The Geography of Foreign Direct Investment: A Tripartite Framework

Patterns in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) over the 1990s reveal three internationalization strategies: classic internationalization, emerging internationalization and competitive internationalization. The evolving tripartite framework enables to position internationalization strategies, FDI theories and, a number of emerging issues related to FDI and globalization in their geographical context. The three internationalization strategies simultaneously shape, although not necessarily to the same extent, nor in a similar fashion, current globalization. Driven by ‘regionalism’ among homogeneous blocks (in particular among the European Union member states and between the EU and the United States) ‘competitive internationalization’ is arguably the most salient feature of globalization at the end of the 20th century.