Multinational enterprise performance is one of the most researched topics in the strategic
management literature over the last thirty years. Despite the proliferation of studies, the
dispute over the relation between firms’ international investment activities and corporate
performance has not yet reached a consensus. This paper’s contribution is threefold. First, we
focus on entry by West European multinational enterprises into Central and East European
countries. Second, we develop a multi-theory argument, combining insights from transaction
cost, new institutional, behavioral, resource-based and international strategy theories. Third,
we estimate the determinants of managerial satisfaction with subsidiary performance with
questionnaire data for a sample of 198 subsidiaries.