Chapter 1: Introduction

Emerging markets (EMs) have become increasingly favorite destinations of multinational enterprises (MNEs) (Enderwick, 2008; IMF, 2017¹; London & Hart, 2004; Ruddick, 2014) because the cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) of EMs is estimated to climb around 2 percentage points higher than that of developed economies in the coming years. These markets are likely to account for around $20 trillion consumer spending, 40% of the total spending, by 2020 (Lang et al., 2018). EMs grew by 4.3% in 2017, compared with 3.7% in 2016. Global growth has been predicted to remain at around 3% in 2018–2019, while EMs’ growth was predicted to reach 4.5% in 2018 and 4.7% in 2019 (Casanova & Miroux, 2018).