The internationalization of emerging market firms (EMFs) has attracted substantial research attention. Yet, how EMFs engage in diversification and innovation during internationalization remains underexplored. Drawing insights from a geographic relational perspective, we perform a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of EMFs. Our findings suggest that EMFs can choose from multiple equifinal internationalization pathways to capture growth opportunities in diversification and/or innovation. These new insights emphasize that achieving diversification or innovation requires a combination of organizational contextuality, international path dependence, and geographic practice attributes. We further develop a taxonomy of five EMFs’ geographic relational configurations for diversification and/or innovation: entrenching specialist, niche explorer, global adapter, transnational agent, and strategic aspirant. Overall, by unleashing the power of configurational analysis, this paper reveals what is behind the intriguing internationalization of EMFs with a focus on diversification and innovation.

中文翻译：

---

新兴市场公司国际化、多元化和创新背后的原因：一种地域关系方法


新兴市场公司 （EMF） 的国际化引起了研究的大量关注。然而，EMF 如何在国际化过程中参与多元化和创新仍未得到充分探索。从地理关系角度汲取见解，我们对 EMF 样本进行了模糊集定性比较分析 （fsQCA）。我们的研究结果表明，EMF 可以从多种等最终国际化路径中进行选择，以抓住多元化和/或创新的增长机会。这些新的见解强调，实现多元化或创新需要组织环境、国际路径依赖性和地理实践属性的结合。我们进一步开发了五种 EMF 的地理关系配置的分类法，以实现多元化和/或创新：巩固专家、利基探索者、全球适应者、跨国代理人和战略有抱负者。总体而言，通过释放配置分析的力量，本文揭示了 EMF 有趣的国际化背后的原因，重点是多元化和创新。