Nationality and Subsidiary Ownership Patterns in Multinational Corporations

Abstract

This paper examines the notion that the multinational's nationality influences its foreign subsidiary ownership decisions. It identifies theoretically meaningful constructs to represent nationality and examines, under carefully controlled conditions, their influence on subsidiary ownership preferences in American and European multinationals. The paper concludes that there are indeed significant differences in ownership preferences among various nationalities that can be explained using cultural as well as economic variables, but that these differences may become weaker in larger multinationals.