Channel strategies of foreign sales subsidiaries: The case of firms from developing countries operating in developed countries

In recent years, many firms from developing countries (LDCs) have engaged in foreign direct investment (FDI). Interestingly some of these firms locate their investments in developed countries (DCs) (i.e., upstream FDI), instead of in countries economically similar to or less than their home countries (i.e., downstream FDI). However, only a few researchers have examined the issues related to upstream FDI. Furthermore, when examining FDI, most studies have focused on manufacturing subsidiaries but paid less attention to sales subsidiaries. Due to the differences in nature, management of manufacturing and sales subsidiaries should be different. Using a case study approach and focusing on the behaviors of Taiwanese firms, we address two research questions: (1) what are the channel strategies adopted by the sales subsidiaries of Taiwanese high-tech firms (i.e., multinational corporations (MNCs) from LDCs (LDCMNCs)) in DCs? and (2) how do these subsidiaries manage their channels in DCs? Our findings are: (1) LDCMNCs tend to use multiple sales channels, to work with large national distributors, and to adopt high touch channels to market products in DCs; (2) to reduce channel conflict, less powerful LDCMNCs tend to adopt multiple independent channel system, instead of dual channel system; and (3) due to limited resources, LDCMNCs make more effort on designing channel conflict prevention mechanisms than designing channel conflict resolution mechanisms, emphasize more on building relationships with distributors and tend to use financial incentives/high-power incentives than use other types of incentives to motivate distributors. The findings of this study are helpful for LDC firms to operate their sales subsidiaries more effectively in DCs.