3 main factors for evaluating developing countries' MNCs' strategies

From my review of the literature of developing countries' MNCs' strategies, 3 factors appear to be important:

a. The specific internationalization drivers facing the industry under review: If the pressure of industry globalization is higher, MNCs from developing countries need to adopt a more global mindset in their strategic responses. The adoption of a global mindset by a company does not necessarily imply requirement to establish its own global supply chain.
b. Firm-specific advantage as a source of sustainable competitive advantage: Most MNCs in developing countries started off with country-specific advantages, e.g. low-labour cost in their home countries, but this type of advantage could not support sustainable competitive advantage for them. Thus, they have to focus on building up their firm-specific advantages to achieve sustainable competitive advantage (Rugman and Li, 2007). Some of these firm-specific advantages may be more relevant to other developing countries' settings. Thus, these MNCs from developing countries may find that their internationalization effort should be directed at other developing countries.
c. MNC's dynamic capability: to succeed in the venture of internationalization, developing countries' MNCs need to make very serious effort in building up dynamic capabilities; this kind of effort is related to international human resource management and insights should also be sought from this source of management literature. It should be borne in mind that suitable management talents are much fewer in developing countries' labour markets.

I am aware that there are many other factors to consider, including the size of the company concerned (see Cullen (2002, Ch. 100).) etc. Still, I think the 3 factors identified here are vital.

References

1. Cullen, J.B. (2002) Multinational Management: A strategic approach, South-Western, Thomson-Learning.
2. On dynamic capabilities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_capabilities
3. Filippaios, F. and Rama, R. (2008) "Globalisation or regionalisation? The strategies of the world's largest food and beverage MNEs", European  Management Journal 26, pp. 59-72.
4. Rugman, A.M. and Li, J. (2007) "Will China's multinationals succeed globally or regionally?", European Management Journal, Vol. 25(5), pp. 333-343.
5. Wu, J. and Pangarkar, N. (2006) "Rising to the global challenge: strategies for firms in emerging markets", Long Range Planning 39, pp. 295-313.