The use of advantages within emerging market enterprises to 'plug' institutional voids

Abstract: Emerging market enterprises (EMMs) are on the rise and are quickly becoming significant contributors to the global economy. The fast-paced growth of EMMs generates an interest in understanding the impact of home country advantages that EMMs have and how they use them. Emerging markets, in different ways and forms, experience institutional voids within their markets. This can be in the form of, among others, an inefficient regulatory system, a lack of skilled labor force or poor infrastructure. The different advantages and disadvantages the EMMs have can be explored by applying the OLI framework. Which details different advantages in the form of ownership-specific, location-specific and internalization advantages. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding how different EMMs use their OLI advantages in order to more effectively plug institutional voids. This has been answered through a semi-structured interview and collected transcripts from EMM leaders. The findings of this study indicates that EMMs most important advantage is the knowledge and inventive thinking possessed by the managers.