Summary

Indian firms have overcome their resource and latecomer disadvantages through strategic asset-seeking, learning, and resilient adaptation to new environments. Foreign market access was facilitated through a series of pro-market reforms, enabling the firms greater access to capital for sourcing research and development as well as market-seeking investments abroad. Indian firms have displayed capabilities beyond low cost and skilled talent. These include assimilative and autonomous learning, strategic agility, ambidexterity, indigenous growth models, catch-up strategies, and more. Indian emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) displayed technological prowess in pharmaceutical manufacturing through learning via acquisition of certifications, foreign collaborations for innovation, and acquisition of foreign patent rights. In addition to the famed “global delivery model,” Indian information technology (IT) firms exhibited managerial capabilities in interface competence to manage clients and host institutions, collaborations with clients for innovation, and internal quality control. They have been ambidextrous, simultaneously pursuing innovation and survival, tapping their network expertise, and fostering an entrepreneurial mindset. This is in spite of their limited resources and experience as compared to their counterparts in advanced markets.

Organization learning has been instrumental for these IT firms in their pursuit of catch-up to challenge the dominance of advanced market firms at home and abroad. They have displayed resilience by shedding the negative imprints of functioning in pre-liberalization state-controlled industries and adapting to the changed environments. Business groups and visionary top management teams have played a crucial role in India’s aggressive foray overseas through institutional transition at home and abroad. Owners’ prior international exposure and specific categories of institutional owners such as foreign institutional investors have aided firms’ internationalization decisions.

Despite the developments, structural inadequacies prevail, requiring both firm and policy attention. Future research directions highlight the need to address heterogeneity among the EMNEs and broaden the scope of industries other than IT, pharmaceuticals, and automobiles. A discussion on the current trends in world foreign direct investment (FDI) flows covers the evolving global FDI landscape including the emergence of platforms, ecosystems, and geopolitical tensions ruling investment decisions of firms.