How to Select a Profitable Country for Foreign Direct Investments?: The Selection of a Profitable Country for Foreign Direct Investments: A Practical Decision Model for Executives

As an attempt to provide rich and deep insights into managerial procedures, as well as critical success factors that should be considered in successfully selecting a beneficial foreign country for foreign direct investments, five empirical comparative in-depth case studies were purposefully selected from among sixteen potential Western Australian firms which established business operations abroad. The empirical findings show that a thorough consultative and international experience-based strategic decision process should be considered to attain effective foreign country selection decisions. Also, the results reveal that the decision process cannot separately lead to the selection of a beneficial foreign country choice in the absence of four critical success factors, i.e., (1) international business experience of the selected location team, (2) the country knowledge about the potential foreign locations, (3) in-house and external consultations with international business experts and (4) identification of a trustworthy and internationally experienced manager or local partner for the international operation.