My dissertation focuses on foreign entrepreneurs—individuals who establish firms outside of their native countries. Despite the prevalence of foreign entrepreneurs, their strategic choices have received little attention in the research literature. For example, when starting a firm, an entrepreneur must decide whether to manage the business personally or hire a local manager, yet we know little about how this choice affects firm performance. To examine this issue, in the first study I use a novel dataset of foreign entrepreneurial firms in Russia and a visa policy change as an instrument for the owner-manager choice. Contrary to the expectation that foreign entrepreneurs would underperform local managers due to the liability of foreignness, I find that foreign owner-managers can benefit their firms: Exogenous assignment of a local manager in place of a foreign owner-manager reduces profits. Foreign owner-managers benefit their firms by hiring cheap native-country labor as well as through reduced agency costs. The second study examines how private benefits of occupying a managerial position affect an entrepreneur’s choice between owner-management and hiring an agent. I show that foreign entrepreneurs with a strong desire to reside in a host country are more likely to become owner-managers. These results are consistent with the idea that entrepreneurs expecting to gain private benefits from managing their firms are more likely to become owner-managers. Moreover, I demonstrate that entrepreneurs are willing to substitute the non-pecuniary benefits associated with relocation for firm profit. These findings add to a growing literature exploring the role of personal preferences in entrepreneurs’ strategic decisions, such as location choice and ownership structure. The third study examines the impact of media coverage on the location choices of foreign firms. Publicly available media information has largely been ignored by the location literature, perhaps because its impact on location choice is expected to be trivial. This study challenges this assumption: Using a new instrument for media coverage (a major anniversary of a city’s establishment date), I show that extensive foreign media coverage of a city increases the number of foreign entrants. Moreover, this effect is strongest for socially and geographically distant firms and entrepreneurs.

My dissertation focuses on foreign entrepreneurs—individuals who establish firms outside of their native countries. Despite the prevalence of foreign entrepreneurs, their strategic choices have received little attention in the research literature. For example, when starting a firm, an entrepreneur must decide whether to manage the business personally or hire a local manager, yet we know little about how this choice affects firm performance. To examine this issue, in the first study I use a novel dataset of foreign entrepreneurial firms in Russia and a visa policy change as an instrument for the owner-manager choice. Contrary to the expectation that foreign entrepreneurs would underperform local managers due to the liability of foreignness, I find that foreign owner-managers can benefit their firms: Exogenous assignment of a local manager in place of a foreign owner-manager reduces profits. Foreign owner-managers benefit their firms by hiring cheap native-country labor as well as through reduced agency costs. The second study examines how private benefits of occupying a managerial position affect an entrepreneur’s choice between owner-management and hiring an agent. I show that foreign entrepreneurs with a strong desire to reside in a host country are more likely to become owner-managers. These results are consistent with the idea that entrepreneurs expecting to gain private benefits from managing their firms are more likely to become owner-managers. Moreover, I demonstrate that entrepreneurs are willing to substitute the non-pecuniary benefits associated with relocation for firm profit. These findings add to a growing literature exploring the role of personal preferences in entrepreneurs’ strategic decisions, such as location choice and ownership structure. The third study examines the impact of media coverage on the location choices of foreign firms. Publicly available media information has largely been ignored by the location literature, perhaps because its impact on location choice is expected to be trivial. This study challenges this assumption: Using a new instrument for media coverage (a major anniversary of a city’s establishment date), I show that extensive foreign media coverage of a city increases the number of foreign entrants. Moreover, this effect is strongest for socially and geographically distant firms and entrepreneurs.