Several theories try to explain the internationalization process of firms and how international firms perform (Dunning, 1988; Vernon, 1966). Classical theory suggests that firms that expand their businesses internationally, increase their performance only as long as these firms have a clear competitive advantage that enables them to overcome the costs and risks associated with expansion across borders (e.g.: Hymer, 1976; Kindleberger 1969; Dunning 1977). However, the classical internationalization theory focused on developed countries, and did not consider the unique economic, social and political conditions of developing countries such as India and China. Therefore, Matthews (2006) introduces a new theory to explain the internationalization process of emerging market firms. Emerging countries, contrary to developing countries, expand their business internationally in order to address their relative disadvantage instead of exploiting their competitive advantage. Emerging market firms aim to acquire advantages externally through exploiting international networks in order to obtain valuable resources. Thus, firms in emerging countries benefit from internationalization through obtaining a competitive advantage. At first glance, empirical evidence not always seems to support this theoretical rationale in the Chindia countries. While, for example, Gaur and Kumar (2009), Huo and Hung (2015) as well as Hajela and Akbar (2007) found a positive relationship between internationalization and firm performance, Kumar and Singh (2008) as well as Xiao, Jeong, Moon, Chung, and Chung (2013) found a negative one. It has been argued that contradicting results may be due to a non-linear internationalization-firm performance relationship (U-shaped, inverted U-shaped, or S-shaped) (Geringer, Beamish, & Costa, 1989; Gaur and Kumar, 2009; Wu, Wu & Zhou, 2012; Ficici, Wang, Aybar, & Fan, 2014). Contractor (2007) found that the positive, negative and U-shaped relationships between internationalization and firm performance represent different stages of the S-shaped or three-stage model (Contractor, 2007). In the early internationalization stage, particularly firms from emerging economies such as India or China suffer from liability of origin, liability of foreignness or double-layered acculturation (Zaheer, 1995). Therefore, a negative relationship between internationalization and firm performance is likely to occur. The great costs associated with internationalization, are outweighed in the later stage of the internationalization process through benefiting from scale economies, an increase in market power and from organizational learning (Kogut 1985; Kim, Hwang, & Burgers, 1993; Wiersema and Bowen, 2011). In addition, the unusual conditions that firms in China and India face provide particularly high incentives to internationalize. While China and India are large emerging countries, their domestic markets are relatively small as compared to those of developed countries. Thus, internationalization enables them to achieve economies of scale.

Moreover, Indian and Chinese firms can spread the risk arising from operating in politically and economically unstable economies through internationalization (Rugman, 1979). These arguments indicate that Indian and Chinese firms benefit from internationalization as a result of obtaining a competitive advantage through the acquisition of valuable resources and the avoidance of unfavourable conditions in the home country. Thus, we hypothesize:

Hypothesis 1. Internationalization has a positive effect on firm performance in Chindia countries.

Indian and Chinese companies have become important actors in the global landscape. The Chindia countries have experienced rapid growth and have undertaken changes in the economy and firms' openness to the world over the last few years leading to large foreign direct investment (Asakawa & Som, 2008; Athreye & Kapur, 2009; Oswal, 2010; Gill, & Singh, 2012). Both countries have implemented policies to encourage outward foreign direct investment (Gill, & Singh, 2012). Moreover, firm internationalization has been relatively young in both India and China (Athreye& Kapur, 2009). Studies revealed that both Indian and Chinese firms choose mergers and acquisition as a common mode of internationalization (Kumar & Gaur, 2007; Andersson & Wang, 2011). While internationalization in China and India has been similar in some aspects, they have also shown clear differences. Whereas Chinese outward foreign direct investment often involves state-owned firms, Indian outward foreign direct investment mostly involves private-owned enterprises. The two countries prefer to invest more strongly in different industries and different regions (Athreye & Kapur, 2009). So far, however, there have been no studies comparing the link between internationalization and firm performance of the two countries. We argue that, despite the differences in the internationalization background, the impact of internationalization on firm performance is relatively similar. This is due to the fact that both countries face the unique conditions of emerging economies (Cuervo- Cazurra, 2012). From the comparison of the general strategies of internationalization, we can draw our second hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2. The impact of internationalization is not significantly different between China and India.

Gaur and Kumar (2010) argue that the influence of internationalization on firm performance differs between advanced and developing countries. Internationalization is still a rather new phenomenon in the two fastest growing emerging countries, India and China. The unique conditions of those countries lead to different internationalization strategies as opposed to developed countries. Traditionally, firms internationalized due to firm-specific advantages. However, firms in India and China have lower levels of those firm specific assets such as technology. Therefore, firms from the Chindia countries do not expand overseas in order to exploit firm specific advantages, but in order to acquire strategic resources and capabilities (Matthews, 2006; Deng, 2007; Athreye & Kapur, 2009). However, so far, there has been no empirical research comparing the impact of different internationalization strategies in Chindia countries and advanced countries. Kirca, Hult, Roth, Cavusgil, Perryy, Akdeniz, and White (2011) argue that since emerging countries lack firmspecific assets they are less likely to generate a higher yield from those assets than developed countries. In addition, they state that developed country firms are more likely to internalize their firm specific assets. Thus, we hypothesize:

Hypothesis 3. Internationalization has a stronger effect on firm performance in the United States as compared to Chindia

Economies undergo significant changes over time. Emerging countries in particular face a rapid internationalization and a turbulent environment (Athreye & Kapur, 2009). For example, India and China have been challenged by the Global Financial Crisis that led acquisitions to fail and export demand to go down (Athreye & Kapur, 2009; Aizenman, 2015). Therefore, the internationalization process is not stable over time. Moreover, the arbitrage from internationalization has been diminishing over the past decades. According to Hymer (1976), market imperfections are the reason why firms internationalize. However, Ruigrok and Wagner (2004) argue that the benefits of market imperfections had a greater impact in the past. The opportunities arising from market imperfections in India and China may have declined, for example, due to fewer trade barriers as a result of the establishment of trade agreements such as APTA. Thus, a decrease in the benefits of market imperfection may negatively influence the impact of internationalization on firm performance. Hence, we conclude that the internationalization-firm performance relationship is dependent on the time period. We further argue that the impact of internationalization will be lower in more recent years due to above mentioned reasons. Thus, we hypothesize:

Hypothesis 4. The impact of internationalization on firm performance decreased over time.

Figure 1

In examining the relationship between the performance of firms and internationalization in Chindia countries, we aim to make an important contribution to the existing literature. First, by aggregating empirical studies, we found a positive and significant relationship between internationalization and a firm's performance in China and India. A second important theoretical contribution is that it extends literature through the examination of potential moderators that influence the internationalization-firm performance relationship in Chindia countries. Our results suggest that the effect of internationalization on firm performance is significantly greater in the United States as compared to Chindia. Therefore, our results support the theory that claims that internationalization in developed countries differs from internationalization in developing countries. The findings are similar to a meta-analytic review by Kirca et al. (2011) that analyzes the relationship between multinationalization and firm performance. They found that multinationalization in advanced country firms with a high R&D or a high advertising intensity has a greater impact on firm performance than internationalization in developing country firms with a high R&D or high advertising intensity. In order to understand the differing effects of internationalization on firm performance in developing countries, it is crucial to understand the conditions of developing country firms. An extension of traditional theory or attention to new streams of theory may help understand the internationalization processes in developing countries (Cuervo- Cazurra, 2012; Mathews, 2006). While, for example, the OLI framework developed by Dunning (1981) explains the internationalization process in advanced countries, it fails to explain internationationalization in emerging countries (Dunning, 2006). The LLL model proposed by Mathews (2006) is more suitable for addressing internationalization in those countries. Furthermore, our results shed light on the effect of internationalization on firm performance in India and China. We found that there is no significant difference in the impact of internationalization in the two countries. This may be due to similar internationalization patterns as they are both latecomers (Mathews, 2006) and as they are both facing the unusual conditions of emerging countries. Lastly, we did not find the time period to be a moderator of the internationalization-firm performance relationship. Thus, the impact of internationalization did not significantly increase or decrease over time. This finding is also similar to the findings from a meta-analysis by Ruigrok and Wagner (2004) that analysed the internationalization-firm performance relationship in developed countries between 1974 and 2004.

The meta-analytic review provides several practical implications. Our findings demonstrate a positive impact of internationalization on firm performance. Therefore, it is beneficial for firms in the Chindia countries to internationalize. Managers should, thus, focus on appropriate internationalization strategies for their companies. Firms not yet internationalized that have linkages with other companies should use them to enable experiential learning and to create a global network (Mathews 2006; Elango and Pattnaik, 2007). Moreover, government officials should facilitate the internationalization process in developing countries through fostering suitable conditions for firms to nternationalize. Actions by the government may be: enabling policies, fostering an appropriate infrastructure and having supporting institutions (UNIDO, 2008). In addition, the positive impact of internationalization does not seem to be affected by the investigated time period. Thus, the positive effect of internationalization did not change over time and is therefore relatively stable. Another important finding is that despite differences in internationalization strategies it is equally beneficial for firms to internationalize in China and India. However, our results suggest that internationalization has a stronger effect on firm performance in the US as compared to Chindia countries.

Our study poses some limitations that occurred during the research process and that should be considered when interpreting the results. The limitations may have a potential influence on the statistical power of the results put forward. The first limitation arises from a lack of detailed research context descriptions of the included studies. Some studies were missing information, on for example, the year of data collection, correlation coefficients or Cronbach alphas for which estimates had to be used. Moreover, the small number of studies included in the meta-analysis and the lack of information did not enable us to examine all of the potential moderators such as industry or firm age. Since not all moderators could be identified, a lot of the variance of the internationalization-firm performance relationship could not be explained. Another limitation is, that most of the studies included in the meta-analysis are published studies. Therefore, there may be an overrepresentation of significant studies (Duval & Tweedie, 2000). Moreover, there may also be an overrepresentation of successful firms. This is due to the fact that unsuccessful studies are more likely to have left the market during the data collection period (Rubera & Kirca, 2012).

Finally, the limitations and the results of our study on the internationalization-firm performance relationship in Chindia countries suggest several directions for future research. Future meta-analytic reviews would benefit from including a higher number of independent studies for a greater statistical power and in order to explore other moderators. Potential moderators influencing the relationship may be firm size, firm age and industry (e.g.: Ficici et al., 2014; Yuan & Pangarkar, 2015). Furthermore, future research may identify mediators between internationalization and firm performance. Lastly, more unpublished studies should be included in future meta-analytic studies to control for publication bias (Dickersin, 1990).