Search

With intensified global competition, institutional changes and reduced communication costs the propensity of firms to reconfigure their global value chain and separate their activities across national boundaries has increased markedly. It enables firms to combine the benefits arising from specialization and increased flexibility with location advantages. Consequently, large parts of manufacturing and other more standardized activities have been offshored to emerging countries. However, recent developments are challenging this traditional separation between advanced and emerging economies as host of knowledge- and production-intensive activities, respectively. Recent research has emphasized the role of intra-organizational relationships and links among the different parts of the value chain. Innovative and productive activities are affected by strong interdependencies and complementarities, and for some companies the co-location of R&D and manufacturing is critical for development and innovation. This volume will interest scholars in International Business, Economic Geography, Operations and Supply Chain Management, International Economics, and Political Science.

The role that small- and medium-sized enterprises play in the economic development and growth of cities, regions and nations has been an increasing subject of debate and study for the last half century. This volume focuses on the opportunities and challenges that entrepreneurs and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face in a world of global competition. The papers therein provide an overview of successful strategies that global entrepreneurs and SMEs have employed that have allowed them to establish regional and international footprint and of how local resources, culture and managerial capabilities have contributed to startups'global success. In doing so it highlights original, edgy ideas and theoretical advances that will provide the foundation for future doctoral dissertations and other research projects on international entrepreneurship.

The organizational design of the Multinational Corporation (MNC) was a vibrant area of research in the field of International Business and Management during the 1970-1990's. However, since then this research has largely faded from our scholarship. This volume of AIM is designed to spark new life into the research on the organizational design of the MNC. The world - and environmental forces - has changed substantially in the last decades placing new constrains on the MNCs. External shocks have increased and MNCs need to learn how to live with this increased market volatility. Integrating value chains makes MNCs more efficient but also vulnerable. The relentless forces of competition and globalization are forcing MNCs to divide their activities and reach for foreign inputs, markets and partners. By dividing their value chain into discrete pieces -- - some to be performed in-house, while others are outsourced to partner organizations -- - MNCs hope to reduce overall costs and risks, while also reaping the benefits of ideas from contractors or alliance partners worldwide. These challenges call for new research on the organizational design of the MNC. It is our intention with this AIM volume to motivate new research on the proper organizational design mechanisms of MNCs as of today.

This volume advances the debate on the past, present and future of international business and management research. A truly international group of experts present their perspectives, and ask the question'What is it that we know?'when discussing major issues and concepts in the field. This annual collection includes a regular special feature on a leading scholar; exploring in this volume the work of Jean-Francois Hennart and his theories on multinational enterprise and strategic management. Part two addresses international business and international management issues from a philosophical perspective, examining key topics such as post-merger integration, dominant design theory, internalizing firms and the strategy-performance relationship.

The continuous search for efficiency gains and the goal of attaining a sustainable competitive advantage have steadily increased the volume of goods and services procured globally from third party vendors. In this context, named as “the next wave of globalization”, the offshoring phenomenon has stimulated research and political debates. With the rise of services offshoring, international value chain disaggregation for services has reached a formerly unknown scale. Also, it is increasingly complex transactions, requiring a higher degree of qualification, which are becoming subject to offshoring as well.The Offshoring Challenge: Strategic Design and Innovation for Tomorrow's Organization features selected chapters by an international research community on the topic of offshoring. All potential business models from offshore outsourcing to third party providers are covered, from cooperative arrangements to internal organizational set-ups including captive offshore centers. Contributions have significant insights regarding: the increasing offshoring of knowledge-intensive services; the offshoring process; business models incorporating offshoring; the hidden costs of offshoring; and the administration of offshoring activities within firmsThe book is aimed at a broad audience of scholars, students and practitioners in the fields of strategy, international business and operations management.

lication. Key criteria for inclusion included a sound combination of conceptuali­ zation and empirical grounding in response to the questions above. Peter J. Buckley and Martin J. Carter in their paper Governing Knowledge Sharing in Multinational Enterprises examines knowledge-sharing processes in four UK MNCs. A key challenge is to design governance architectures so that application strategy (uses of a given portfolio of knowledge) and discovery strategy (new combinations of knowledge) can be supported through knowledge sharing. A key trade-off obtains here between integration and partitioning of knowledge assets, whereby increased partitioning facilitates local knowledge sharing but complicates global integration. In addition, coordination mechanisms employed in the governance of knowledge sharing may be organized centrally or decentrally, whereby central organization may lead to knowledge loss and managerial overload while decentral organization may lead to loss of control. An important contingency in resolving these governance problems is the extent to which firms follow application and discovery strategies. In addition, the authors recommend to closely integrate incentive systems with attempts for knowledge sharing including individual incentives and rewards. Julian Birkinshaw and Carl F. Fey examine the Organization of Research and Development in Large Multinational Firms in a sample of 107 firms based in the UK and Sweden. The key challenge addressed in this paper is how knowledge creation is governed and how this impacts R&D performance. Several trade-offs obtain. First, headquarter centred vs.