Concluding Remarks on Asian Inward and Outward FDI; New Challenges in the Global Economy

Abstract

In this volume we have attempted to give a broad overview of the current scholarly debate around foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging Asian countries, in which the main message has been to demonstrate that FDI flows — inward and outward — continuously take new directions, and change form incessantly. Despite several decades of multifaceted and successfully carried out research on FDI in different parts of the world — an endeavour that has broadened and deepened our knowledge of the complexities of international economic and political integration — reality has constantly impinged. Emerging market multinational enterprises feature new logics, and their activities are anchored in different institutional environments compared to the traditional firms, and demand accordingly new theoretical interpretations and explanations. The emerging market multinational enterprises should never be seen as a homogenous group, neither should companies from different Asian countries be scrutinized with the same glasses. Yet, there are indeed common aspects that motivate joint examination in the search for better explanation of past trends and enhanced predictability and probability of alternative future scenarios. The revealed heterogeneity between newly created multinational companies in various large emerging markets can also be seen as an appropriate starting point for the theoretical debate on intra-variations vs inner variations in the comparison with MNEs from the ‘old industrial core’ countries (for a recent successful example, see, for example, Williamson et al., 2013). It also raises the discussion of how and to what extent those companies increase competitive pressures, and one therefore needs to better understand the implications these pressures have on strategic development by competitors in Europe, Asia and in the rest of the world (for a recent publication, refer, for example, to Dolles, Alvstam and Strom, 2013).