On the basis of empirical research, a model of the internationalization process of the firm is developed. The model focuses on the gradual acquisition, integration and use of knowledge about foreign markets and operations, and on the incrementally increasing commitments to foreign markets. In particular, attention is concentrated on the increasing involvement in the individual foreign country.

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The Internationalization Process of the Firm - A Model of Knowledge Development and Increasing Foreign Market Commitments

Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

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International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

This classic work chronicles how New York, London, and Tokyo became command centers for the global economy and in the process underwent a series of massive and parallel changes. What distinguishes Sassen's theoretical framework is the emphasis on the formation of cross-border dynamics through which these cities and the growing number of other global cities begin to form strategic transnational networks. All the core data in this new edition have been updated, while the preface and epilogue discuss the relevant trends in globalization since the book originally came out in 1991.

The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo

Pursuing a nodal (i.e., subsidiary) level of analysis, this paper advances and tests an overarching theoretical framework pertaining to intracorporate knowledge transfers within multinational corporations (MNCs). We predicted that (i) knowledge outflows from a subsidiary would be positively associated with value of the subsidiary’s knowledge stock, its motivational disposition to share knowledge, and the richness of transmission channels; and (ii) knowledge inflows into a subsidiary would be positively associated with richness of transmission channels, motivational disposition to acquire knowledge, and the capacity to absorb the incoming knowledge. These predictions were tested empirically with data from 374 subsidiaries within 75 MNCs headquartered in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Except for our predictions regarding the impact of source unit's motivational disposition on knowledge outflows, the data provide either full or partial support to all of the other elements of our theoretical framework. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3094239.pdf

Knowledge flows within multinational corporations

This article reports results from empirical tests of relationships between the pattern of innovation within a firm and certain of the firm's characteristics: the stage of development of its production process and its chosen basis of competition. The hypothesized relationships posed for the present investigation are a synthesis of prior research by the present authors on two distinct but complementary conceptual models of innovation, concerning respectively: the relationship between competitive strategy and innovation, and the relationship between production process characteristics and innovation. The empirical investigation is carried out with data available from the Myers and Marquis study of successful technological innovation in five different industry segments. The essential aspects of the hypothesized relationships are that the characteristics of the innovative process will systematically correspond with the stage of development exhibited by the firm's production process technology and with its strategy for competition and growth. As a more specific example these relationships predict that there will be coherent patterns in the stimuli for innovation (market, production or new technology); in the types of innovation (product or process, original or adopted, etc.) and in barriers to innovation. The presently reported statistical evidence is decidedly favorable to the hypothesized relationships, even though the adaptations needed to implement tests with existing data introduce dependencies that limit conclusions which would otherwise be warranted. The broad implication is that strong and important relationships exist among the capability of a firm to innovate, its competitive strategy and the posture of its production resources.

A dynamic model of process and product innovation

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on international investment and international trade in the product cycle. It is a mistake to assume that equal access to scientific principles in all the advanced countries means equal probability of the application of these principles in the generation of new products. There is ordinarily a large gap between the knowledge of a scientific principle and the embodiment of the principle in a marketable product. An entrepreneur usually has to intervene to accept the risks involved in testing whether the gap can be bridged. The United States' market offers certain unique kinds of opportunities to those who are in a position to be aware of them. The market consists of consumers with an average income that is higher than that in any other national market, and is characterized by high unit labor costs and relatively unrationed capital compared with practically all other markets. As the demand for a product expands, a certain degree of standardization usually takes place. A commitment to some set of product standards opens up technical possibilities for achieving economies of scale through mass output, and encourages long-term commitments to some given process and some fixed set of facilities.

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International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle

International investment and international trade in the product cycle

The last decade has produced a flowering of hypotheses that purport to explain the international trade and direct investment activities of firms in terms of the socalled product cycle. My purpxjse in this paper is to suggest that the power of such hj'potheses has been changing. Two reasons account for that change: one, an increase in the geographical reach of many of the enterprises that are involved in the introduction of new products, a consequence of their having established many overseas subsidiaries; the other, a change in the national markets of the advanced industrialized countries, which has reduced some of the differences that had previously existed between such markets.

Raymond Vernon

Papers

International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle

International investment and international trade in the product cycle

The product cycle hypothesis in a new international environment

Sovereignty at Bay; The Multinational Spread of US Enterprises

Sovereignty at bay: The multinational spread of U. S. enterprises