This study explores the impact of market-seeking internationalization, including exporting, industry linkages with foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) at home (e.g., being a supplier), and market-seeking foreign direct investment (FDI) on the digital transformation of large manufacturing firms from an emerging economy. I revisit the springboard perspective, arguing that serving international customers contributes to emerging market firms gaining dynamic capabilities and eventually leads to the adoption of digital technologies. A four-step mediation analysis, as well as path analysis using structural equation modeling, is employed to test the hypotheses. The results show that dynamic capabilities mediate the relationship between internationalization and digital transformation for exporting and market-seeking FDI, while industry linkages with foreign MNEs at home directly lead to digital transformation. With strategic asset-seeking FDI being controlled, our findings highlight that capability upgrading is not only about acquiring knowledge from outward internationalization but also through the endogenous growth path of learning by doing and knowledge acquisition from inward internationalization.

Do it right the first time! But, how? Current dialogue on the expansion of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) is pervasive. Nonetheless, it ought to have examined strategic attributes and the speed of implementing different strategies for their first venture. Drawing on the springboard perspective, this study tests the impact of EMNEs' first cross-border acquisition (CBA) strategy and speed on their consequential expansion frequency and performance. We also examine the boundary conditions of comparative nationalism between countries, in view of the resurgence of nationalism in an era of deglobalization. Findings reveal that EMNEs' rapid adoption of a focused strategy for their first CBA increases their expansion frequency, while the adoption of a conglomerate strategy decreases it. These relationships are affected in reverse by high comparative nationalism, and the performance consequences of expansion vary with firms using different strategies for their first attempt. This study enriches the EMNE literature and highlights the role of national ideologies in international business research.