Regional and Global Strategies of Japanese Firms1

Zusammenfassung

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The authors' evidence from the analysis of 1,229 Japanese multinational firms shows notable differences in the components of an internationalization strategy by the type of global and regional strategy employed. This evidence suggests that a host-oriented, but not a home-oriented, strategy is a step in the direction of a global strategy in a manner consistent with existing internationalization, internalization and global strategic management views of multinational firms. They find that Japanese firms with a home-oriented international strategy had lower performance (ROS, ROA and Tobin's Q) then firms that had a host-oriented, bi-regional or global strategy. Well-internationalized firms (those with more than 50 FDIs) that adopted a tri-regional or quad-regional global strategy, had significantly and substantively higher performance, than those using a home-oriented or host-oriented regional expansion strategy.

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Auszug

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Regional and Global Strategies of Japanese Firms1

Do most multinational firms have a home-region, not a global, orientation as advocated by Rugman (2000) and Rugman and Verbeke (2003)? If so, what are the strategies, characteristics and performance of firms with a home region orientation? Do these strategies, characteristics and performance vary compared to firms with a global orientation? We address these questions to develop a better understanding of the focus a firm places on different world regions in its international activities. We do so by examining not just the world's largest multinational firms (Rugman 2000), but by examining a large sample of firms from one country (Japan).

In this examination, we focus exclusively on a firm's international operations, and exclude consideration of a firm's home market activities when identifying the extent of its global or regional orientation. We hence consider whether we would find a high proportion of home-oriented, or one-region-focused multinational firms, if we just observe a firm's international operations. As a further motivation, we look at a number of questions raised by Rugman and Verbeke (2003) when they reviewed the evidence on the internationalization patterns of the world's largest multinational firms. There are several issues raised by Rugman and Verbeke (2003) we consider of primary importance if the academic community is to push forward with research on global strategies and the realities of a regional market focus in multinational operations.

First, we test the validity of the evidence put forward by Rugman (2000) for the idea that international expansion and multinational competition emerges with a home-based, regional focus. We examine the evidence in several ways. We use a sample of la...

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