Internationalization, Innovation and Institutions: The 3 I's Underpinning the Competitiveness of Emerging Market Firms

The past decade has seen an increase in the extent of research focused on and around emerging market firms (EMFs) and their rising levels of competitiveness in both their home markets and more importantly in the global market place. At the same time, the practitioner-oriented literature has been documenting a growing number of corporate success stories that originate in emerging market economies. We posit that the growing prominence of EMFs is a result of three interrelated phenomena: the fast-paced internationalization of EMFs into both developing and developed market economies; the rapidly increasing extent to which business enterprises in emerging economies are focusing on knowledge-intensive processes and innovation; and the continuous evolution of institutions in these markets, particularly in terms of economic liberalization.