Inward internationalization and cross border acquisitions by emerging economy multinational enterprises: The moderating role of family and institutional ownership

Mergers and acquisitions are a complex and persistent global phenomenon. Theoretical cross-fertilization enhances our understanding of their behavior, especially in different contexts. We use organizational learning theory and institutional logic perspective to hypothesize the direct effect of inward internationalization, the negative moderating effect of family ownership and domestic institutional ownership, and the positive moderating effect of foreign institutional ownership on cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) by emerging economy multinational enterprises (MNEs). Based on data from 199 Indian MNEs over nine years consisting of an unbalanced panel with 1619 observations, our findings supported all the hypotheses except the moderating effects of domestic institutional ownership. Our findings explain that the impact of learning from inward internationalization on CBAs is not similar for all firms; rather, it depends upon ownership groups because of their institutional logic. We have proposed socioemotional wealth logic for family ownership, cautious fosterer logic for domestic institutional ownership, and yield maximizer logic for foreign institutional ownership. Our findings enhance our understanding of firms’ CBA behavior by utilizing theoretical cross-fertilization and examining CBAs in an emerging economy context.