This paper aims to examine the conditions, characteristics and strategies pertaining to the rise of emerging markets’ multinationals (EMNEs).
The paper relies on both academic and professional resources to offer a holistic understanding of EMNEs by reviewing, analyzing and classifying their underlying conditions, characteristics, internationalization motivations, strategies and competitive advantages.
The analysis indicates that EMNEs ascended as a result of major socio-economic transformations in the past two decades after the Cold War; follow an accelerated path of expansion; implement flexible and decentralized organizational configurations; enjoy strong political connections; do not internationalize according to the ownership-location-internalization paradigm, rather follow the linkage-leverage-learning pattern; benefit from multiple sources of competitive advantage and adopt five main types of international strategies; are becoming more sophisticated and represent serious threats to their counterparts from advanced economies.
As emerging markets and their multinationals are highly heterogeneous, the findings and suggestions remain context-bound.
The paper synthesizes the EMNEs literature, bridges theory and practice and offers an integrative outline that can be useful for international business managers.
The paper takes an all-inclusive approach and provides insights into multiple societal and organizational facets of EMNEs.
