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.

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.

Due to increasing complexity in new product development multi-organization, multi-team (MOMT) projects are becoming more common. They are formed in different industries like computer, automotive, aircraft, and space research. Since many of these projects still fail, more knowledge on the influences on performance in and of such projects is required in order to be able to manage them successfully. The author examines the influences of communication within and between teams on team and project performance, which in turn depends on applied design principles that structure and facilitate that information flow. Quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal that there are differential relations on the team and project level as well as for effectiveness and efficiency. Managerial implications are given of how to structure MOMT projects and the design problem-solving process and thereby facilitate the information flow within and between teams in order to make the teams and projects successful.

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.

In this book, the focus is on post-merger intercultural integration, effective communication between the relevant cultures and the different politeness strategies adopted by them. It is argued that cultural differences are a key issue in misunderstandings and miscommunication, which can affect a smooth post-merger integration, thereby focusing on differences between the Australians, US-Americans, Germans and the Swiss. The research contributes to bridge the gap between pragmatics, sociolinguistics and intercultural management studies. The empirical findings identify a company's social dimensions and execution skills as strategic sources of competitive advantage in cross-border M&A activity.

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.

International Business and Institutions after the Financial Crisis provides an in-depth discussion and offers new insights concerning the ways in which firms from developed and developing countries are performing in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. This book examines various issues from different viewpoints, particularly that of institutions, and draws on research conducted in different country settings. This book examines various issues from different viewpoints, particularly that of institutions, and draws on research conducted in different country settings.

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.

This volume takes stock of the latest international business research on the relationship between European multinational enterprises (MNEs) and their policy environment. The volume brings together a variety of scholarly contributions from an European perspective. European MNEs were amongst the earliest to internationalize and many now command globally dispersed operations. European MNEs pioneered the multi-centric organizational form, which can be interpreted in part as an effort to address the policy challenges facing these firms in environments fraught with natural and government-imposed market imperfections. The volume covers four dimensions of MNE corporate strategy in the face of complex policy environments: corporate strategic responses to national policy institutions; pro-active institution-oriented strategies; dynamics of international business-government relations; and, corporate strategies in turbulent times.

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.

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.

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.

Countries adopt policies that attract foreign multinationals, stimulate industrial clustering and foster innovation. This book links these topical issues, examining activities of multinational enterprises alongside the efficiency, appropriateness and sufficiency of such policies. With new empirical evidence, it makes practical proposals throughout.

The book International Mergers and Acquisitions is an anthology that combines scientifically substantiated articles and practical experiences to a synthesis. Different points of view based on scientific research, business administration and corporate law provide the reader a holistic perception - continuative to the existing standard literature. Selected articles from and for scientific research and economy focus on topics, which are only addressed marginally in existing books. International experts were invited to highlight new perspectives and perceptions in international M&A processes. Therefore the articles deal with M&A activities in the new EU member states, Eastern Europe and Asia, legal aspects, break-up fees and corporate lock-ups as well as brands in M&A and IT aspects.

This book is published during a phase of crisis and transformation for the automobile industry across the world; this crisis is particularly acute in Europe and the United States. The book is written especially for the non-specialist with more than a passing interest in the sector, such as experts of other sectors, trade unionists, representatives of the corporate world, policymakers and public managers who deal with industry, commerce and public planning. The authors provide up-to-date information and assessments of what is actually taking place, with particular attention paid to the sub-supply companies. The main focus lies on four European countries, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Italy, each of which is significant for its different experiences. Finally, three important non-European situations, the United States, Brazil and Japan, are examined.

The early research on multinational enterprises usually relied on traditional economic theory or relatively simple but powerful theories developed in the field of international business. They were developed to help us understand why firms entered international markets.
However, as the field of international management has developed further, with more scholars from adjacent disciplines conducting research on issues of importance to international markets and multinational firms, newer, more diverse and complex theoretical perspectives have been developed. The present volume involves a series of invited papers focused partly on Professor Doz??'s recent work and on other newer and important theoretical perspectives on the multinational enterprise. These works are authored by a number of top scholars in the field from North America and Europe. The intent of this volume is to highlight and emphasize the new and diverse theoretical foci in this field (e.g., management of large groups in emerging markets, international entrepreneurship and the liabilities of foreignness) and serve as a catalyst to the increasingly important research designed to help us understand and build a theory of the multinational firm.

The book is divided into three parts, with the first focused on the new and visible theory of the metanational firm by Yves Doz and comments on this work and Yves Doz??'s broader contributions to the field by three top scholars in the international management field. The second part contains two works that examine the evolving nature of theory on the multinational firm in international management research. The third part contains five papers that present diverse yet highlyimportant theoretical perspectives on the multinational enterprise. This work provides a base upon which future excellent research in the field of international management will be advanced.

In today's world of interconnected and "always-on" information, companies that succeed are those that compete by leveraging strategic control points. A strategic control point is a part of a market that, if controlled by one party, can be used to leverage power elsewhere. This can occur throughout the supply chain, in a related business, or even in an unrelated market The Carrot and the Stick uses detailed examples and case studies - ranging from historic cases like Vanderbilt's railroad in New York to current cases like Amazon's control of the value chain - to explain how finding and leveraging points of strategic control can be the key to success in today's convergent, fast-paced markets. The book focuses on how to spot and own potential points of strategic control, how to extend them to multiple markets, what tools and processes can be implemented in order to utilize the principle in practice, and how to "pry loose" existing points of strategic control owned by others. Applicable to all industries, this book can help alter business outcomes.

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.

Contents:
1. The eclectic paradigm in the global economy. John Cantwell and Rajneesh Narula
2. The eclectic (OLI) paradigm of international production: Past, present and future. John H. Dunning
3. New Instructional Economics: An organising framework for OLI. Elizabeth Maitland and Stephen Nicholas
4. FDI and endogenous growth: IB perspectives. Terutomo Ozama and Sergio Castello
5. The co-evolutional advantage: Strategic management theory and the eclectic paradigm. Anoop Madhok and Anupama Phene
6. From OLI to OLMA: Incorporating higher levels of environmental and structural complexity into the eclectic paradigm. Stephen Guisinger
7. From a theory to a paradigm: Examining the eclectic paradigm as a framework in international economics
8. Managerial beliefs, market contestability and dominant strategic orientation in the eclectic paradigm. Timothy M. Devinney, David F. Midgley and Sunil Venaik
9. The Micro-Mechanics of foreign operations' performance: an analysis based on the OLI-framework. Gabriel R.G. Benito and Sverre Tomassen
10. The eclectic paradigm and the recognition of finance-specific factors. Lars Oxelheim, Trond Randøy and Arthur Stonehill
11. The challenge of electronic markets for international business theory. John H. Dunning and Cliff Wymbs
12. The recent globalisation of the italian banking sector. An interpretation based on the ecelctic paradigm. Lucia Piscitello
13. OLI:a critical reflection and some conclusions. Lorraine Eden

Contents:
Part I: 1. ASEAN Business Context 2. The Rise of the Multinational Part II: 3. Organizational Downsizing 4. Corporate Consolidation 5. Human Resource Management 6. Electronic Technology 7. Information Tracking Part III: 8. The Marketing Function 9. Product, Brand, and Pricing Strategy 10. Advertising and Promotion 11. Distribution

Contents:
Part I: 1. ASEAN Business Context 2. The Rise of the Multinational Part II: 3. Organizational Downsizing 4. Corporate Consolidation 5. Human Resource Management 6. Electronic Technology 7. Information Tracking Part III: 8. The Marketing Function 9. Product, Brand, and Pricing Strategy 10. Advertising and Promotion 11. Distribution