This book is a detailed account of the evolution and theory of multinational trading companies. The book features contributions from an international selection of US, European and Asian economists and business historians which demonstrate the importance of trading companies in trade and investment flows in the world economy from the nineteenth century to the present. The authors adopt evolutionary and comparative perspectives to examine diversification strategies and organizational structures. This innovative study provides a major new dimension to our knowledge of the history and theory of international business.

In contrast to widespread assessments that family enterprises lack sufficient resources and capabilities to go global, many family companies are competing successfully in an increasingly globalized business environment. Worldwide, a large number of thriving multinationals are still family-owned and/or under family control. While there is abundant literature on the phenomenon of globalization from many different disciplines, neither the literature on multinationals nor the growing field of family business studies have systematically investigated family multinationals yet. This volume is one of the first to deal explicitly with family multinationals and the role of the family in internationalization. It situates itself at the crossroads of internationalization studies on the one hand and family business research on the other. Why do families continue to play such a large role in some of the most prominent firms in emerging and mature economies? How did they manage to maintain ownership control, yet divest of unrelated business ventures? How did they internationalize yet maintain control? This book identifies the idiosyncratic strategies and structures of family multinationals in different countries and at different points in time. A comparative historical and case study approach allows us to explore the role of the family through the firms' various internationalization pathways and understand long-term developments and path dependencies.

The control of multinational corporations is an area of law that has attracted immense attention both at national and international level. In recognition of the importance of the subject matter, the United Nations Secretary General has appointed a special representative to work in this area. The book discusses the current trend by MNCs to self regulate by employing voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy. Olufemi Amao argues that the CSR concept is insufficient to deal with externalities emanating from MNCs' operations, including human rights violations. Amao maintains that for CSR to be effective, the law must engage with the concept. In particular, he examines how the law can be employed to achieve this goal. While noting that the control of MNCs involves regulation at the international level, it is argued that more emphasis needs to be placed on possibilities at home, in States and host States where there are stronger bases for the control of corporations. This book will be useful to academic scholars, students, policy makers in developing countries, UN, UN Agencies, the African Union and its agencies, the European Union and its agencies and other international policy makers.

China is poised to gain global importance as a growth engine for the world economy on a par with Europe and the USA. Japanese multinational enterprises are increasingly active in relocating to China their R&D and capital- and knowledge-intensive production for both export-platform and target market reasons. It is at the juncture of the growing impact of China-related activities of Japanese corporations on the transformation of Japanese management philosophies, on the one hand, and the transformation of the Japanese economy more generally, on the other, that this book is situated. As Japanese corporations re-align activities to increasingly accommodate the growing importance of China as a business location, inter-regional expansion will integrate more deeply the Chinese economy within their global strategies, business structures and decision-taking. By presenting current research and thinking on the significance of corporate Japan's growing engagement with China, the book explores the following imminent questions: What is China's future position in the global corporate activities of Japanese firms? How has China's investment profile changed and how and with what purpose do Japanese firms enforce their Chinese presence? The book sheds light on the implications for European businesses and policy-makers of the consequences of deepening integration of these two economic powerhouses. This book was published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.

In this authoritative selection of previously published articles by leading scholars in the field, Stephen Young provides balanced coverage of this wide-ranging and controversial topic. The articles chosen reflect the major changes which are taking place in government policies and attitudes towards foreign direct investment. Topics covered in the volumes include the theory and context of public policy; policy eras; attraction and policy competition; trade, linkages and cluster formation; an investigation of specific policy areas; and country and regional illustrations. Multinationals and Public Policy makes a valuable contribution to an understanding of the role of MNEs in economic development, particularly in host nations, to an appreciation of the part played by public policy in improving the economic contribution of foreign direct investment and also affords an appraisal of changing policy attitudes over time and between countries.

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.

This book explores the limits of the idea of 'neo-colonialism' - the idea that in the period immediately after independence Malaya/Malaysia enjoyed only a 'pseudo-independence', largely because of the entrenched and dominant position of British business interests allied to indigenous elites. The author argues that, although British business did indeed have a strong position in Malaysia in this period, Malaysian politicians and administrators were able to utilise British business, which was relatively weak vis-a-vis the Malaysian state, for their own ends, at the same time as indigenous businesses and foreign, non-British competitors were gathering strength. In addition, despite the commitment of both Conservative and Labour governments in the UK to preserving British influence worldwide through the Commonwealth relationship, British firms in Malaysia received only limited support from the British post-imperial state.

Chinese companies have managed to perform well in Malaysia, especially after the recession in the mid-1980s, due to a clear change in the Malay dominated government's attitude to Chinese capital. Despite the problems that prevail among UMNO politicians, the government has provided a stable economic environment and offers opportunities for domestic private investment, even for the Chinese. Given these circumstances, it does appear that Chinese capital in Malaysia has reasonable prospects for further growth in the immediate future.

This study examines the dominant role of Chinese capital in the economy, providing in-depth empirical research on its mode of development and styles of operation. Covering the period from colonial times to the present day this study identifies key issues pertaining to Chinese business operations in Malaysia: ownership and control patterns, style of growth, relations with the state, politicians and other Chinese businessmen, and the manner of development of business abroad, whilst debunking the theory that large-scale Chinese capital is not very entrepreneurial in nature.

This book considers the impact of multinational companies in China on the Chinese economy and on indigenous firms in China. It shows how the global business environment has undergone profound changes since the early 1990s, leading to an explosion of merger and acquisitions activity and consequent unprecedented degrees of concentration in many industries at a global level. It discusses the effects of these developments on the Chinese economy - both on multinationals and indigenous firms - analysing company strategies, activities and value chain structures. It shows that, as China's integration into the global economy increases, new, globalised value chain structures are becoming the established norm across the Chinese economy. In particular, it explores the effects of these developments for local Chinese firms, where the strategy of "catch-up" has recently been a primary goal, demonstrating how difficult it is for Chinese firms to achieve "catch-up" when the competitors they are chasing are themselves moving forward and evolving so fast. The book includes detailed case studies of Boeing, Wal-Mart and Coco-Cola, considering their activities both at the global level and within China, and case studies of the sectors in which these forms operate in China. The book's profoundly important conclusions concerning the impact of multinationals on the local economy and on indigenous firms are applicable to other developing economies as well as to China.

Although much literature on human trafficking focuses on sex trafficking, a great deal of human trafficking results from migrant workers, compelled - by economic deprivation in their home countries - to seek better life opportunities abroad, especially in agriculture, construction and domestic work. Such labour migration is sometimes legal and well managed, but sometimes not so - with migrant workers frequently threatened or coerced into entering debt bondage arrangements and ending up working in forced labour situations producing goods for illicit markets. This book fills a substantial gap in the existing literature given that labour trafficking is a much more subtle form of exploitation than sex trafficking. It discusses how far large multinational corporations are involved, whether intentionally or unintentionally, in human trafficking for the purposes of labour exploitation. They explore how far corporations are driven to seek cheap labour by the need to remain commercially competitive and examine how the problem often lies with corporations' subcontractors, who are not as well controlled as they might be. The essays in the volume also outline and assess measures being taken by governments and international agencies to eradicate the problem.

China's rapid and sustained growth over last thirty years has propelled it to become the world's third largest economy today and potentially the largest in the foreseeable future. As one of the first major economies pulling out of recession and the last remaining major socialist country in the world today, China presents a challenge to established thinking on the essential primacy of global capitalism and the settled nature of the world system - as China becomes more integrated into the world economy and the international system, both are themselves potentially transformed as a result of Chinaa (TM)s involvement. This book explores a wide range of issues connected with the impact of China on the global economy and the prevailing international system. Subjects covered include Chinaa (TM)s multinationals, international acquisitions, the exchange rate, research and development and technology transfer, Chinaa (TM)s emerging major business groupings, and small and medium sized enterprises.

The Handbook of Emerging Market Multinational Corporations focuses on why emerging market multinationals internationalize, how they do so and the advantages they explore and exploit as they internationalize. The Handbook highlights the requirement for new perspectives on theory and managerial practice to better comprehend this phenomenon.Internationalizing firms from emerging markets are sweeping the global economy. Here, expert contributors offer interesting insight into emerging market multinationals internationalization drivers, growth processes and expansion, and underscore similarities and differences between developed and emerging country internationalizing firms. Case studies from emerging market economies are presented, including corporations from China, Egypt, India, Thailand, Russia, and South Africa. Revised perspectives on internationalization theory are proposed, addressing changing global value chain configurations, institutional distance between home and host countries, the role of governments and preferred modes of entry into foreign markets. This theoretical, empirical and conceptual work is a fundamental point of reference for students and academics interested in business, economics and internationalization theory. Practitioners in internationalizing firms and policy makers within government and non-governmental organizations will find this discerning book to be of great value. Contributors include: Y. Aharoni, F. J. Contractor, A. Cuervo-Cazurra, M. Demirbag, L. Fernandez-Mendez , L. Gao, E. Garcia-Canal, M. F. Guillen, K. Kalotay, E. Lioliou, X. Liu, K. Meyer, S.R. Nair, P. Pananond, R. Ramamurti, J.N. Sheth, R. Singh, Y. Wei, G. Wood, Y. Wu, A. Yaprak

This book focuses on the questions of: why do some economically disadvantaged nations develop significantly faster than others, and what roles do their educational systems play?
As case illustrations, in the early 1960s Mexico and South Korea were both equally underdeveloped agrarian societies. Since that time, the development strategies pursued by each country resulted in dramatically different results. By the turn of the century South Korea possessed one of the finest educational systems in the world and was a world-class producer of high-tech products. Mexico, on the other hand, was still graduating less than half of its secondary school-age students and bogged down in assembling products owned by others. The book addresses the issues of what happened and why, and frames the consequences for other developing nations facing similar challenges.
Professor Hanson argues that the key to understanding involves the manner and intensity in which these countries engaged their educational, governmental and business institutions to acquire manufacturing knowledge from offshored transnational corporations, and how they used these insights to grow their own local industries. Whereas South Korea studied the foreign outsourced plants as if they were educational systems and pursued with tenacity the new knowledge they possessed, Mexico viewed them as cash cows that generated wages and reduced unemployment. The author emphasizes that significant educational reform will only break down the barriers of institutional bureaucracies when responding to the pressures and demands of industrialization. This is one of the first books of its kind to compare South-East Asian and Latin American economies and their links to educational systems.

The control of multinational corporations is an area of law that has attracted immense attention both at national and international level. In recognition of the importance of the subject matter, the United Nations Secretary General has appointed a special representative to work in this area.

The book discusses the current trend by MNCs to self regulate by employing voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy. Olufemi Amao argues that the CSR concept is insufficient to deal with externalities emanating from MNCs' operations, including human rights violations. Amao maintains that for CSR to be effective, the law must engage with the concept. In particular, he examines how the law can be employed to achieve this goal. While noting that the control of MNCs involves regulation at the international level, it is argued that more emphasis needs to be placed on possibilities at home, in States and host States where there are stronger bases for the control of corporations.

This book will be useful to academic scholars, students, policy makers in developing countries, UN, UN Agencies, the African Union and its agencies, the European Union and its agencies and other international policy makers.

First published in 1986, this book examines the nature of the Singapore economy and the role of multinationals within it. It describes the growth and development of the economy and its increasingimportance as a key financial, service and industrial centre in the world economy. It loks at the government policies which have attracted multinationals and it assesses why Singapore is so attractive, comparing Singapore to other East Asian economies. It concludes by evaluating Singapore's prospects for continuing as a vast off-shore deregulated money-making machine.

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.

Globalisation makes our world appear smaller: it is easier to connect, communicate and do business with people all over the world. But cultural differences remain and challenge globalized knowledge communication and transfer. This book examines cross-cultural management within multinational enterprises (MNEs), focusing in particular on how cultural differences influence the transfer of knowledge between different units within individual corporations. Based on detailed empirical analysis of 267 companies in Germany and Japan, it considers the relative effectiveness of inter-cultural and intra-cultural knowledge transfer; identifies the factors that inhibit or facilitate successful knowledge transfer; and suggests how management processes of MNEs can be improved. It demonstrates that although cultural differences do not necessarily influence the selection and transmission of knowledge overseas, they do have a strong impact on how that knowledge is received, integrated and put into practice locally. The book shows how knowledge is accepted differently in Europe and Asia and which factors have the strongest impact on efficient knowledge transfer. It suggests that to improve cross-cultural management MNEs should focus less on upgrading the technology that allows knowledge transfer, and more on the capabilities and beliefs of individual employees.

Japanese foreign direct investment surged into Western markets in the late 1980s provoking intense policy debates in Europe and America. How did the European authorities respond to this 'Japanese Challenge'? How did their response compare to the US policy record? Does this international business activity give any insights into the idea of increasing convergence of behaviour of the world's capitalist economies? To answer these questions, Mark Mason investigates European policies towards the Japanese Challenge in cross-national and historical perspectives. He compares the policy response of European governments with that of the US government by contrasting case studies in three key sectorsthe automobile industry, consumer electronics, and banking. The case studies are then examined in the context of wider policy patterns and models across the entire Triad throughout the postwar period. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in international business history, Japanese investment policies, international trade, corporate strategy, and government-industry relations.

A key distinctive feature of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) as organizations resides in the fact that they span across borders. This exposes them to dissimilar and often unfamiliar social and economic conditions as they venture in foreign countries. MNEs from industrialized economies that are active in developing countries and emerging markets face particularly challenging hurdles due to both economic and institutional discrepancies between their home and host countries. This book focuses on the uneasy interaction between the traditional logics of developing countries and the economic logic of MNEs. The traditional logics of most developing countries are built around community-based legitimacy and an intuitive but concrete epistemology. Conversely, the economic logic of MNEs from developed economies is built around technical and economic legitimacy and an abstract intellectual epistemology. Unpacking the uneasy interactions between these two logics will help achieve MNEs' objectives of competitiveness in developing countries as well as globally. The Montreal Local Global Research Group is a well recognized research group in formulating and researching local and global issues in strategic management from the perspective of integrating divergent dominant logics into the strategy conceptualization process, and this will be the first book to be dedicated to the study of the interaction between the traditional logic of developing country and the economic logic of Multinational Enterprise (MNE). The cultural diversity of the contributing authors and the multidisciplinary approach offers a fresh perspective from which to explore beneficial corporate and local strategies that promote long-term economic growth consistent with local traditional and cultural norms. This collection will be primarily of interest to scholars of international business, international development, and economics. Furthermore, this book is immediately relevant to decision makers in Multinational corporations, NGOs and political decision makers that mediate the interaction between local actors and corporate agents in developing and transitional economies.

The uncovering of a great number of cartels in the industrialized world has left an unfortunate, yet significant, mark on global economic developments in recent years. Globalization has forced firms into more direct competition; the result has been global price-fixing. This situation has greatly challenged antitrust authorities. Taking a broad yet detailed approach, this work sets a practical explanation of the history of cartels and antitrust law in a sound theoretical framework, as well as providing suggestions as to how potential reforms of antitrust laws could improve the situation going forward. The book includes a comprehensive analysis of the motivations behind and perceived necessity for organizations to enter into cartels, and the success or otherwise of legislatures' attempts to both uncover and prevent such cartels from taking place. A total of 24 price-fixing conspiracies uncovered in the US and Europe are examined as part of the analysis to demonstrate the globalization of collusion.

By critically appraising current theories of both Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and agglomeration, this book explores the variety of links that exist between these two externality-creating phenomena. Using in-depth empirical research on Mexico, Jacob Jordaan constructs and analyzes several datasets on Mexican manufacturing industries at various geographical scales, creating innovative models on FDI externalities that incorporate explicitly regional considerations. The empirical findings identify both direct FDI spillover effects as well as the effects of agglomeration on these externalities. In extension of this, the analysis also contains analysis of FDI productivity effects that arise through inter-firm linkages between FDI and local Mexican suppliers.

This book considers the impact of multinational companies in China on the Chinese economy and on indigenous firms in China. It shows how the global business environment has undergone profound changes since the early 1990s, leading to an explosion of merger and acquisitions activity and consequent unprecedented degrees of concentration in many industries at a global level. It discusses the effects of these developments on the Chinese economy - both on multinationals and indigenous firms - analysing company strategies, activities and value chain structures. It shows that, as China's integration into the global economy increases, new, globalised value chain structures are becoming the established norm across the Chinese economy. In particular, it explores the effects of these developments for local Chinese firms, where the strategy of "catch-up" has recently been a primary goal, demonstrating how difficult it is for Chinese firms to achieve "catch-up" when the competitors they are chasing are themselves moving forward and evolving so fast. The book includes detailed case studies of Boeing, Wal-Mart and Coco-Cola, considering their activities both at the global level and within China, and case studies of the sectors in which these forms operate in China. The book's profoundly important conclusions concerning the impact of multinationals on the local economy and on indigenous firms are applicable to other developing economies as well as to China.

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.

This book focuses on the questions of: why do some economically disadvantaged nations develop significantly faster than others, and what roles do their educational systems play? In the early 1960s Mexico and South Korea were both equally underdeveloped agrarian societies. Since that time, the development strategies pursued by each country resulted in dramatically different results. By the turn of the century South Korea possessed one of the finest educational systems in the world and was a world-class producer of high-tech products. Mexico, on the other hand, was still graduating less than half of its secondary school-age students and bogged down in assembling products owned by others. This book addresses the issues of what happened and why, and frames the consequences for other developing nations facing similar challenges. Professor Hanson argues that the key to understanding involves the manner and intensity in which these countries engaged their educational, governmental and business institutions to acquire manufacturing knowledge from offshored transnational corporations, and how they used these insights to grow their own local industries. Whereas South Korea studied the foreign outsourced plants as if they were educational systems and pursued with tenacity the new knowledge they possessed, Mexico viewed them as 'cash cows' that generated wages and reduced unemployment. The author emphasizes that significant educational reform will only break down the barriers of institutional bureaucracies when responding to the pressures and demands of industrialization. This is one of the first books of its kind to compare South-East Asian and Latin American economies and their links to educational systems.

Globalization has become a common phenomenon, yet one that many people experience as a threat not only to their economic existence, but also to their cultural and moral self-image. This volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to provide a theoretical overview of how business ethics deals with the phenomenon of globalization. The authors first examine the origins and development of globalization and its interaction with business ethics, before discussing the impact on and role of national and multinational corporations. The book goes on to examine the relationship between industrialized and developing countries, and explores the place of ethics in globalized markets.