The touch of Midas or the curse of Bhasmasura? Learning from failures of Indian investments in Finland

Abstract

This seminar presentation contributes to expanding the conversations around investments of multinational companies from emerging economies (EMNCs) in developed countries. The purpose is to invite attention to management processes and business systems in how these combine to affect outcomes. There are very few enterprise level studies of Indian outward foreign direct investments (OFDI) to a developed country, and none at all to Nordic Europe. Longitudinal studies of the two of the first Indian foreign direct investments in Finland (both failed) would be shared to raise working hypotheses that merit deepening studies for the geographical diversification by Indian business groups. Tentative policy implications arising for host and home country and for others treading such paths would be discussed. The tentative conclusion is that the pull for OFDI from emerging and developing economies in investment-scarce developed countries can attract investments that raise the spectre of adverse selection, besides moral hazards. Inward foreign investments regarded as nectar may be poisonous if the nexus of stakeholders lacks motivations or capabilities to go beyond the lure of para-statal incentives and subsidies that could be one of the key pulls or drivers of such investments.