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Partnering Toward Internationalization at Four Arabian Mobile Telecom Firms
Author(s) -
Ahmad Syed Zamberi
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
global business and organizational excellence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.227
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1932-2062
pISSN - 1932-2054
DOI - 10.1002/joe.21573
Subject(s) - internationalization , foreign direct investment , business , liberalization , transaction cost , bureaucracy , empirical research , industrial organization , investment (military) , domestic market , international trade , marketing , international economics , telecommunications , economics , market economy , finance , philosophy , epistemology , politics , political science , computer science , law , macroeconomics
Internationalization has fostered rapid growth in the Arabian telecommunications market over the past 14 years. A study of the motives, strategies, and foreign direct investment (FDI) activities of four Gulf Cooperation Council telecommunications companies provides rare empirical insight into the entry of Middle Eastern multinationals into international markets and serves to help fill the gap in research on the experience of service firms in developing countries, particularly those from the Arab region. Although three of the four companies in this analysis have undergone rapid international expansion via substantial initial FDI, in terms of entry strategies all four firms initially preferred alliances and majority‐owned joint ventures/partnerships with local partners to minimize uncertainty, cope with bureaucratic obstacles, and gain access to technology and local host country markets. Some of the underlying factors that contributed to their expansion were market liberalization, the desire to earn higher returns on investments and lower transaction costs, competitor's reactions, and psychic distance/cultural links. Though focused on the internationalization behavior of Arabian telecommunications companies, the study provides broader theoretical and empirical insights and offers managerial implications applicable to the telecommunications field, as well as to other industries once characterized by regulatory stringency. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.