Competing in an era of de-globalization presents new challenges for multinationals, particularly for those from large emerging economies. Emerging market MNEs (EMNEs) in the past benefited from an open, globalizing context that facilitates springboard and compositional strategies. De-globalization makes it significantly harder for them to continue this journey. This study tackles the question of what it takes for EMNEs to execute compositional springboard strategies in the new era, making five points. First, de-globalization implies difficulties for EMNEs to acquire global open resources and needed strategic options. Second, uneven de-globalization has a differential impact on the ability of EMNEs from different countries and different sectors to execute springboard strategies. Third, varieties of capitalism represent an underestimated obstacle to compositional springboard strategies, both in general and in interaction with de-globalization. Fourth, EMNEs can consider a double-loop springboard – doubling down on inward internationalization and treating inward internationalization as a series of iterative, continuous, and transformative resource acquisition loops. Finally, springboard MNEs need to reconfigure their global posture strategies and bolster their critical capabilities in pursuit of sustained advantages in a de-globalization world. © 2021, Academy of International Business.
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