Local Players in Global Games: The Strategic Constitution of a Multinational Corporation

by Peer Hull Kristensen, Jonathan Zeitlin

Overview

What happens when previously autonomous firms from different countries, each with their own identities, routines and capabilities, come together inside a single multinational corporation? Can a cooperative strategy be established that advances the development of the multinational as a whole, or do mutual misunderstandings and the unintended consequences of strategic interaction among the players' lead instead to endemic conflict and disintegration?
This book tackles these novel and important questions through an empirical study of the strategic constitution of an 'actually existing' multinational. It does so by tracing the historical construction of the multinational corporation from the confluence of multiple formerly independent firms and analyzing the interacting web of strategies pursued by different actors within it. The analysis reveals how workers, unionists, subsidiary managers, and corporate executives pursue separate strategic games rooted in their local contexts, whose global outcome contrasts sharply with idealized views of the multinational as an integrated and coordinated organization.
By comparing these findings to those of the broader literature, the book proceeds to a theoretical examination of the challenges of managing the multinational, and the difficulties of resolving them through conventional organizational means. The authors propose new procedural solutions aimed at fostering mutual recognition and knowledge exchange within the multinational corporation, and explore how a multinational public may be created to press for the necessary reforms in corporate governance. As the success of such reforms is far from preordained, the book concludes with a series of alternative scenarios that illustrate the many obstacles to a smooth continuation of the globalization process.
This is an important and original study of significance for researchers, academics, and advanced students of international business, business strategy, comparative management and organizational studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199275618
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/09/2004
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Peer Hull Kristensen is Professor of the Sociology of Business Firms and Work Organization at the Copenhagen Business School, where he is also Director of the PhD programme of the Department of Organization and Industrial Sociology. He is author of numerous comparative studies of economic organization, including The Multinational Firm (OUP 2001). Jonathan Zeitlin is Professor of Sociology, Public Affairs, and History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is also a Director of the European Union Center. He has been a consultant on industrial and labour market policy for the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and the Greater London Council, and is author of numerous books, including Americanization and its Limits: Reworking US Technology and Management in Postwar Europe and Japan (OUP 2000).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Multinational Corporations as Lead Agents of Globalization?Part I: Local Pathways to Mutlinational Enterprise2. Associating Local Strategies of Global Reach: Horsens, Lake Mills, Eastbourne, and APVPart II: A Global Game Enacted by Local Players3. Horsens: Local Strategies on a Global Stage4. Lake Mills: Self-Limiting Strategies of a Solidaristic Plant Community6. Lygon Place: A Corporate Headquarters at War With Itself7. Strategic Positions and Positional StrategiesPart III: Managerial Challenges and Human Promises of Globalization8. Managing the Multinational: Administrative and Human Challenges9. The Functions of the Executive Revisited: contributions, Inducements, and Constitutional Ordering10. Pragmatic Solutions: From Procedural Justice to Learning by Monitoring11. Creating a Multinational Public for the Corporation12. Conclusion: Sideshadowing the Future of Globalization