Timing of entry and the foreign subsidiary performance of Japanese firms

Delios and Makino adopt a contingency approach to analyze the relationship between timing of entry and a subsidiary's relative size and its survival. Using a sample of 6955 foreign entries of 703 Japanese firms, the authors develop and test hypotheses about asset-based competitive advantage moderators of timing of entry's influence on a subsidiary's relative size and survival. The results show that early entrants not only have a larger relative size but also have greater exit likelihood than do late entrants. The magnitude of these effects depends on the type of asset advantages a foreign investing firm. possesses.