Essays on international market entry: Strategic alliance governance and product segment entry

This dissertation consists of three empirical studies on the entry and evolution of foreign firms in a new market. The common thread through these three essays is a focus on the scope of the foreign firm in a host country, and on how this scope is shaped by local firms and environments. The first essay examines the effect of the technology capability of the local Indian firm on the choice between contractual and equity governance modes in strategic alliances between Indian and foreign firms. The second and third essays study the entry behaviour of foreign firms into various segments of the US automobile industry focusing on how these entry decisions are shaped by competition and mutualism from other firms in the segment. Across the three essays, the thesis thus examines the scope of the foreign firm both in terms of its economic boundaries – what it ‘makes’ and what it ‘buys’-, as well as in terms of its product-market footprint – the product segments it occupies in the host country.