International Business and Emerging Economy Firms: Present Characteristics and Future Trends

Abstract

Due to their consistent successful international expansion, emerging economy firms have continually attracted the attention of international business scholars. They face them with a plethora of challenges as existing international business theories, developed overtime in the Western context, often inevitably fail to explain how emerging economy firms internationalise and what accounts for their successful foreign operations. While emerging economies were in the past seen as markets and/or providers of resources targeted by expansion and opportunistic driven Western firms, present-day multinationals from emerging economies have become their contestants in multiple fields and industries worldwide. Besides, digitalisation, provide opportunities for firms, more importantly small companies, regardless of their origin, to compete successfully in the world marketplace where many small and medium-sized firms from emerging economies have established their international presence.