Unpacking Institutional Distance: Addressing Human Capital Development and Emerging-Market Firms' Ownership Strategy in an Advanced Economy

摘要

As latecomers to global business competition, emerging-market multinational companies (EMNCs) utilize cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to quickly acquire strategic assets, resulting in an improved competitive position. Advanced markets with well-established firms and well-developed market-supporting institutions become particularly important destinations for EMNCs' foreign operations. Institutional distance, which represents conflicting legitimacy requirements between the host and home institutional environments, is expected to be negatively associated with the foreign acquirer's ownership position. The current study examines a sample of EMNCs' cross-border M&As in the United States between 2005 and 2011 and reveals the unique nature of EMNCs' ownership strategies. Taking both formal and informal institutions into consideration, our findings suggest that EMNCs originating in countries with lower levels of human capital development may have more urgency in seeking ownership control in advanced markets and are less influenced by the negative association of institutional distance in their ownership strategy.