We have been fascinated by emerging market multinationals, and interested in understanding them better, for a long time. In our travels in emerging markets, we observed that emerging market firms were dramatically increasing in size and scope and in some cases expanding beyond their countries at a rapid rate. At the same time, existing recommendations about how to successfully invest in foreign markets did not seem applicable; established theories and models of international expansion were developed by analyzing firms headquartered in advanced economies and did not seem to fit the operating conditions of emerging markets. We thought we needed to go deeper into understanding how such conditions affected the internationalization of emerging market multinationals because we had experienced and observed such differences. All three of us had spent decades analyzing firms in emerging markets.

Sam had direct experience in Asia and Eastern Europe, Alvaro had focused his interests on Latin America, and Bill straddled two continents, having first gained experience in Asia before adding a Latin American focus. We had published extensively on the internationalization of firms, especially emerging market multinationals, but most of these publications were academic. We thought it was time for a managerial book that would sum up our experiences and thoughts and reach a wider audience.

This book started its life as a research project for the Skolkovo-Ernst & Young Institute for Emerging Market Studies (IEMS). In 2012, Sam was the managing director of the Institute and Alvaro and Bill were nonresident senior research fellows. At the 2012 annual meeting, we had animated discussions about the rise of emerging markets and their multinationals and marveled at how some were not only catching up with established competitors from advanced economies but, in some cases, also becoming global leaders. At the time, Sam had just completed his book Rough Diamonds: The Four Traits of Successful Breakout Firms in BRIC Countries (Jossey-Bass, 2013), in which he described the rise of these new global competitors and provided some fascinating stories from his conversations with managers. Later, Alvaro co-edited the book Understanding Multinationals from Emerging Markets (Cambridge University Press, 2014), in which he analyzed theoretical explanations for the emergence and expansion of emerging country multinationals, while Bill co-edited Internationalization, Innovation and Sustainability of MNCs in Latin America (2013) on the internationalization of Latin American firms, which provided additional insights.