How Foreignness can be an Asset and a Liability for Firms

Many modern firms compete globally. However, research is inconclusive on whether foreignness provides an asset or a liability in competition with domestic firms. We argue that foreign MNC subsidiaries are not per se advantaged or disadvantaged. We suggest that the distinction originates from the nature of the subsidiary’s activity in the host country. We focus on two activities: knowledge search and deployment. We predict theoretically that domestic firms have advantages from their embeddedness in the host country when they search for knowledge. However, foreign MNC subsidiaries have advantages in knowledge deployment because they draw from a richer, international knowledge pool. Still, these advantages accrue to all multinational firms, foreign and domestic. We test and support these predictions for a longitudinal dataset of 2900 firm observations in Spain. We develop recommendations for research and practice based on these findings.