Internationalization and Location Choice of Multinational Enterprises from Emerging Economies

Research has highlighted the importance of location strategies during the internationalization process for firms. Drawing on a multiple case study, this paper examines the locational strategic patterns explored by emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) when internationalizing into developed economies. The findings suggest that EMNEs tend to focus on a diverse set of subnational investment motives in their location decisions compared to traditional multinational enterprises (MNEs). The location considerations by EMNEs when internationalizing into developed economies, seem to be driven by strategic-asset seeking motivations. Moreover, the spatial agglomeration of pre-existing foreign investments in the region may influence the location strategies employed by EMNEs. This paper provides a theoretical framework for EMNEs to develop location strategies which may serve as guidelines to search for distinctive location advantages in their internationalization.