The anomaly of micromultinationals from low-income countries

Abstract

My study is about understanding the existence of micromultinationals (mMNEs) in low-income countries. These firms are considered an anomaly based on existing international business theories and frameworks. As the existence of these mMNEs from low-income contexts is currently not fully explained, it is important to understand how they came to be and what this means for existing theories and frameworks in international business My study is set in a very specific context. It is set in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. These three countries are low-income economies with what are considered extreme environmental conditions. These conditions presented an opportunity to explore theory building in an extreme context. The resource constraints experienced by small businesses from environments with unique challenges already present an opportunity to extend theory. Using the Country Specific Advantages /Firm Specific Advantages (CSA/FSA) framework as the theoretical lens, I identified a gap in the framework due to this anomaly. The results show that it can be modified to explain the activities of micromultinationals from low-income economies, making it more applicable across different contexts. Therefore, the main theoretical contribution of the study is that it extends the CSA/FSA framework to accommodate perspectives from advanced, emerging and low-income economies. It shows us that internationalisation can happen in any context and what is critical is for the firm or the host country to be relatively more attractive for this to happen. From methodological point of view, the study develops new ways to analyse primary data for abductive research studies. From a practical perspective, the study presents governments from low-income countries with an opportunity to look beyond large multinational enterprises (MNEs) foreign direct investment (FDI) attraction and facilitation policies. This study presents an opportunity to re-look all main international business theories in extreme contexts such low income countries and to find the commonalities between them rather than focus on the differences and nuances of each context. It calls for the strengthening of international business theory by testing them in extreme contexts.