Foreign-origin managers and FDI location choice

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Zabetta, Massimiliano Coda; Miguelez, Ernest; Lissoni, Francesco; Hegarty, Sarah
• 署名单位: University of Turin; Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC); CSIC - Instituto de Politicas y Bienes Publicos (IPP); Universite de Bordeaux; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); University of Barcelona; Catholic University of the Sacred Heart; Swinburne University of Technology
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2506
• DOI: 10.1057/s41267-024-00726-2
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 194-202
• 关键词: foreign direct investment; location choice; international migration

摘要

Building upon the upper echelons theory of organizations as applied to internationalization strategies, we investigate the impact of foreign-origin top management team (TMT) members on their companies' location choice. We propose that a manager-from-target effect may exist, by which a manager's knowledge of their country of origin increases the likelihood of choosing that country as a target. We expect it to be stronger for acquisitions than for greenfield investments, the inputs of foreign-origin managers being more relevant in the first case. Based on a large sample of foreign direct investment from 2013 to 2019, and using name analysis to identify TMT members' origins, we find that the effect is present in both establishment modes but larger and more robust for acquisitions. It is also larger in companies with less diverse TMTs, for which targeting one manager's country of origin instead of others' may be less likely to cause conflict. Future research should explore whether investments in locations suggested by managers from the target country outperform others. If this is the case, it implies that recruiting foreign-origin top managers can improve a company's internationalization strategy via better location choices.