The limits of firm-level globalization: Revisiting the FSA/CSA matrix

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) engaging in foreign direct investment (FDI) need advantages allowing them to offset the liability of foreignness in host countries. This liability of foreignness gives rise to additional operational costs related to economic, institutional, and cultural differences between home and host countries. MNEs therefore need to own or control firm-specific advantages (FSAs) that, along with country-specific advantages (CSAs) and internalization advantages, affect international business transactions. In this paper, we revise Rugman’s classic FSA/CSA matrix to better reflect how firms bundle their assets with CSAs. We further contribute to the prior debate on the linkages between the global factory paradigm and internalization theory by empirically evaluating the validity of a key proposition associated with the global factory, namely that FDI becomes relatively less important as a building block of the modern MNE. We do so using data on FDI and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, a major component of FDI.