A growth pattern of foreign investment motivations by individuals

Purpose - This paper aims to introduce a growth comprehensive pattern to explain the phenomenon of individual foreign investment, first at the global level and then at the regional level. The patterns are developed based on a number of main theories with grounded theory (GT) as the foundation, distributed on the two pull and push forces of international business theory and migration theory; simultaneously, it is classified on the three levels (attribute–consequence–value [ACV]) of means-end theory. Design/methodology/approach - An embedded method is applied to generate two complementary datasets from two approaches: in-depth interviews and secondary data analysis. Findings - In this structure, the investor plays a central role as the decision-maker based on the entrepreneur's motives for internationalization (economics-driven and psychology-driven factors) and the householders' motives for emigration (aspiration and access capabilities). The external forces considered are a push from the home country (structures) and pull from the host country (immigrant investment programs [IIPs]), in which the factor of (dis)trust/misconception as a moderator has an additional impact on this mobility. Demographic factors such as gender, region, generation/age, level of education, religion and occupation generally describe the characteristics of each specific target group. Research limitations/implications - This paper is to develop a conceptual framework. Originality/value - The results of this study, in addition to fulfilling its own objectives, will also serve as the foundation for further research in several scientific fields such as economics, sociology and politics. Peer review - The peer review history for this article is available athttps://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2022-0786