Selecting Features that Drive Internationalization of Spanish Firms

Internationalization is nowadays common for many large enterprises and as a result Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows are increasing. Bilateral psychic distance stimuli between home and host countries and vicarious experience are analyzed, together with other firm- and country-level FDI determinants, by means of a feature selection model to gain deep knowledge about the internationalization strategy of Spanish large firms. Wrapper feature selection based on a genetic algorithm is applied to identify the most important features leading to internationalization decision. Additionally, obtained results are compared to those obtained by logistic regressions (Standard, Rare Event, and Conditional).