Liabilities Of Regional Foreignness And The Use Of Firm Level And Country Level Data: A Response To Dunning Et Al. (2006)

The authors are pleased that Dunning et al. (2006) have provided macro (country) level data demonstrating the increased internationalization of many nations over the past decade. They also appreciate their findings lending support to the perspective on the regional nature of world business. The paper was based solely on micro (firm) level data, see Rugman and Verbeke (2004a). Both country level data and firm level data have methodological problems which they attempt to reconcile in this comment. They also address the broader conceptual issues of how to interpret country level versus firm level data.