The rise of the Japanese multinational company (JMNC) marked, from the 1980s onwards, an historic change in the structure and in the dynamics of the international economy. For the first time, businesses from a non-Western nation established a competitive global presence, and they did so by bringing their advanced products and management systems to the developed economies of Europe and North America. In the last 30 years, our interpretations of JMNCs have undergone a series of revisions. Korean firms followed JMNCs in the 1990s and the Chinese likewise in the 2000s. A seeming decline in JMNC competitiveness and developments in the structure of the international economy challenged a business model of parental company direction, control and capabilities. Both trends asked questions about how Japanese subsidiaries should operate in global production chains increasingly reliant on contracting out and off-shoring, and how JMNCs might engage more in strategic cooperation and empower subsidiary decision-making. The contributors to this volume consider a wide range of relevant issues: they demonstrate the long-term evolution of JMNCs; they compare the experience of JMNCs with firms from the other two major Asia Pacific economies, Korea and China; they evaluate the applicability of established foreign direct investment (FDI) theory to MNCs from Japan and the Asia Pacific; and they reflect on the internal organization of JMNCs at the global, national and subnational level. This book was originally published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.

First Published in 1998. This book examines the transferability of Japanese organizational practices to Japanese owned industrial transplants in the United States, and demonstrates that relations of power and conflict on the corporate structural level are equally as significant as the social and cultural differences between American and Japanese practices in the workplace. The research is based upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork at automotive transplants in the Midwest and high-tech transplants in California, as well as a case study company in New Mexico, and focuses primarily on their adaptation to the US industrial environment. Extensive interviews demonstrate that organizational practices of Japanese transplants are significantly different from either their Japanese or American counterparts. Relations of power at the case study company are examined in depth and reveal two contrasting forms of control. American managers tend to exert hierarchical control in the manufacturing department using a top down approach and clear distinctions between work and private lives. In contrast, the Japanese managers utilize what the author calls "poka-yoke" (fail-proof) control over the repair department. Poka-yoke control is characterized by strict attendance and dress codes, emphasizing loyalty and dedication to work. At the same time, the US. headquarters in New York and the parent company in Japan impose remote control, thus limiting the autonomy of local managers.

Cost accounting traditions differ across countries, especially between Germany and the US/UK. Consequently, multinational companies often face cross-national differences in the design of their subunits' cost accounting systems. To improve comparability and facilitate control, multinational companies seek to globally align these systems. In this respect, they have to balance the needs of the headquarters and the subunits. By the means of a mixed-method approach, this study analyses the design of cost accounting systems from both perspectives. It finds empirical evidence for cross-case and cross-country differences in the complexity and standardization of cost accounting systems in subunits of German multinational companies and identifies important determinants and success factors. The findings have implications for researchers and practitioners in the field of management accounting.

Hitherto, the organization of international business has been studied mostly from a managerial point of view or by examining the relationship between firms and the economy. Yet, the development of the modern, multinational firm - the most important type of business organisation - has been strongly influenced by the conflicts that bedeviled the twentieth century. The volatile macroeconomic and political environments experienced by international business point to how important it is to study political risk. Consequently, Multinational Enterprise, Political Risk and Organisational Change: From Total War to Cold War breaks new ground: it argues that non-market elements and historical context are key to understanding the way international business has been organised. This edited volume offers an historical approach to analysing how multinational enterprise has developed over time and around the world, through a series of well-crafted chapters, on important topics in international economic and business history, written by authorities in their respective fields of study and research. The study is based on the underlying premise that the coming of the two World Wars, the devastating and long-term consequences of such total wars, and the ideological challenge of the Cold War acted as a pivot points in shaping the nature and character of multinational firms. By examining such phenomena, this study offers insights to anyone who has an interest in business, economic or political history, management and business studies, or international relations.

Despite the current crisis, Asian economies remain an important market for firms around the world and continue to be stiff competitors in world business. One reason for the region's strength, and a predictor of Asia's endurance, are its business networks-- DEGREESIkeiretsus DEGREESR in Japan, DEGREESIchaebols DEGREESR in Korea, and other forms that connect single firms, entire industries, and which interlink the region as a whole. Richter and his contributors examine the origins of business networks, their effects on the economies, and the implications of their presence and growth in Asian economies. Corporate strategic planners, marketing executives, and other decision makers will find here an important contribution to their understanding of why Asia's economies will pick up again and how they will continue to grow.

The book examines the promises of business networks and the role of transaction costs, interdependence, and membership commitment. The contributors do not automatically assume that past successes of these networks will mean future successes; rather, they define the outlines of new and innovative forms of networks, and see in their configurations an even better platform for further economic development in Asia and for the globalization of Asian multinationals. Contributors offer a critical approach to theory and practice of Asian networking, and because of their national diversity are able to provide a variety of viewpoints on them. Research-based and presenting the thinking of scholars and practitioners alike, the book supplies expert knowledge and a basis for academic discourse on managerial policy not easily found elsewhere.

This book makes use of rich empirical data from the supply chain of three fundamentally different industries, aerospace, beverages and retail. It develops an original analytical framework - the 'cascade effect'-to explain recent dramatic changes in industrial concentration across the whole supply chain of these three industries. This provides an original insight into the determinants of industrial structure in the epoch of globalization. It also has significant theoretical implications, as well as practical policy implications, especially for firms and policy-makers in developing countries.

The global business area has witnessed a remarkable radical change. The recent spectacular rise of emerging economy multinationals sets numerous questions requiring explanation and understanding. Successes and Challenges of Emerging Economy Multinationals investigates a broad variety of cases presenting clear evidence of fast successful internationalization of emerging economy multinationals originating not only from big economic players such as China, India and Russia but also from other successfully internationalizing emerging countries, namely South Africa and Poland. In terms of size, the firms vary from huge multinational firms such as Huawei, Tata and Gazprom, to really small high technology firms. The in-depth analysis conducted in this book leads to the indication of numerous novel directions for further theoretical expansion and new empirical research.

This volume deals with "anxieties" in international business and their managerial ramifications. A key actor in the international business environment is the multinational enterprise (MNE) and one can make the case that the organization and politics of the MNE is a potential pool of anxiety. Anxieties are also manifest from the perspectives of countries and localities impacted by MNC activities and investment. All contributions highlight the complexities of the international business environment or the managerial implication of such complexity.

This book, first published in 1988, examines the impact of multinational companies on the British economy and the British government's policy responses. It assesses the effects of multinationals both on the national economy and on different regions and evaluates the benefits and problems brought by overseas companies. It looks at how government has attempted to entice multinationals to invest, and the UK government's success in these attraction efforts as compared with other countries. Regulatory aspects of policy are also reviewed and evaluated, and consideration is given to possible new policy approaches. This title will be of interest to students of business studies.

One of the reasons for the success of multinational enterprises in their ability to create in their supranational organisations "internal markets" which eliminate the imperfections of external world markets caused by tariffs on trade, restrictions on the flow of capital, information costs and so on. The method multinationals use to create and sustain internal markets is transfer pricing. Multinationals use to their advantage the difference between nominal accounting and real transfers from their head offices to a subsidiary in different countries to overcome transaction costs and restrictions on trade and capital flows. This book, first published in 1985, examines these and other aspects of multinationals' use of transfer pricing. It puts forward original thinking and research findings by leading experts in this area. Empirical results are related to the activities of multinationals in less developed countries. This volume covers the economic theories of transfer pricing, accounting and fiscal practices and implications for government policies and regulations, and will be of interest to students of economics and business studies.

This book, first published in 1987, outlines the motives and methods of overseas operations by international contractors. Drawing on an economic analysis of the industry and on elements of international investment and production theory the book discusses the problems of both individual enterprises and the major nationality groups in the industry

Multinational corporate managers, financial analysts, and accountants disagree on what constitutes the appropriate process of translating and consolidating foreign financial statements into US financial statements. In this book, first published in 1993, the author examines financial accounting regarding foreign currency translation for and by multinational corporations by developing: (a) an historical background for the topic, (b) a comparative analysis of two foreign currency translation accounting standards, (c) a topical review of relevant prior research, and (d) a study of multinational corporate managers' actions when they face a choice between two accounting standards. This title will be of interest to students of business studies.

Privatization of state-owned enterprises and liberalization of trade and investment flows were two of the cornerstones of the structural reforms implemented by governments across Latin America in the 1990s. Spanish multinational enterprises were attracted by these reforms into industries such as banking and finance, telecommunications, public utilities and oil and gas and by the late 1990s, Spain passed the United States as the main origin of foreign direct investment flows in Latin America. Building on the know-how developed in previous decades in Spain, Spanish multinationals became major player in these sectors that constituted the backbone of the Latin American economies.

Multinational Enterprise and Transnational Regions offers an innovative approach to the study of the history of transnational economic regions. The Rhine valley is such a region comprising the cities and areas along the Rhine river and its tributaries. The transition from coal to oil that unfolded between 1945 and 1973 rapidly transformed the region, shattering some of the old river-based connections and creating new ones with the introduction of large-scale cross-border oil pipelines. Multinational enterprises shaped these new regional connections but divergent national government responses gave rise to differentiated development in different parts of the Rhine valley. Multinational Enterprise and Transnational Regions argues that processes of regional change should be understood from transnational interconnections rather than from local or national perspectives. This book uses a transnational business history methodology to tease out the region's transformation and to circumvent the national bias in public sources. It will be of relevance to academics and researchers with an interest in regional and transnational European history, international business, environmental history, and business history, as well as practitioners interested in the oil industry, energy and energy history, business history and international business, and associated disciplines.

This edited book addresses two critical issues in international management: building trust and managing boundary spanning activities between international business partners. The duel-process of internationalization of multinational corporations (MNCs), through globalisation and regionalisation, has helped MNCs to increase their market expansion and improve the capabilities of innovation and learning. By creating various forms of international strategic alliances (ISAs), MNCs have become structurally more complex and geographically more dispersed. As a result, MNCs in general and ISAs in particular face the challenges of discerning blurred organisational boundaries, reconfiguring the control mechanisms, integrating diversified resources, and coordinating distributed activities in time and space. Research in organisation behaviour indicates that boundary spanners play critical yet unspecified roles and functions in managing cross-boundary relationships. A core boundary spanning function is to build trust relationships. When organisations engage in business transactions, members of the organisations are concerned with not only the outcomes of economic transactions but also the processes of social exchanges. Boundary spanners may succeed in building interpersonal trust in a partnership, nonetheless their effort may not lead to inter-partner trust without an effective implementation of the institutionalisation process. Whereas trustworthiness is the antecedent to trust providing the basis for trust to develop, distrust manifests itself as a separate and linked concept to trust. These dynamic features of trust, trustworthiness, and distrust are critically elaborated. Trust Building and Boundary Spanning in Cross-Border Management is dedicated to explicating these under-researched themes and contributing to the emerging streams of research in micro foundations and micro-structural approaches. It illustrates the latest research on the topic and will be of interest to both students at an advanced level, academics and reflective practitioners in the fields of organisational behaviour and theory, strategic management, international strategy and strategic alliances.

For many years, vertical integration characterized the international oil industry, with the same company controlling the entire process from crude exploration and production to the retailing. This structure was radically transformed in the 1970s and this book, originally published in 1984, examines whether the dis-integration which resulted was a long-term trend or a temporary phase. It examines the attitude of the major international oil companies, discusses the policies adopted by oil producing and oil importing countries, and the limits of 'government to government' deals underlined. The political and strategic implications of re-integration are explored, and relations between oil exporters and importers, and between the USA, Europe and the Arab world discussed.

Branded a "cultural Chernobyl" and the "tragic kingdom," the Euro Disney Resort has been on its own thrill ride since opening in 1992. The much publicized version of the Magic Kingdom gave Europeans alcohol-free "mocktails," surly employees, even colors too muted for the Disney image. Facing financial disaster, was it any wonder that Disney execs found themselves wishing upon a star for answers?

After so many knee-jerk criticisms of Euro Disney, this book combines firsthand experience and research to shed new light on claims that the park is nothing more than a form of American cultural imperialism. Andrew Lainsbury, a former Euro Disney employee who knows what the park meant to its visitors, goes beyond media bites and academic scorn to examine Europe's love/hate relationship with Euro Disneyland and some of the undiscussed issues surrounding it.

"Once Upon an American Dream" is a story of global capitalism on a grand scale. Lainsbury has plumbed company archives and interviewed key players to give readers the real view from Le Chateau de la Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty's Castle). He cracks open the Euro Disney controversy to reveal the park not as a tragic experiment in exporting American culture but the result of European efforts to import a popular form of American entertainment.

Lainsbury tells how the Walt Disney Company came to build a European park and locate it in France, how political negotiations affected its design and development, how it was promoted to continental audiences, and what caused its widely publicized financial woes before being rescued by a real prince from Saudi Arabia. He reveals what it took to win back the hearts of skeptical Europeans-such as serving wine, selling flashy merchandise, and placating disgruntled workers. Finally, he looks into the magic mirror to speculate on the role of Euro Disney and the Walt Disney Company in the twenty-first century.

Ultimately, Lainsbury shows that cultural imperialism is not an exclusively American phenomenon but a global corporate strategy--and that global corporatism, by needing to be responsive to consumers, is so complex that it may not be as monolithic as feared. "Once Upon an American Dream" is a fairy tale for our times, reminding us that, for all the critical huffing and puffing, the creation and marketing of pleasure is what Euro Disneyland is all about.

This book gives students a new perspective on entrepreneurial venturing in an international context. By analyzing the dynamics in international companies, they will be armed with the skills they need to build successful strategies for entering new international markets. Williams presents a framework built around four contexts for international venturing: headquarters-driven through internal capabilities; subsidiary-driven through peripheral capabilities; headquarters-driven through external capabilities; and subsidiary-driven though external capabilities. Through this, students gain insight into the conditions that enable venturing in different types of MNEs, the mechanisms by which MNEs pursue international opportunities, and the leadership and managerial challenges of developing entrepreneurial capabilities across borders. Following a definition and analysis of each context, the book synthesizes the outcomes in an integrative way, providing implications for strategic leaders in international firms as well as for researchers and students. These contexts are used to frame the literature and engage with eight topical cases, which are also published in full in the Appendix of the book. With case studies from around the world that focus both on smaller and larger enterprises, Venturing in International Firms will give students of international entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship and international business an edge when venturing internationally in the real world.

Multinationals, China and the Global Economy analyses the results of an in-depth survey of subsidiaries in China of leading manufacturing multinational enterprises (MNEs). It investigates the strategic roles played by these subsidiaries and the sources of technologies they access or generate in doing this. It provides an original contribution to the understanding of important issues in international business, the economic development of China and economics.
In international business this study extends our knowledge of MNEs' global strategies through detailed analysis of the precise roles they expect their subsidiaries in China to play. A central theme of this is how these roles relate to the development of the Chinese economy and help its positioning in the global economy. Using the results of their survey, the authors analyse how MNEs are operating within the reorientation of Chinese development from low-cost exporting to an innovation-oriented and knowledge-driven economy. A very distinctive response to the growing Chinese market, and its changing patterns of consumer demand, emerges as a crucial factor at the core of this.

The McDonald's Corporation is not only the largest system-wide sales service in the world, it is a phenomenon in its own right, and is now recognized as the most famous brand in the world. By providing a detailed analysis of the extent to which the McDonald's Corporation adapts or imposes its labour relations policies in Europe, this volume represents a real life case study revealing the interaction between a global multi-national enterprise and the regulatory systems of a number of different European countries. Key features include:

* an overview of the McDonald's Corporation's development and structure
* an analysis of its corporate culture and the issues of franchising
* an examination of key union strategies, including systems of co-determination, consultation and collective-bargaining
* a chapter dealing specifically with European legislation, in particular the McDonald's European Works Council
The author systematically analyzes the conflict between the McDonald's Corporation and the industrial relations systems of the European countries within which it operates, and exposes this conflict as an 'unequal struggle' between economic liberalism and collectivism.

The international transfer of technology is one of the most important features of the global economy. However, the literature on it is sparse. This book encapsulates the author's contributions to this field over the last three decades and provides insights into the manner, mechanisms, and cost of technology transfer across national boundaries and the implications for (the theory of) the international firm.

Based on a six-year project at INSEAD, top scholars put these developments into perspective. Written for general managers as well as personnel executives and students of management, this book breaks new ground in helping them to address the emerging challenges of international human resource management.

Focusing on international entrepreneurship, this research book explores the accelerated internationalization of young firms. Known variously as international new ventures (INVs) or "born globals," such firms have come to be viewed as legitimate actors on the global stage alongside large multinational enterprises (MNEs). However, the current approach taken by scholars - studying large MNEs and born globals separately - is questionable. This book explores the crucial MNE/INV interface - a fascinating, yet under-researched relationship in international entrepreneurship. Drawing upon a decade of case-based research, the author argues that the MNE influence on born globals must be considered more carefully and suggests how new ventures can leverage MNE networks in the pursuit of their rapid internationalization. Furthermore, it demonstrates that, as firms enhance their levels of innovation, new pathways emerge via multinational corporation networks, a phenomenon vividly demonstrated in the emerging economy context of the Bangalore software industry. This innovative research text will be of interest to academics, researchers, and advanced students with an interest in international entrepreneurship and business, strategy, innovation, and new ventures.

The rise of the Japanese multinational company (JMNC) marked, from the 1980s onwards, an historic change in the structure and in the dynamics of the international economy. For the first time, businesses from a non-Western nation established a competitive global presence, and they did so by bringing their advanced products and management systems to the developed economies of Europe and North America. In the last 30 years, our interpretations of JMNCs have undergone a series of revisions. Korean firms followed JMNCs in the 1990s and the Chinese likewise in the 2000s. A seeming decline in JMNC competitiveness and developments in the structure of the international economy challenged a business model of parental company direction, control and capabilities. Both trends asked questions about how Japanese subsidiaries should operate in global production chains increasingly reliant on contracting out and off-shoring, and how JMNCs might engage more in strategic cooperation and empower subsidiary decision-making. The contributors to this volume consider a wide range of relevant issues: they demonstrate the long-term evolution of JMNCs; they compare the experience of JMNCs with firms from the other two major Asia Pacific economies, Korea and China; they evaluate the applicability of established foreign direct investment (FDI) theory to MNCs from Japan and the Asia Pacific; and they reflect on the internal organization of JMNCs at the global, national and subnational level. This book was originally published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.

In the past two decades, the international community has shown an increased proclivity to engage in programmes of post-conflict reconstruction in the aftermath of wars. During the same period, increased globalisation has meant that multinational companies have grown greatly in size and influence and have begun to challenge existing notions of governance at a global level. Here Peter Davis explores the reconstruction processes that have taken place in Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Rwanda. Based on extensive field work as well as existing literature, this book plots the recovery of these countries from conflict, and examines in detail the role that international companies have played in that process. The book also explores how companies' impacts on reconstruction are governed, both by the companies themselves, and by the host government and international agencies managing the rebuilding process.