Dear Colleagues,

The influence of institutional quality on the economic environment has been long acknowledged by researchers, notably as a main driver of foreign direct investment (FDI). Despite the abundant literature, the majority of papers analyze advanced and emerging economies either separately or without making a distinction between them. Unfortunately, it is not yet fully understood how the influence of institutional quality varies across contexts. In particular, the idiosyncrasies of emerging economies—typically characterized not only by institutional voids, higher corruption and political risk, and lower financial development, but also by recent higher economic growth—make these countries likely to differ from advanced economies.

The goal of this Special Issue is to expand the existing literature on these themes, by offering new insights and future perspectives about the differences in the relationship between FDI and institutional quality in these two different contexts and the potential repercussions in terms of sustainability for the countries in question.

We invite both conceptual and empirical research on the above themes. We are particularly interested in research combining multiple theoretical backgrounds and methodological approaches, as well as literature reviews or theory papers. Examples of relevant topics for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• How does institutional quality affect FDI in emerging economies? What are the differences compared with advanced economies?
• What are the repercussions of the relationship between institutional quality and FDI in terms of sustainability for the host country and/or for the home country?
• How do the new political and social trends in recent years affect institutional quality in emerging and advanced economies, and which new trends of FDI are emerging?
• Which institutional quality indicators have a stronger impact as barriers or attractors for FDI?
• How do individual, team, firm, and regional factors interact with institutional quality, and what are the repercussions for multinational enterprises?
• How does institutional quality affect small- and medium-sized enterprises vs. large ones?
• How are emerging economies’ multinational enterprises affected by institutional quality in their internationalization processes?

Dr. Alfredo Jiménez
Dr. Jeoung Y. Lee
Dr. Xavier Ordeñana
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• FDI
• institutional quality
• multinational enterprises
• internationalization
• emerging economies
• advanced economies.