In this paper we examine foreign location choices of the top 100 US multinational corporations (MNCs) in 1980 and 2000. We first ask whether there has been a change in MNC foreign location choice in this two-decade period. Second, we explore the underlying reasons of location change by focusing on country-level factors, accounting for firm-, industry- and regional-level explanations. Our findings suggest, first, that the extent of MNCs' activities around the globe is more extensive than assumed by regionalists' arguments and well beyond Ohmae's TRIAD, but still less widespread than claimed by the globalists – the two main traditions within the globalization–regionalization debate. Second, we uncover an interesting de-location pattern in this period. Third, we develop an integrative framework where both economic and institutional-cultural arguments are shown to influence MNCs' foreign location choice in different ways. We conclude with a discussion of our findings, and provide suggestions for future research. Journal of International Business Studies (2007) 38, 1187–1210. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400307

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Public infrastructures to support innovative entrepreneurship are among the instruments that governments deploy to strengthen entrepreneurship and innovation (OECD 2011). Such infrastructures act as intermediaries (Chatterji, Glaeser, and Kerr 2013), and their principal mission consists of providing services that aim to boost one or more phases of innovative activity in the fields of knowledge and technology creation and acquisition. Public infrastructures also prepare companies to produce and commercialize their products or services" Roig-Tierno, Alcázar, and Ribeiro-Navarrete (2015, 2291-92, emphasis added). "More generally, infrastructure is found to be positively associated with start-up activity. However, the association is apparently specific to both the particular type of infrastructure, as well as the particular industry context…" Audretsch, Heger, and Veith (2015, 226, emphasis added).

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