Abstract

Purpose: Emerging markets under industrialization have become increasingly influential over the global natural-resource transactions. However, their average deal completion rates have been relatively low. The international business (IB) literature regards the low rate as evidence of ‘double hurdle’, the extra disadvantages in doing overseas business for firms from developing countries. Because legitimacy building mitigates liability of foreignness, we argue that an acquirer’s environmental responsibility effectively builds legitimacy. Research design, data and methodology: Stakeholders in the host country spread the acquirer’s environmental responsibility so that, by raising legitimacy, they may strengthen the link between environmental responsibility and deal completion. Our dataset consists of the 608 cross-border acquisition deals announced by the 196 firms in Brazil, Russia, India, and China over 2008-2019 period. Results: A logit regression result confirms that environmental responsibility increases the likelihood of acquisition deal completion. Also, hostmarket stakeholders positively moderate the relationship between environmental responsibility and the likelihood of deal completion. Conclusions: Overall, this study contributes to the IB literature by identifying environmental responsibility as a key approach to lowering the double hurdle in internationalization of firms in emerging markets. Any emerging multinationals interested in the foreign, brownfield entries to the natural-resource industries must enhance the environmental responsibility, which turns out extremely important.