Organizational learning and innovation capabilities are widely regarded as important sources of competitive advantage as they enhance a firm’s capacity to create, maintain, expand and renew its bases of strategic resources, and, as a result, increase its chances of success in the marketplace. Despite this recognition, the rational choice assumption implicit in Dunning’s (1980) ownership, location and internalization (OLI) advantages model of foreign direct investment (FDI) has led researchers to assume away firm-level differences in knowledge management capability (KMC) such as market orientation that influence how small and medium enterprise (SME) acquires knowledge and use the insights gained to assess and respond to both host market opportunities and uncertainties. This study addresses this theoretical gap in FDI research by exploring three related issues. 1/. How does a SME’s market orientation influence its competitiveness in a foreign market? 2/. What is the effect of a SME’s knowledge related competitive advantages on the level of FDI it chooses to have in its operations in its most important foreign market? 3/. How does a SMIE’s investment readiness [a proxy for financial capital adequacy] moderate the link between a SME’s perceived competitiveness and its level of FDI in a foreign market? Overall the study shows that adopting an organizational capability perspective that focuses on an individual SME’s capabilities and incorporating strategic considerations in FDI analysis complements the industry-based OLI model that appears better suited for explaining broad patterns of FDI flows at the industry level. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/189139 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Frimpong , Anokye, University of Western Sydney, College of Law and Business, School of Marketing and International Business |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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