the Spanish Global Hotel industry covering practically all foreign entries until 2012, the authors use regression analysis to test the proposal. Findings – The authors demonstrate how in hotel chains (a) cultural distance influences the use of high resource-augmenting modes, due to both the difficulties in transferring the knowledge to third parties but also the imperative need of learning from local markets and (b) how strong brands tend to use resource-augmenting modes in their first steps abroad as a strategy to achieve a minimum level of resource basis to exploit it in a later stage. Originality/value – The findings question the appropriateness of prior assumptions from traditional internationalization process theories for soft services MNE and provide an alternative approach to assess entry mode choice in this context.

scholarly journals Influences of cognitive dimensions on the collaborative entry mode choice of small- and medium-sized enterprises

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 652-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manlio Del Giudice ◽  
Ahmad Arslan ◽  
Veronica Scuotto ◽  
Francesco Caputo
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Market Entry ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Entry Mode ◽  
Institutional Distance ◽  
Entry Modes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Entry Mode Choice ◽  
Internationalisation Strategies ◽  
Cognitive Dimensions

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address internationalisation of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by specifically focussing on collaborative entry modes. Despite significant research done on market entry and internationalisation strategies of firms, the use of collaborative entry modes by SMEs during internationalisation has not received a lot of attention. The authors contribute to foreign market entry studies by analysing the influences of cognitive dimensions on collaborative entry mode choice (equity vs non-equity modes) of SMEs in their international markets. Design/methodology/approach The authors analyse the influences of cognitive dimensions on the choice between equity-based vs non-equity-based collaborative entry modes. The empirical sample consists of internationalisation strategies of 345 Italian SMEs, where the authors used a questionnaire to collect the data. The authors use structural equation modelling to analyse influences of factors like asymmetric information, informal institutional distance, time trends of country, perception of size and resources of potential host country partners, and perception of host country partners’ power on this important market entry mode. Findings The results show that high informal institutional distance leads to preference of non-equity-based collaborative entry mode by Italian SMEs. The authors also find that positive time trends of the host country, positive perception of size and resource of the local partner, as well as the local partners’ power leads to preference of equity-based collaborative entry mode by Italian SMEs. Originality/value This study focusses on an ignored aspect of market entry strategies, i.e., equity vs non-equity collaborative entry mode choice of SMEs. The authors use insights from resource-based view and cognitive dimensions literature, to address the influences of five cognitive dimensions on the collaborative entry mode choice of SMEs during their internationalisation.

scholarly journals Foreign sequential entry mode choice

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 544-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gangxiang Xu ◽  
Bin Guo ◽  
Wen Li ◽  
Xiaoting Wang
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Firms ◽  
Joint Venture ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Entry Mode ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Listed Firms ◽  
Entry Mode Choice ◽  
Sequential Entry ◽  
Structural Inertia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use the theoretical perspective of structural inertia as a unique lens to study foreign sequential entry mode choices of multinational firms. Design/methodology/approach It adopts quantitative analysis of a sample of 121 Chinese publicly listed firms with 564 foreign entry incidents in the 2001-2012 period to test the hypotheses. Findings The empirical results show that multinational firms have a tendency to adopt the same mode in the subsequent entry as the number of prior entry mode choice of a given type (joint venture (JV) in this study) increases. The results support the theoretical prediction that organizations repeat their past activities due to structural inertia. Moreover, such an inertia effect in foreign sequential entry mode choices becomes stronger for older multinational firms, larger multinational firms and state-owned multinational firms. Research limitations/implications Consistent with existing research, this study focuses on the entry mode choice between JV and wholly owned subsidiaries. However, it is better to examine the relationship identified in the study for different types of entry mode choices to assess result generalizability. Practical implications It reminds managers of multinational firms that they should be cautious to the influence of structural inertia that can be a barrier to strategic flexibility when they make entry mode choices. Originality/value The main contribution of this study resides in introducing structural inertia perspective to help understand the determinants of foreign sequential entry mode choices of multinational firms.

Foreign Business Environments and Entry Mode Choice

2012 ◽  
pp. 165-181
Author(s):  
Maud Oortwijn
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Joint Venture ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
External Environment ◽  
Entry Mode ◽  
Entry Modes ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Entry Mode Choice ◽  
Business Studies ◽  
Business Environments

The entry mode choice is at the core of International Business studies (Oortwijn, 2011a). IB research concerns the organization of firm activities across country borders and thus across different cultures and business contexts. These host country differences impact the firm’s way of working internally within the organization and in interaction with the external environment in the host country. Companies can consider a broad range of entry modes to organize across country borders, including partnership, trade, joint venture (JV), and wholly owned enterprise (WOE). The entry mode defines what activities are internalized within the firm and how the firm interacts with the external environment in different host countries.

Cultural Distance and Future Entry Mode Choice of Brazilian MNEs

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jase R. Ramsey ◽  
Livia L. Barakat ◽  
Plinio R. R. Monteiro
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Entry Mode ◽  
Entry Mode Choice

Internationalisation by Business Services: A Methodological Critique of Foreign-Market Entry-Mode Choice

1995 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 683-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
P N O'Farrell ◽  
L Moffat ◽  
P A Wood
Keyword(s):  
Market Entry ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Entry Mode ◽  
Foreign Market ◽  
Foreign Market Entry ◽  
Business Services ◽  
Entry Mode Choice ◽  
Foreign Market Entry Mode

In this paper the work of geographers, economists, and management scientists in studying interregional and international expansion by service companies is reviewed. A critique is presented of some of the fundamental methodological problems inherent in analysing foreign-market entry-mode choice. These are particularly apparent when studying the process of business service-sector internationalisation. Issues discussed include inconsistencies in the definition of which entry decision to analyse; the level of aggregation to adopt when modelling mode choice; mode choice and cooperative organisational networks; different approaches to measuring cultural distance and country risk; and the methodologies used to develop scales to represent the constructs relevant to internationalisation.

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