The recent surge of emerging-economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) has prompted a debate on whether existing international business theory—particularly internalization theory—can accommodate this phenomenon. Our view is that no new, EMNE-centric theory is required to study EMNEs. Using historical evidence, we argue that “new” internalization theory is sufficient to address the complexity of EMNEs, and we illustrate our argument with examples of ten successful EMNEs from Asia and the Americas. We further argue that a business history lens can illuminate the behavior of developed-economy multinationals. We show how management scholars can advance their research agendas by engaging with business history and how business historians can use internalization theory to analyze the history of multinationals.
The New Internalization Theory and Multinational Enterprises from Emerging Economies: A Business History Perspective