What is a multinational corporation? Classifying the degree of firm-level multinationality

A Cost-Based Explanation of Gradual, Regional Internationalization of Multinationals on Social Networking Sites

“…A company was retained in the dataset if it had pages for five or more countries, which for the purposes of applying internationalization theories had a meaning analogous to subsidiaries. This approach is in line with internationalization in the physical world: the presence of subsidiaries is the most common way of defining an MNC (Aggarwal et al 2011), although there is no commonly accepted number of subsidiaries that would qualify a firm as an MNC. For example, Minbaeva (2007) used two subsidiaries, Nohria and Ghoshal (1994) used five and James and Hill (1994) used seven.…”

“…Another consequence of having such product is that building legitimacy in each foreign location may not be necessary, or at least can be significantly lowered. Furthermore, cross-border activities at various steps in the value chain, including R&D, marketing, production (where applicable), sales and after-sales are greatly facilitated by information technology (Aggarwal et al 2011).…”

The Impact of Internationalization on Zero Leverage: Evidence from the UK

“…Additionally, MNCs should avoid raising debt 4 We obtain these figures from the Worldscope database. 5 The literature offers a wide range of definitions for MNCs, with a detailed summary of the various approaches offered in Aggarwal et al (2011). It is not the purpose of this study to find the best method to define an MNC and, thus, elect to follow the leverage literature and use the ratio of foreign sales-to-total sales (see, Chen et al, 1997;Park et al, 2013) to obtain comparable results.…”

“…Based on the above, multinational firms might be in a position to take better advantage of debt financing. 1 Third, prior research has established significant links between the level of internationalization and various metrics of company performance (Aggarwal et al, 2011). It is therefore, plausible that the international dimension is also relevant in determining the zero leverage decision and, hence, models that ignore this factor could be misspecified.…”

Industry globalization and the performance of emerging market firms: Evidence from China

“…Firms that have the benefit of large domestic markets (allowing them to gain the benefit of economies of scale without exports, Stoian, Rialp, & Rialp, 2010) and lack sophisticated capabilities may find it fruitful to focus on domestic markets and forego exports (Aggarwal, Jenny, Hutson, & Kearney, 2010;Lavie & Fiegenbaum, 2000;Wu & Pangarkar, 2006). In fact, these firms may be better off responding directly to the threat posed by import competition within the confines of domestic market by improving their efficiency, for instance (Dawar & Frost, 1999).…”