Accordingto the Dunning’s Eclectic Paradigm, there would be four main reasons for acompany to invest abroad: resource seeking; market seeking; efficiency seekingand strategic asset seeking. The resource seeking aims to acquire specificresources such as natural resources, cheap labor, and more recently,technologyand management, marketing and organization skills. In the case of marketseeking the intention is to offer goods or services for the domestic market ofthe host country and, occasionally, to regional markets.The category efficiencyseeking is linked to the idea of scope economies, scale and risk management. Instrategic asset seeking, acquisition of resources and strategic assets is themain goal for companies that searches strengthen its competitive position orenhance their skills in regional and global markets. Those would be thedominant strategies for foreign companies to allocate their investments inother countries, but not the only ones.
In Brazil and Mexico, empiricalstudies show that the dominant strategy of foreign investors would be marketseeking, or the market attractiveness, by Lima Junior and Cuenca. According toCosta and Mattos et al., the economic stability, trade liberalization and thenatural resources would be important factors for attracting FDI in Brazil. InMexico, its participation in NAFTA, economic liberalization, low cost of laborand the proximity to the U.S. market are considered fundamental variables tounderstand the FDI flows in the country,by Love.
“在巴西和墨西哥,实证研究表明,外商投资者将寻求市场或市场吸引力”Lima Junior 及Cuenca说。根据Costa和 Mattos及其他人所说,经济稳定、贸易自由化及自然资源会成为吸引外商在巴西直接投资的重要因素。在墨西哥,北美自由贸易区的参与、经济自由化、廉价劳动成本及邻近美国市场被认为是了解该国的外商直接投资流动的基本变量。