Strategic Configurations and International Performance of Emerging Economy Multinationals

ABSTRACT This study examines the international performance of emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) from a strategic configuration perspective. We propose that the strategic patterns of EMNEs that deliver growth and/or profitability are characterized by different configurations of environment, strategy, and managerial resource factors. Therefore, identifying and assessing strategic configurations is key to understanding EMNEs’ international performance. Employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we analyze a multi-sourced dataset of Chinese firms’ outward investment and identify multiple equifinal strategic configurations that are associated with superior international performance in terms of sales growth and/or profitability. These findings inform the development of a taxonomy of EMNEs’ strategic configurations corresponding with three performance groups, namely profitable growth, profitable niche, and poor performers.