Title: How global are German corporations? An empirical investigation

Authors: Jessica Geiger; Martha O'Hagan-Luff

Addresses: Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland ' Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland

Abstract: The internationalisation of firms has been subject of much debate in the field of international business, with many studies examining firm-level internationalisation using a number of different measures, but few investigating changes in these measures over time. In order to contribute to closing this gap, we conduct a longitudinal study of the patterns of internationalisation of 164 German firms from the Thomson Reuters Germany equity index between 1998 and 2015, contributing to the debate surrounding regionalisation or globalisation at the firm level. To capture different aspects of multinationality, we measure both the extent and scope of internationalisation. We further categorise these measures of internationalisation over time within categories of age, size, and industry. A strong trend towards globalisation is revealed, with most firms reporting foreign sales outside of Europe and very few operating in this region only.

Keywords: firm-level internationalisation; regionalisation; MNCs; longitudinal patterns of internationalisation; globalisation; scope of internationalisation.

DOI: 10.1504/GBER.2020.110013

Global Business and Economics Review, 2020 Vol.23 No.3, pp.227 - 256

Received: 25 Jan 2019
Accepted: 31 May 2019
Published online: 01 Oct 2020 *

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