Research in Global Strategic Management – serie

This examination of multinational location strategy focuses on the areas of economics, management and policy. It discusses issues such as regionalism and international trade; location patterns, local content rules and foreign direct investment; and, plant location in Eastern European countries.

The focus of this volume is the phenomenon of globalization, and specifically its relevance to and impact on small business and entrepreneurship. The works presented here stem from a pioneering, three day conference held at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, under the joint auspices of McGill's Centre for International Business Studies, and the Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies. Leading international scholars came together to begin integrating research in what had previously been from widely divergent fields. The book presents four sections covering: theoretical overviews of the emerging field of international entrepreneurship; the use of alliances and networks to facilitate the entry of small businesses into the global arena; the results of three empirically based research studies designed to better understand the market forces and managerial characteristics which appear to underlie the success of SME's in the global arena; and visionary contributions on forces which will shape the successful international firm of the future. The diversity reflected in this volume and the common thread which unites the work calls for new strategic approaches by small firms, large firms, and governments alike. This work will help readers to better understand and anticipate the dramatic changes coming, and to design appropriate corporate strategic responses.

The purpose of this book is to present leading research concerning the increasing strategic importance of environmental concerns within the multinational firm, and to explore the implications of corporate environmental strategy on public policy. The contributions present empirical research that deals with the simultaneous effects of the globalization of markets and the emergence of environmental concerns as issues of corporate strategy, either using a cross-national sample of firms within a global industry, or a sample of multinationals from a particular home country. By considering the dynamics of corporate environmental behavior explicitly within the context of global markets, the book makes a unique contribution to the discussion about the impact of multinational activity. The chapters provide a rich understanding of the kinds of interactions that occur between multinationals and regulators, multinationals and non-governmental organizations, and multinationals and their customers. By explaining what motivates multinational firms to make environmental investments and to improve their environmental performance, these studies offer necessary input for the formulation of well-informed public policy. As a consequence, this book provides essential material for advanced students and decision-makers interested in the changing role of multinational enterprises in the global economy. While being of broad interest to academics in the field of international business and strategy, this volume also provides interesting results to researchers concerned with the ability of national governments to regulate multinationals, how regulation affects multinationals, and how in turn multinational conduct affects regulatory standards.

International Business education and research became institutionalized in leading US business schools in the 1960's. One of the most influential business schools and one of the first to develop a full international business department was Indiana University. In the first two sections of this book, the leadership of Indiana University in the developments in the field of international business is assessed. In subsequent parts of the book, the influence of Indiana University on the major associated fields of research and teaching (finance, marketing, and management) is assessed, and recent research themes in these fields are explored.The book develops several overlapping themes: the process of internationalization within major Business Schools; the Indiana University experience as a leader in comparison to others; the extent to which I.B. has been effectively "infused" in key functional areas of traditional business education; the current state of knowledge about International Business research; and, new issues in International Business research.Parts III, IV, and V of this book extend the key theme about the historical development of international business by looking into current research areas. In Part III, the international aspects of research and teaching in marketing and finance are considered. In Part IV, several papers present state-of- the-art literature reviews and extensions of current research issues in international management strategy. In Part V, issues in global, regional and sub-national strategy are considered, several from a business economics perspective. The latter parts of the book serve to place the earlier historical discussion of IB in context and illustrate how mature and wide-ranging the field has become over the last fifty years.

This book contains selected papers first presented at the "Canada-United States Business Conference" held at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, on April 11-12, 2003. The set of 18 chapters in this book are grouped into three major sections. Part I deals with regional economic integration in North America, including papers on the strategies of multinational enterprises and exporting firms. In Part II, five chapters deal with financial integration in North America and the issues of a common currency.Finally, specific industry sectors and issues of public policy across the Canada-U.S. border are examined in Part III. They include: agriculture; softwood lumber; transportation; and electricity. The key issues of current interest and concern examined include: cross border trade and security - of particular importance in the post-9/11 environment; NAFTA at age ten; and the impact of the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) on NAFTA; and, the FTAA and civil society. The key policy areas discussed included regulation, labor mobility, productivity, and specific sectoral issues (energy, transportation, etc.). In addition to this examination of key research issues, authors also explore managerial and public policy implications of their findings.

This research volume includes a synthesis of recent advances in the theory of the multinational enterprise, with a focus on internalization and international diversification issues. It proposes important extensions of multinational enterprise theory, especially as regards the importance of geography to multinational strategy, and the linkages between internalization and international diversification. The book also introduces the study of various new topics in international business research, namely regional (as opposed to global) strategy analysis, global alliances that lead to alliance specific advantages, and environmental aspects of international strategy. The ten chapters that provide this state of the art overview of international business theory and strategy were written by some of the world's best known international business scholars, including John Cantwell, John Dunning, Lorraine Eden, Jean Francois-Hennart, Ans Kolk, Alan M. Rugman, Alain Verbeke and Bernard Wolf. The research volume focuses especially on the important contributions of Alan M. Rugman, President of the Academy of International Business, and one of the founders of the international business field. The volume's editor is Professor Alain Verbeke, McCaig Chair in Management at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary (Canada) and also associated with Templeton College, University of Oxford (UK), and the Solvay Business School, Free University of Brussels (Belgium).

Is the world globalized as so many pundits claim? The facts say otherwise. Consumption, for example, has a strong domestic bias. Distance and borders are two important reasons for this bias and are a powerful deterrent to globalization. Also, multinational corporations the organizations that best symbolize the concept of globalization do not have a global reach, but rather focus their activities within an area surrounding the home market. These facts suggest that regionalization and not globalization is the appropriate characterization of today's economic environment. This volume explores the drivers of cross-border trade and the forces underlying the expansion of the border from the nation to the regional trade area. The findings of this research cast some doubts on the practicality of striving for a more globalized trade system through costly and time-consuming trade rounds populated by a myriad of players with their agendas and conflicts? Would it not be better to let the world fully play out the regional option before implementing a more global strategy? It provides international coverage of global strategic management. It discusses multi-national corporation and whether their growth strategy should be regional v. global. It also addresses regional trade situations (i.e., NAFTA, European Union, and Mercosur).

This volume contains recent chapters dealing with empirical tests of the relationship between multinationality (M) and performance (P). This is a traditional topic in the area of international business, but recently there has been renewed interest, partly due to theoretical advances such as the regionalization thesis of Rugman and Verbeke (in contrast to the previous assumption of uniform internationalization) and partly due to better and more detailed data on the geographic dispersion of activities now available from the annual reports of large firms, most of which are multinational enterprises (MNEs). In this literature, P, as a dependent variable, is broadly determined by the degree of multinationality, M, where M is usually proxied by the ratio of foreign (F) to total (T) sales or assets, i.e. (F/T). There is either a linear, quadratic, or cubic (S curve) fit, allowing for controls such as size of the firm; industry grouping, organizational learning effect over time, etc. Recently, this M and P literature has included regional aspects of (F/T) and performance, for example performance has looked at return on foreign assets (ROFA). In short, new accounting standards affecting most of the worlds MNEs now make it possible to adopt both a new dependent variable (for performance) and a new independent variable (for multinationality). Performance can now capture the return on foreign assets (ROFA), and just the return on total assets (ROTA). Multinationality is now available on a regional basis, i.e. the ratio of regional (R) to total (T) sales R/T. This offers better information on the strategic performance of an MNE, in comparison to the traditional metric of the return of foreign - to total sales or assets F/T. This volume will publish 10 chapters at the forefront of research on this reinvigorated topic of the regional aspects of multinationality and performance. It provides research at the forefront of the regional aspects of multinationality and performance. It deals with empirical tests of the relationship between multinationality and performance. It considers the effect that new accounting standards for the worlds MNEs have on multinationality and performance. This book series is available electronically at website.

The AIB Fellows Group includes top researchers, educators, and administrators in the IB field. Most of its 60 members have contributed to this edited volume as authors, co-authors and reviewers, including such noteworthy scholars as John Dunning, Alan Rugman and Yair Aharoni, among many others.Its chapters examine aspects of the growth of the field, evaluate our present state of knowledge and outline future lines of research. They cover the growth of several functional areas (marketing, advertising, finance, etc.), review problems of methodological rigor in IB research, trace the history and evolution of IB studies and their likely future trajectories, raise ethical and moral issues about IB practices and evaluate the impact of major theories on IB studies. A couple of chapters cover the history of international business and of the AIB Fellows Group. Altogether, this book provides a benchmark of where IB knowledge stands today and will grow in coming years.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has soared and multinational enterprises (MNEs) have grown in numbers and complexity as globalization has intensified. This volume takes stock of important new issues relating to FDI and MNEs in a changing world. Contributors are distinguished international business scholars who have written specifically for the book in their areas of expertise. The volume focuses on four key areas: How do managers and firms make internationalization decisions? How does the national origin of MNEs affect their competitive advantages and strategies, particularly those spawned by emerging markets? How is the scope of MNEs changing, in terms of what gets done inside and outside the firm, product vs. geographic diversification, manufacturing vs. services, and the pace of internationalization? And finally, what can or should governments do to harness MNEs for the greater good? In each area, authors propose interesting and important questions for further research. The volume is a Festschrift to Yair Aharoni of Tel Aviv University, whose pioneering research, including the seminal book, The Foreign Investment Decision Process (1966), helped launch the systematic study of FDI and MNEs almost fifty years ago.

Part of a series which presents research on global strategic management, this volume focuses on the corporate response to global change. Topics discussed include strategic management and institutional dynamics, and methodological perspectives on the dynamics of national competitive advantage.

Each year, the Fellows of the Academy of International Business (AIB) spot and elect new talents to join them and expand research in international business. Only 21 Fellows were elected between 2008 and 2012. Ten of them have contributed chapters to this volume, the first of two that will feature unique insights from the AIB's best and brightest. Each chapter addresses the important questions facing researchers today and answers them in three distinct cultural, theoretical, and managerial contexts.

This volume of Research in Global Strategic Management, the first under the new editorship of William Newburry, provides new perspectives on headquarters-subsidiary relationships in the context of the contemporary multinational corporation. By focusing on the role and the management of subsidiaries, the volume complements recent research on MNC headquarters. Contributions can be grouped into three categories: the management mechanisms of the MNC; tensions and conflicts in HQ-subsidiary relationships; and knowledge transfer in the MNC network.