OLI Theory Case Study

Toyota Motor Manufacturing (TMM), USA Inc. is formed by Toyota Motor Corp (TMC) in 1985 by investing $800 million to build a Plant at Kentucky, USA which will starts production in 1988 of around 200,000 units of Camry Sedan car. The purpose of building a plant is to compete in US market in midsize car which is comprise of one third of total US car market. TMM producing the cars on the same philosophy, methodology and technology, which TMC used to produce cars at their best quality and lowest cost in Japan.

Ownership advantages could be intangible assets like technology and information, managerial, marketing and entrepreneurial skills, organisational systems, access to intermediate or final goods markets, a production process, patent and blueprint. The ownership advantage includes some firm specific valuable market power or cost advantage on the firm sufficient to outweigh the disadvantages of doing business abroad. They are closely related to the technological and innovative capabilities and the economic development levels of source countries.

Today, Toyota is the world's third largest manufacturer of automobiles in terms of both unit sales and net sales. It is also the largest Japanese automotive manufacturer, producing more than 5.5 million vehicles per year, equivalent to one every six seconds. See Appendix 1 for a list of its guiding principles. Appendix 2 depicts excerpts from the company’s 2000 annual report showing their main goals for that year. The company has 12 manufacturing plants in Japan and approximately 54 manufacturing companies in 27 countries throughout the world. These plants produce vehicles and components under the Lexus and Toyota brand names and employ about one quarter of a million people worldwide. In total Toyota vehicles are marketed and sold in more than 160 countries and regions with the automotive business, including sales and finance of the vehicles, accounting for more than 90% of the company's total sales. Appendix 3 shows worldwide sales and appendix 4 shows the models produced in North American Toyota plants. North Americanization of Toyota Since the late 1980’s Toyota had made several moves that showed their commitment to what management called the North Americanization of the company. The idea was to increase car sales in the lucrative North American market by also introducing manufacturing plants that produced parts and assembled whole vehicles for

This topic explores the argument that manufacturing organizations are more likely to diversify their investments into international countries where labor cost are low, or the organization has low uncertainties about raising labor cost. Fisch, and Zschoche (2012) argues that, “manufacturing firms are more likely to erect subsidiaries exogenous of the host country’s firm when their assets and invest portfolios are exclusive or synergistic to overseas resources” (p. 1542). Six hypothesis were developed to test these arguments.

Toyota has a manufacturing facility of the overseas of 50 in 27 countries, and is doing business expansion globally. Moreover, the Toyota car is sold by 160 countries of an overseas. The number of dealer is 8,485 dealers in the world (Expect Japan), and there are more than 270 dealers in Australia. We can buy Toyota’s product everywhere.

As any other industry, the automobile industry is not without its fair share of global challenges. In 1982, Honda opened the doors to its first US auto plant. Two years later, in 1984, Toyota entered into a “joint venture with General Motors called the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., (NUMMI). Later, in 1989, the company launched its luxury division, LEXUS, creating a multinational approach to automobile manufacturing, with an increase in product sales soaring in the USA (Toyota Company History, (n.d.).

Toyota has a vast distribution network. They have more than 50 manufacturing plants and 27 countries and regions beside their mother country, Japan. In the Philippines alone, they have a manufacturing plant in Sta. Rosa Laguna.

Dunning’s OLI paradigm (1976) is used to support firms to locate its production in countries that are financially beneficial for them. According to Dunning, “the paradigm offers a holistic framework to take in consideration all of the important factors that influence the decision of a MNE.” (Stefanović, 2008, p.241) FDI is determined through the composition of the three powerful advantages; ownership, location and internationalisation as shown in figure 1. The thesis is to assess, ‘why go multinational?’, ‘how to choose the best location?’ and ‘what actions have to be taken to enter a foreign market?’

With domestic markets becoming saturated with competition, organizations with the financial reach look to international market segments to obtain growth potential. Though not all companies hold the capabilities to obtain such a feat, Toyota has and is competitive.

In this report I aim to analyze and compare the motives and strategic operations of US and European car manufacturers that have recently set up production plants in Emerging Markets and Asia Pacific regions.

“A multinational enterprise is a company that is headquartered in one country but has operations in one or more other countries” (Rugman and Collison, 2012). A firm on the other side operates within the national borders of a country. Some firms want to expand, not only in sizes but also in value and market share, by becoming MNEs. This is due to the fact that it can bring remarkable advantages even though is very risky. MNEs perform international business operations named as: Exports and Imports, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The first branch includes the goods and services that are produced in a country and sold in another one and vice versa, the second branch consists in equity funds invested in foreign countries. It is when firms begin to use FDI that they become MNEs.

Thus, among all these theories, our thesis, we will mainly focus on location-specific advantages as according to the research conducted by Nayak and Rahul (2014,p.10), location advantages of different countries play a significant role in determining which country will be the recipient of FDI, Since the aim of the study is to analyze the impacts of the host country characteristics on FDI inflows, particularly that of Singapore and Hong Kong, we assume that firms already possess ownership and have internalized these advantages, making locational advantages very much country specific and are likely to vary according to changes in internal and external factors which will eventually influence a firm’s market potential and market risk. Thus, this renders the choice of locational advantage factors critical in influencing a country’s ability to attract

However, while the OLI paradigm centers around a single expansion decision, the Uppsala model views internationalisation as a gradual process with an incremental increase of knowledge of the target region and subsequent commitments in that region. Hence, internationalisation occurs faster in the OLI paradigm. Another difference between the two models is their respective focuses. The OLI paradigm focuses more inward, on the attributes of the expanding company, comprising ownership, location, and internalisation advantages and argues that companies need to combine these to minimise risk and succeed with FDI. On the other hand, the Uppsala model concentrates on the actual process of internationalisation, stating that companies should begin with low risk commitments - such as exports - to acquire knowledge of the target country and then increase their commitment based on the gathered knowledge. With higher commitment, more knowledge can be gained to be used for further commitment (Peng & Meyer

Ownership Advantages (Firm Specific Advantages) Dunning (1991, pp 123) defined ownership advantages as "any kind of income generating assets which make it possible for firms to engage in foreign production". He also pointed out that ownership advantages are concerned with the extent to which the firm has tangible and intangible assets unavailable to other firms (Dunning, 1980; Dunning, 1988). Ikechi Ekeledo, K Sivakumar (2004, pp 72) defined ownership advantages as the competitive or monopolistic advantages of the firm that helps the foreign firm to overcome the disadvantages of competing with local firms. Salih Kusluvan (1998, pp 175) stated that the ownership advantages are the unique internal factors that create the firms’

main strategy for the North American market is to aim for higher sales, while raising the proportion of locally produced automobiles. Toyota Motor Corp have reached a stage where investments made over the last several years to expand production capacity are beginning to show returns and improved profitability can be expected. Toyota’s goal is to bolster local production through additional investment, and contribute to the regional economy by expanding its operations. At present, our production capacity in North America is approximately 1.25 million units (including our joint venture with GM). However, Toyota Motor Corp plan to boost this to 1.45 million units during 2003.