and Key Results■ Researchers have recently suggested that on average the relationship between internationalization and performance will be S-shaped. In this study, we test this pattern investigating 87 Swiss multinational companies in manufacturing industries over an 8-year period (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005); N = 696).■ Large Swiss companies cover the full range of internationalization, with many measuring over 90 percent foreign sales-to-total sales. This allows for a unique test of performance levels at very high degrees of internationalization.■ We find that in the case of Swiss MNCs the S-curve is shifted to the right, and preceded by an initial stage of increasing performance.■ We find that companies operating at extreme (very high) degrees of internationalization face lower average performance and higher average performance variation.
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