| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 企業管理研究所 === 92 === This Master thesis is designed to test the currently existing internationalization theory by studying the internationalization processes of some of the representative products of a foreign multinational pharmaceutical firm — The Bristol-Myers Squibb using the data contained in the annual reports of the period from 1970’s to 1990’s. By answering the following questions, the ultimate goal is to provide useful suggestions that will help to make corrections to any possible flaws in the Internationalization theory as they are uncovered during the course of this study by answering the following questions:
i. What entry modes to foreign markets does a multinational pharmaceutical firm adopt and do entry modes change over time? Is there any sign of experience transfer?
ii. Do foreign markets served by a multinational pharmaceutical firm also change over time?
iii. Which theory depicting the internationalization process of firms is more applicable to Bristol-Myers Squibb?
The results of the analysis of the data show four important findings:
1. Progressive changes in entry modes took place in certain countries and the employment of multiple entry modes was also observed.
2. The progressive changes in entry mode were barely observed during the 1990’s.
3. The choices of foreign markets did change over time and the marketing activities of new products tended to commence in countries that are the most culturally proximal from the U.S., and then gradually shifted to countries that are more culturally distant from the U.S. However, other factors might also influence a firm’s choice in the foreign markets apart from culture.
4. There seemed to be a sign of experience transfer since the some of the results showed that the time it took to introduce a product developed in the 1980’s in foreign markets was relatively shorter than the time it took to launch a product of the 1990’s.
In conclusion, the results of study were partly consistent with ‘The Stages Internationalization Theory’ which argued that the internationalization was a process of knowledge accumulation of foreign markets and resource commitment gradually. However, there might be some flaws in the theory which needed to be refined. The theory was developed in the 70’s and it might not be perfectly applicable to describe the internationalization processes of the firms in every industry. It should also take other factors apart from culture into considerations such as the nature of products, regulations and policies of different countries, competitive scope of the industry or the international business environment at different time points, especially when dealing with some special industries such as that of the pharmaceuticals in which regulations of different countries, patent protection and the nature of the products might influence the pattern of internationalization of the firms. However, further empirical studies with more adequate data would be necessary in the future in order to justify the propositions of different theories of internationalization.
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