Flip Side Internationalization: Mexican Manufacturing Companies to the US
Abstract: conventional internationalization cases are those carried out by companies from developed to undeveloped countries all over the globe; despite this pattern, there have been remarkable cases of companies from emerging countries that not only went international but also became world leaders. These companies took advantage of their position in the home country and learned from first movers, the convenience of standardization to launch global products. The study of these emerging giants is been recurrent nowadays, which turned them into quasi-conventional internationalization cases. On the other hand, this paper is about Mexican companies with little internationalization experience that in recent years decided to move operations to the US. The peculiarities of these companies rely on the fact that being close to market and part of the same trade agreement is not longer an advantage to compete by exporting from Mexico. A high commitment of sales to the US over total company sales, huge differences between both markets and the arrival of companies from other emerging countries to manufacture in the US have pushed them abroad.
Keywords: internationalization, from undeveloped to developed, knowledge based competition, close to market, companies from emerging countries