Multilatinas and International Business Studies

Abstract

I study Multilatinas, Latin American multinationals, and explain how their analysis helps provide new insights on internationalization. I propose that the historical commonalities among Latin American countries help control for influences that facilitate the analysis of the impact of the home country on internationalization in a way that is not possible when studying firms in other regions. I illustrate this idea explaining how internationalization is affected by geographic distance markets, by political influences on state-owned firms, by the size of the home market, and by the new middle classes in emerging economies.