Not All Competitors are Created Equal : The Heterogeneity of MNE Competitors and its Competitive Consequences

By virtue of their participation in multiple competitive settings, MNEs confront competitors with different attributes and in different locations, creating variations that pose different competitive challenges. We classify MNE competitors by their nationality, geographic scope, and location, and maintain that the value of a focal MNE's assets and the intensity of the competition it faces vary in relation to these competitors. These predictions are tested on a sample of US legal-services MNEs as the focal MNEs in relation to different sets of competitors. We find support for the anticipated variations across competitor groups, suggesting that varying competitive positions of MNEs across countries is an inherent feature of international competition