Norte o sul/sur? Multilatinas' choice of developed versus developing countries for foreign acquisitions

We develop novel theory and empirical evidence on multilatinas to understand the determinants of their choice between acquisitions in developed countries (“Northern” acquisitions) and in developing countries (“Southern” acquisitions). We theorize that multilatinas will be more likely to engage in Northern or Southern acquisitions based on distinct firm- and industry-specific characteristics. Our empirical evidence based on a sample of multilatinas from Brazil, Chile and Mexico is largely, but not entirely, consistent with our developed hypotheses. We find higher labor intensity associated with Southern acquisitions. On its own, we do not find research and development (R&D) intensity to be associated with acquisition location choice. However, we find that multilatinas that compete in high-technology (“high-tech”) industries to be more likely to engage in Northern acquisitions. We also find a positive interactive effect on Northern acquisitions between R&D intensity and competing in a high-tech industry.