This textbook addresses the most crucial strategic decisions and management challenges facing managers of multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating across different institutional settings and complex cultural contexts. How can managers of MNEs address pressures for local responsiveness and global integration? What are cultural and institutional differences and how do they impact the management of MNEs? How can managers create social capital across the MNE in the face of such differences? How can managers ensure knowledge transfer across the MNE? How can human resources be managed in a world of differing standards? Taking a critical, multi-level approach to international business, this textbook: Explores the strategic choices available to managers of MNEs and their consequences in an interactive way, providing an original, and engaging approach to the subject for students seeking to understand the issues faced by managers of MNEs Gives state-of-the-art theoretical overviews of topics related to global strategy and management, making this textbook a useful reference for academics as well as students Offers thirteen original, rich, case studies to illustrate each chapter's theory, highlighting the key challenges and dilemmas faced by managers of MNEs Provides clear exposition and critique of current literature to provide students with a firm theoretical understanding of the subject. This textbook provides a fresh and important contribution to the management of MNEs and will be invaluable for both students at masters level and their lecturers. It will also appeal to practitioners facing the daily challenges of managing MNEs.

This textbook addresses the most crucial strategic decisions and management challenges facing managers of multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating across different institutional settings and complex cultural contexts. How can managers of MNEs address pressures for local responsiveness and global integration? What are cultural and institutional differences and how do they impact the management of MNEs? How can managers create social capital across the MNE in the face of such differences? How can managers ensure knowledge transfer across the MNE? How can human resources be managed in a world of differing standards? Taking a critical, multi-level approach to international business, this textbook: Explores the strategic choices available to managers of MNEs and their consequences in an interactive way, providing an original, and engaging approach to the subject for students seeking to understand the issues faced by managers of MNEs Gives state-of-the-art theoretical overviews of topics related to global strategy and management, making this textbook a useful reference for academics as well as students Offers thirteen original, rich, case studies to illustrate each chapter's theory, highlighting the key challenges and dilemmas faced by managers of MNEs Provides clear exposition and critique of current literature to provide students with a firm theoretical understanding of the subject. This textbook provides a fresh and important contribution to the management of MNEs and will be invaluable for both students at masters level and their lecturers. It will also appeal to practitioners facing the daily challenges of managing MNEs.

This is a book for all who are interested in organizational management philosophy or control practices as the book offers new ways of understanding the dynamics of management. By employing multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives the book provides refreshing and engaging analyses of beyond budgeting and different forms of control. This book will be a source of inspiration for researchers and practitioners by given reasoning and ideas for better understanding of the dynamics, mysteries and paradoxes of control in contemporary organizations.' - Frode Mellemvik, University of Nordland, NorwayThis timely and innovative book focuses on budgeting control and ongoing beyond budgeting trends and its consequences for the organization. Ensuring an optimal balance between individual autonomy and management control is a critical challenge for organizations operating in dynamic business environments. Too much of the former leads to chaos, and too much of the latter guarantees rigidity. This book explores the tensions that arise in seeking the best possible balance between these two dimensions. Resolving these tensions is a critical challenge for achieving competitiveness. In order to examine budgeting control and ongoing 'beyond budgeting', the book's starting point is the Beyond Budgeting movement and what it implies for a new approach to autonomy and management control. This discussion is further supplemented with a broader approach to the issue of control that spans issues such as self-control, time control, transparency as control, ethical control and cultural control. This book's innovative and explorative approach will be of interest to students at master level, scholars and senior and middle-level managers. HR departments will find it instrumental to their work and practice. Contributors: S.D. Becker, T. Bjornenak, B. Bogsnes, A. Bourmistrov, B. Catasus, B. Espedal, P.N. Gooderham, D. Johanson, K. Kaarboe, T. Malmi, M. Messner, O. Nordhaug, H. Norreklit, L.J.T. Pedersen, N. Sandalgaard, A.M. Sandvik, I. Stensaker, S. Terjesen