ABSTRACT
The international competition in service industries has received growing attention among researchers, corporate managers and policy-makers. As in manufacturing industries, most large service multinational enterprises (MNEs) compete internationally through a wide range of equity and non equity foreign involvements such as direct investments, joint ventures or networks. Dunning (1989a) reviews the conceptual and theoretical issues in applying the eclectic theory of international production to explain the internationalization of service MNEs. Many studies of service MNEs, however, are industry or home country specific (Boddewyn et al. 1986) and have not examined the patterns of competition across countries. As asserted by Nigh et al. (1986), further research may uncover differences in the pattern of international competition for service MNEs based in different countries and in different service industries.
