Race for market share gains: How emerging market and advanced economy MNEs perform in each other’s turf

The international business literature, while extensive by now, has given scant attention to the direct comparison of the performance of advanced economy multinational enterprises (AMNEs) and emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) in international markets. In particular, the question of how well these firms perform in each other’s home markets is an intriguing one. In this study, we examine “market share” performance of AMNEs and EMNEs in each other’s countries using a comprehensive, longitudinal dataset. Drawing from the eclectic paradigm, we contend that, in comparison, EMNEs perform better as they: i) develop non-traditional ownership advantages based on their learnings in their home markets, and ii) expand into advanced economy markets relying on non-traditional ownership advantages. Our findings show a declining performance of AMNEs operating in emerging markets over time, while EMNEs generally appear to benefit from increased market shares in advanced economy markets for the same period.