Location Choice of FDI
The theory of FDI needs to examine what is the mechanism that foreign companies use when they decide to invest abroad. Until now, no theory can explain the rule of international investment’s location choice. they are as follows:
• Knowledge and experience of foreign market
• Size and growth of the foreign market
• Government emphasis on FDI and financial incentives
• Economic Policy
• Transportation material and labor cost
• Availability of resources
• Technology
• Political Stability
Foreign companies who want to minimize total cost might chose the appropriate countries that can bring minimized cost, such as the investment on labor-hunter will choose the country having enough labor force and cheap labor cost; investment on technology-hunter will choose the country having higher technical level; investment on resource-seeker will choose the country having abundant natural resource; investment on lower information and transportation-cost hunter will choose the close and familiar country having convenient communication; investment on avoiding or policy-seeker will choose the country having preferential tax revenue policy or relative policies; and investment on maximizing the price of product and service will choose the country having higher salary level, enough purchasing
According to the literature (Buckey, J.P; Devinney, M.T and Louviere, .J.J, 2007) the location and control decision of multinational enterprise are at the core of managerial decision-making and academic theorizing in international business. For each activity the company undertakes, it has two critical decisions: firstly they need to decide where should the activity be located? And secondly, how should it be controlled? (Buckley, 2004). According to Aharoni (1966) in his book “The Foreign Direct Investment Decision Process”, it is underlined that FDI is not a point of time “go/no-go” decision but a rather an important process to be considered well in advance.
The research done by Bertrand et al (2004) during the period of 1990-1999 among OECD countries underlined the determinants of cross-border M&A location choice. According to them it was found that the geographic distribution of M&A is not determined only by the availability of domestic assets. The market size, the labor cost, the market access and financial openness matters as well. Barkema et al (1996), emphasize that cultural distance is a prominent factor in entry, especially where another company is involved, in a joint venture for instance. Hinisz (2000) in his research finds that host country institutions are important, and that joint ventures are preferred when vulnerabilities in the host country are greatest. Another research done by Chung (2001) finds technology factors to be important; both transfer and accession of technology show up as determinants in different context. Moreover Chung and Alcacer (2002) observe location within the USA, and find that, in addition to traditional location factors, knowledge seeking motivations may operate through laboratories and manufacturing facilities. Another study done by Mitra and Golder (2002) underline that cultural distance from the home market is not a significant factor, but knowledge about nearby market can have a significant effect