Foreing direct investment and internationalization strategies of emerging country firms, and a study of foreing direct investment of Turkish firms

Recently, the rise of emerging country firms' foreign direct investments has made the study of these firms' internationalization important. Also, lately, what the emerging country firms's firm-specific avantages are and how the country-specific avantages affect the firms' firm-specific avantages have been the interest of many researchers. In this thesis study, the foreign direct investment of Turkish firms, which are emerging country firms, has been studied. By this means, how Turkish firms internationalize was explored by examining the drivers of the firms, their entry and ownership mode decisions in foreign direct investment, the processes of their internationalization, their firm-specific and country-specific advantages, and their internationalization strategies. Also, the other purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion, which is about whether these firms are a new type or not, and whether the existing theory and models that were generated by studying developed country firms' internationalization can explain the emerging country firms' internetionalization or not. In this study, case study research method was used and the data were collected through the interviews with the executives of 16 Turkish firms and documantation. Analysis of the data revealed that the firm-specific and country-specific advantages of the firms affect the firms' foreign direct investments and internationalization strategies. Also, it was revealed that the existing theory and models which were generated by studying developed country firms' internationalization could explain the emerging country firms' internationalization in the case of enhancing the theory and models by evaluating the specific conditions to emerging countries.