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Description: Purpose: This study introduces a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) literature by Multinational Corporations (MNCs) focusing on emerging economies, to identify the most influential authors, journals, and papers in FDI research and reveal the fields’ conceptual and intellectual structures. Approach/design: The study analyzed 533 articles published in 226 academic journals indexed in the WoS and Scopus databases. R language for statistical computing was used for mapping author collaboration, co-word, and developing a conceptual and intellectual map of the field between 1974 and 2020. Findings: The results show that, although FDI literature has many authors, a small number of authors are dominating the field, Journal of World Business (JWB) and Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) are the most influential journals and the top-ranked journals in the field and the main sources of the publications and citations. Moreover, the application of bibliometric laws shows that our dataset follows Lotka law of Scientific Productivity and Bradford law of scattering which identifies the core journals. Finally, FDI by MNCs in emerging economies research is divided into five sub-research themes related to (1) developing countries, (2) FDI, (3) technology, (4) multinationals, (5) MNCs and FDI performance. PurposeThis study introduces a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the foreign direct investment (FDI) literature by multinational corporations (MNCs) focusing on emerging economies to identify the most influential authors, journals and articles in FDI research and reveals the fields' conceptual and intellectual structures. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe study analyzed 533 articles published between 1974 and 2020 in 226 academic journals indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. We used the R language for statistical computing to map author collaboration, co-word and develop a conceptual and intellectual map of the field.FindingsThe results show that, although the FDI literature has many authors, few dominate the field. The International Business Review (IBR) and International Journal of Emerging Markets (IJoEM) are the main sources of the publications. Moreover, bibliometric laws show that our dataset follows the Lotka law of scientific productivity and Bradford law of scattering, identifying the core journals. Finally, FDI by MNCs in emerging economies research is divided into four sub-research themes related to (1) FDI determinants, (2) entry mode, (3) MNCs and FDI performance and (4) the internationalization process.Originality/valueThe current article provides several starting points for practitioners and researchers investigating FDI. It contributes to broadening the vision of the field and offers recommendations for future studies.