While the literature has generated impressive insights on why emerging market multinationals enterprises (EMNEs) select certain foreign locations over others, we still lack an understanding of how the home country institutional weakness affects EMNEs' foreign location choices and the mechanisms through which EMNEs overcome this effect. In this study, we investigate how the home country institutional weakness affects EMNEs' foreign location choices and how EMNEs can use home country nonmarket political strategy to address their liability of foreignness. We argue that EMNEs struggle with home country institutional weakness that are carried over in host countries and create barriers for EMNEs to enter developed or markets more institutionally distant from their home country. Thus, EMNEs are more likely to choose institutionally similar countries as their foreign direct investment (FDI) targets to help them offset the additional liability they carry. Thus, the nonmarket political strategy can serve as a response to address barriers and help EMNEs reach developed markets and those more distant from their home country institutions. On the other hand, the findings show limitations of the strategy to completely moderates the effects of home country institutional weakness on EMNEs’ foreign location choices.
Addressing endogeneity issues has been identified as a key priority for ensuring continued progress in the field of strategic management. We contribute to this research agenda by developing a generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation approach that accounts for endogeneity in dynamic models. To illustrate how endogeneity bias impedes reliable interpretation, we examine the relationship between early mover strategies and performance using data on multinational enterprises entering transition economies. Our empirical results demonstrate that early mover advantages are significantly greater after controlling for endogeneity. Additionally, we find evidence that the level of institutional development weakens the advantages of pursuing an early mover strategy in transition economies. After accounting for endogeneity, the negative moderating effect of institutional development is far more pronounced. The magnitude of these two biases underscore the necessity for scholars to adequately address endogeneity and how GMM estimation can facilitate in better understanding the performance implications of strategic choices.
This paper investigates the use of open strategizing within a high-technology new venture during rapid growth. Open strategy can facilitate growth but also presents a dilemma when increased managerial control becomes necessary, particularly with high-risk growth phases. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, we distinguish between two forms of open strategizing - rhizomatic and arborescent - as organisations navigate rapid growth. Rhizomatic open strategizing is characterised by decentralisation and self-organisation, fostering exploration and accomplishment of growth opportunities both internally and externally. In contrast, arborescent open strategizing is centralised and management-driven, emerging in response to high-risk growth situations. Our study offers new insights into how open strategizing evolves with rapid growth, emphasising the balance between endurance and change in strategizing as organisations scale up.