EMNE heterogeneity explored: the uniqueness of Chinese EMNEs’ OFDI

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how variance in home country institutions affects location choices of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs). While international business (IB) literature on emerging markets has primarily focused on Chinese EMNEs, the authors contend the generalizability of these results to other emerging markets. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a sample of 5,299 cross-border acquisitions conducted by 3,390 EMNEs from 21 key emerging markets, over a two-decade period (2000–2019). Using hierarchical linear modeling, they test hypotheses on the effect of home country institutions on location choices of EMNEs. Additionally, they compare Chinese EMNEs to EMNEs originating from other emerging markets to assess the appropriateness of the IB literature’s focus on Chinese samples to study EMNEs. Findings The institutional dimensions of human and social capital significantly affect the location choice of EMNE cross-border acquisitions. While no significant difference is found comparing Chinese and other EMNEs, significant differences were found between countries with a state-led institutional system (including China) and countries with different institutional systems. Originality/value The authors contribute to the IB literature by investigating the effect of home country institutions on location choice. Furthermore, they challenge the representativeness of Chinese EMNEs for EMNEs in general and find support for the existence of important variance on the institutional system level. They, thus, need to more seriously consider the diversity among emerging markets, rather than treating them as a homogeneous group.