Foreign direct investment and small countries.
| Verfasser | Papanastassiou, Marina |
| Posten | RESEARCH ARTICLE |
Abstract and Key Results:
* The paper introduces conceptual developments, empirical evidence and public policy considerations with regard to foreign direct investment and multinational enterprises in and from small countries.
* Results emphasize the diversity of small country profiles, support the need for reconsideration of established conceptual frameworks and encourage the development of specialized policy making tools.
Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment * Small Countries
Introduction
Recent data in the annual World Investment Report (2007) show that in the top 10 of high performing countries' inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) appeared to be countries such as Malta, Estonia, Bulgaria, and Gambia. Countries such as Iceland, Ireland, and Israel are considered to be among the high FDI performers in terms of outward FDI. Thus, we do see that leading FDI performers do not limit themselves to what we traditionally consider as large and developed countries such as the US or the UK. They include a variety of countries ranging from small developed countries (e.g the Netherlands and Switzerland) with a long standing history in the international investment scene to new emerging economies notably China or India which appear not only as hosts of inward direct investment but also emerge as home countries of their own indigenous Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). At the same time, another group of countries, including Iceland, Israel, Bulgaria and others, emerge as potential key players in the global business environment.
Thus, the diversity in the country profiles that dominate the world investment scene makes it necessary to define the context of smallness, contexts for this may be 'peripheral' countries in integration schemes, transition economies emerging into the global market economy or countries at early stages of development.
Against this background the center of this focused issue is to address conceptual and empirical developments that would enhance our knowledge and understanding on the aspects of either inward or outward investment in terms of FDI and MNE activity in and from small countries. The structure of the focused issue is then developed around the following tripartite set of questions:
* Is there a need to re-configure established theoretical frameworks in the analysis of FDI and MNEs emerging from small economies or even develop new theoretical tools (within the intellectual tradition of international business which advocates a multi-disciplinary approach) in order to understand the evolution of this phenomenon?
* How these economies can serve a purpose in established foreign and newcomer home MNEs' global strategies and thus provide new empirical evidence in regards to their subsidiary positioning and motivation of expanding abroad?
* How the strategic repositioning of foreign and home MNEs activities corresponds to the policy objectives and performance (efficiency, growth, development, etc.) of small economies?
Thus, the order of the papers corresponds to our effort to provide...
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