Imprinting and early exposure to developed international markets: The case of the new multinationals

Abstract

Previous research has analyzed the imprinting effect associated with the firm's inter-national expansion without considering the full range of differences between home and hostcountries. These differences are important because, depending on the development gap, andthe direction of the difference, learning opportunities and the possibility of upgrading firm'scapabilities will be vastly different. For this reason, we analyze the specific influence of theexposure to a specific group of international markets, those that are more developed than thecountry of origin of the focal firm. Obviously, this exposure benefits especially firms from emerging and middle-income countries, which we refer to as ''new multinationals.'' We analyze thedifferent factors that influence the nature and intensity of the imprinting effect associated tothe exposure to developed international markets by new multinationals.