Emerging Market Firms' Internationalization Pricing Strategies: The Role of Country of Origin and Organizational Learning.

This article focuses on the pricing strategies of emerging market firms (EMFs) when entering foreign markets, analyzing how country-of-origin (COO) effects and organizational learning influence their competitiveness relative to developed market firms (DMFs). Using a game-theoretic model in the retail sector, it finds that EMFs can achieve higher profits than local competitors by charging lower prices, but generally earn less than DMFs due to negative COO effects. However, EMFs that leverage superior organizational learning—particularly by enhancing value-added services rather than solely improving cost efficiency—can overcome these COO disadvantages and potentially outperform DMFs in profitability. The study offers prescriptive insights for EMFs' pricing decisions under various competitive scenarios and highlights the strategic importance of learning in international expansion.