30 research outputs found
THE PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS OF INTRA- AND INTER-REGIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSIFICATION
Engaging the debate regarding the appropriate level of geographic diversification for multinational enterprises
(MNEs), we examine a critical, yet unresolved, question: How is performance impacted by the MNE's level of intraand
inter-regional diversification versus the total level of geographic diversification? Using data from 123 U.S.-
based MNEs over a seven-year period and leveraging both sales-based and subsidiary-based measures for
diversification, we find that performance increases at an increasingly higher rate as firms concentrate more heavily
on intro-regional diversification. Regarding inter-regional diversification and total geographic diversification, we
find inverted-U relationships to exist between firm performance and the level of geographic diversification.
Different from recent research on multinationality, our robustness checks indicate no evidence of a sigmoidal
relationship between the degree of regional diversification and performance