Too big, too quick?. An institutional and systemic overview of the rise of Russian metallurgical transnationals

This paper presents some stylized facts about the expansion of the Russian metallurgical industry from the early nineties to the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. It retraces the internationalization of these firms and examines the characteristics of this movement in terms of geographical and industrial orientation (horizontal, vertical upstream or downstream). The magnitude and speed of Russian metallurgical expansion abroad represent a great opportunity to discuss the literature on how firms become transnationals. After an assessment of the limits of the available theoretical tools and of the need to articulate micro-mechanisms and macro- and meso-dynamics, the paper provides an institutional and systemic explanatory framework.