Desempenho de subsidiárias de empresas multinacionais brasileiras: uma análise em diferentes contextos institucionais

Abstract

Research on emerging-market multinationals’ performance has been recurrent in the international business literature. Drawing on the institution-based view, this study examines the performance of Brazilian multinational enterprises’ subsidiaries located in different host institutional contexts. Specifically, it was investigated the effects of institutional regulatory and normative distances; ownership strategy; and government support on the subs idiary financial performance. It was also analyzed ownership strategy and government support as moderating factors of the institutional distance ’s impact on the subsidiary performance. A multilinear regression was used in order to analyze a panel dataset of 296 subsidiaries, representing 32 multinational enterprises, operating in 40 host countries, over a 10-year period (2006-2015). As opposed to what it was hypothesized, it was found that institutional distance positively affects subsidiary performance. The findings also show that full ownership and government support positively affects subsidiary performance. Moreover, the results suggests that subsidiaries with partial ownership located in developed and institutionally distant host countries perform better. It was also found a positive relationship between government support, regulatory distance and subsidiary performance. However, the same relationship with normative distance was not statistically relevant. Despite limitations, this study contributes to the institution-based view as it analyzes the links between institutional context and emerging -market multinationals’ subsidiaries performance. This study also enhances our understanding of Latin American multinational enterprises, which constitutes a relatively understudied topic on the international business literature.