Rapid Internationalization of Emerging Market Business: Evidence from Asian Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide an integrated framework that conceptualizes multifaceted antecedents pertaining to international expansion of emerging market businesses in relation to firm performance. This paper develops multiple-item measures of multiple-dimensions to clarify how internationalization path and geographic scope affect emerging market MNEs performance in a sample of 115 Asia Pacific MNEs over the period 2002–2006. The result shows that the relationship between internationalization and firm performance is a nonlinear relationship. There will be a negative relationship between internationalization and performance in the first and the third stages, and a positive relationship in the second stage. The empirical results also show that Asia Pacific MNEs international expansion paths have significant differences between intra-regional markets and extra-region and global markets.