The Multiple Dimensions of Embeddedness of Small Multinational Enterprises

This research investigates how small multinational enterprises (small MNEs) internationalize by opening branch offices or subsidiaries in foreign markets, managing their multiple embeddedness in their host and home locations, and their subsidiaries’ dual embeddedness in external environments and within their organizations. We study four small multinational enterprises, two each from the small open economies of New Zealand and Finland, and we use literature from entrepreneurship and international business to derive a model of these multiple dimensions of embeddedness. The cases illustrate how firms can become more (or less) embedded in their locations through their physical presence, operations, key employees, and local hires while achieving internal organizational embeddedness through their corporate structure and social and technological bridging. Our research gives insight into how small MNEs may overcome their liabilities of smallness, foreignness, and outsidership by drawing on resources from home and host locations and sharing this throughout the organization.