A southern multinational and an emerging European state in an entry bargaining process

Abstract

The relations between host state (HS) and multinational corporations (MNCs) have been subjected to extensive research in the International Business (IB) literature. Previous research on entry bargaining has focused on the terms of the investment deal (that is, outcome), which was regarded as the function of the relative bargaining strengths of HS and MNC. It has been noted that the MNC’s actual entry conditions (or the bargaining context) are shaped by economic resources that are of interest to the other actor, the relative stakes that the two actors have in a given bargaining situation, and the similarity of interests between the two sides (Kobrin, 1987; Behrman and Grosse, 1990; Behrman and Grosse, 1992). This has been two-actor model of the MNC-centric view of entry bargaining (Vernon, 1971, 1977; Kobrin, 1987; Eden, Lenway and Schuler, 2005).