Resumo

The internationalization of firms in emerging economies is a recent phenomenon that draws attention in the global economy (Gammeltoft, Barnard, & Madhok, 2010). Nowadays, champions of emerging markets are present in a wide range of sectors (Contractor, 2013). As late movers in the global markets, the international expansion of these firms has challenged theories and practices established in the field of international businesses (Cuervo-Cazurra, 2007; Hoskisson, Eden, Lau, & Wright, 2000).

From the academic point of view, there is not a theoretical approach that deals specifically with the late movers. In this context, the aim of this article consists in analyzing the scientific production on EMMs focusing on the main studies about this phenomenon. Some questions instigated and guided the investigation, such as: what do the main studies on EMMs reveal? What are the main arguments of the studies of EMMs? What are the main results?

The essence of the emerging economies lies in their dynamics and need to consider the changes in the institutional environment (Hoskisson, Eden, Lau, & Wright, 2000). Especially on EMMs, the recent and consistent increase in the international presence of these firms starts to test the limits of the existing theories and question increasingly if these theories are relevant to EMMs that are internationalizing at different time, with different starting points (Gammeltoft, Barnard, & Madhok, 2010).

This study is characterized by the qualitative advantage and descriptive form. It is also a document study made through the systematic review technique. The data basis Web of Science was used as research source and two criteria were used interchangeably: a) impact factor of the journal, with JCR over 2.5 in the 5-year impact factor; b) number of citations received, with the selection of articles that had at least 10 citations. The adoption of these criteria resulted in 21 articles.

The authors of the articles studied here build arguments to further the existing literature on EMMs by discussing new propositions, theoretical gaps, and questions little explored about the topic. There are different and divergent points of investigation among the analyzed articles that refer to the appearing conclusion that understanding the internationalization process of firms in emerging markets is still far to be consolidated.

Specifically in the academic field, the debate on the explanations on the EMMs phenomenon, polarized in supporting that the existing theories suffice to this explanation or that the EMMs only can be understood with new theories, is present directly or indirectly in most of the articles analyzed. Some authors, such as Hennart (2012), Narula (2012) and Ramamurti (2012b), use this debate as a focus or conducting line when developing their studies.

Contractor, F.J. (2013) ‘Punching above their weight’: The sources of competitive advantage for emerging market multinationals. International Journal of Emerging Markets, 8(4), 304-328. Losada-Otálora, M., & Casanova, L. (2014) Internationalization of emerging multinationals: the Latin American case. European Business Review, 26(6), 588-602. Ramamurti, R. (2012b) What is really different about emerging market multinationals? Global Strategy Journal, 2(1), 41-47.