Title: Institutional development, economic liberalisation and firm internationalisation

Authors: Sonia Ketkar

Addresses: School of Public Policy, George Mason University, 3351 Fairfax Drive, MS 3B1, Arlington, VA 22201, USA

Abstract: This study investigates whether differences between developing countries in the extent of institutional development and economic liberalisation explain some variation in the internationalisation patterns of their firms. We suggest that these countries experience a trade-off between inward and outward firm internationalisation decisions. We use a sample of 6,877 firms across 59 developing countries and hierarchical linear modelling to examine the effect of country-level factors on firm internationalisation variables. We find that institutional development is related to outward internationalisation whereas economic liberalisation is associated with inward internationalisation. Younger firms are more likely to take advantage of globalisation opportunities provided by reform.

Keywords: developing countries; institutional development; economic liberalisation; internationalisation patterns; multilevel modelling; globalisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBG.2012.050907

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2012 Vol.9 No.4, pp.412 - 430

Published online: 20 Aug 2014 *

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