Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 2016, Vol. 23(2) 128–143 © The Authors 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1548051816633229 jlo.sagepub.com Article Historically, transforming economies like China, India, and Russia have been thought of as locations for inward foreign direct investment (IFDI) but not as important sources of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). Indeed, China, India, and Russia have traditionally only been locations for Western multinational corporations (MNCs) to have prod- ucts that they developed in the West produced inexpen- sively and then be sold under their Western MNC brand names throughout the world. Increasingly, MNCs have also been interested in selling their products and services in the transforming economies due to their large populations. Major firms from these transforming economies, however, have normally had enough to do expanding throughout their own large countries. Furthermore, these local players have normally lacked well-known global brands and quality products and services needed to be successful abroad. Managers also lacked the competences to develop these important assets. As a result, few were worried about Chinese, Indian, or Russian companies creating well-recog- nized global brands and becoming important global players. Companies from transforming economies, however, are starting to make this progress, and some are becoming sig- nificant threats. The initial internationalization of emerging market multinational corporations (EMNCs) has clearly had mixed success (Contractor, Kumar, & Kundu, 2007; Peng, Wang, & Jiang, 2008). As a result, there is a need to understand which internationalization strategies of these EMNCs work well and which do not. Due to historical, cultural, and institutional differences, EMNCs’ internationalization efforts work best when they pursue different strategies and management practices than do firms from advanced economies (Guillén & Garcia- Canal, 2009; Luo & Tung, 2007; Ramamurti & Singh, 2009). These distinctive characteristics and behaviors of EMNCs thus raise questions about the applicability of exist- ing theories, both at the macro- and microlevel (Cuervo- Cazurra & Ramamurti, 2014; Madhok & Keyhani, 2012). The previous dominant theories of OFDI and international- ization activities and strategies of firms, such as the interna- tional product life cycle model (Vernon, 1966), the stages model (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977), and the ownership, loca- tion, and internalization (OLI) framework (Dunning, 1988), reflect the experiences of advanced economy multinationals 633229JLO XX X 10.1177/1548051816633229Journal of Leadership & Organizational StudiesFey et al. research-article 2016 1 Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland 2 Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, India 3 Peking University, Beijing, China 4 Nottingham University Business School China, Ningbo, China Corresponding Author: Carl F. Fey, Aalto University School of Business, P.O. Box 21210; FI-00076 Aalto, Helsinki, Finland. Email: carl.fey@aalto.fi Internationalization Strategies of Emerging Market Multinationals: A Five M Framework Carl F. Fey 1 , Amar K. J. R. Nayak 2 , Changqi Wu 3 , and Abby Jingzi Zhou 4 Abstract Traditionally, few companies were worried about Chinese, Indian, or Russian companies becoming important global players. Now companies from emerging market economies are starting to do just this and are emerging as significant global competitors. It is clearly time to pay attention to emerging market multinational corporations as serious competitors. This article seeks to help with this task by investigating the internationalization of firms from China, India, and Russia, and developing an understanding of what firms from transforming economies should do to increase their chances of success. The article also shows that they internationalize for different reasons using different entry mode ordering and by initially entering different countries than would their Western counterparts. This article develops a new framework called the Five M framework to guide managers and academics in their understanding of the internationalization of firms from transforming economies. With the help of illustrative examples from 18 mini case studies, this article investigates the motivations, markets, entry modes, methods, and management practices that have allowed these firms to be successful. Keywords emerging market multinationals, entry strategy, international expansion, MNCs from transforming economies