International Corporations: The Industrial Economics of Foreign Investment
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that foreign direct investment occurs mainly in industries characterized by certain market structures in both the "lending" or home and "borrowing" (or host) countries.
Abstract: As trade follows the flag, so does applied economics follow the newspapers. Urgent issues of public policy have in the past decade or so called forth a great deal of new factual evidence on the international corporation, as the chief conduit for foreign direct investment.2 It has been studied as a channel for the international transfer of technology, as a business organization serving more than one national sovereign master, and as a force influencing the international financial flows recorded in a country's balance of payments. Yet relatively little emphasis has fallen on what might seem the two principal economic features of direct investment by the international corporation: (1) it ordinarily effects a net transfer of real capital from one country to another; and (2) it represents entry into a national industry by a firm established in a foreign market. This neglect is unfortunate, because recognition of these features lets one bring to bear on the causes and consequences of direct investment two important bodies of economic analysis-the pure theory of international trade and the conceptual structure and evidence of market behaviour reposing in the field of industrial organization. Briefly, the argument of this paper is that foreign direct investment occurs mainly in industries characterized by certain market structures in both the "lending" (or home) and "borrowing" (or host) countries. In the parlance of industrial organization, oligopoly with product differentiation normally prevails where corporations make "horizontal" investments to.produce abroad the same lines of goods as they produce in the home market. Oligopoly, not necessarily differentiated, in the home market is typical in industries which undertake "vertical" direct investments to produce abroad a raw material or other input to their production process at home. Direct investment tends to involve market conduct that extends the recognition of mutual market dependence-the essence of oligopoly-beyond national boundaries. Likewise it tends broadly to equalize the rate of return on (equity) capital throughout a
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TL;DR: In this paper, a model of the internationalization process of a firm focusing on the gradual acquisition, integration and use of knowledge about foreign markets and operations, and on the incrementally increasing commitments to foreign markets is developed.
Abstract: 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.
9,918 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that internal resources rather than the market environment should provide the foundation for a firm's strategy, based on an analysis of relationships among resources, capabilities, conpetitive advantage, and profitability.
Abstract: Recent contributions to strategic management and the theory of the firm collectively known as the "resource-based view of the firm" provide illuminating insights into the sources of profitability and the nature of competitive strategy. This article argues that internal resources rather than the market environment should provide the foundation for a firm's strategy. On the basis of an analysis of the relationships among resources, capabilities, conpetitive advantage, and profitability, this article advances a framework for a resource-based approach to strategy formulation.
8,701 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a detailed analysis of nine international alliances yielded a fine-grained understanding of the determinants of interpartner learning, concluding that not all partners are equally adept at learning, that asymmetries in learning alter the relative bargaining power of partners, stability and longevity may be inappropriate metrics of partnership success, and partners may have competitive, as well as collaborative aims, vis-a-vis each other.
Abstract: Global competition highlights asymmetries in the skill endowments of firms. Collaboration may provide an opportunity for one partner to internalize the skills of the other, and thus improve its position both within and without the alliance. Detailed analysis of nine international alliances yielded a fine-grained understanding of the determinants of interpartner learning. The study suggests that not all partners are equally adept at learning; that asymmetries in learning alter the relative bargaining power of partners; that stability and longevity may be inappropriate metrics of partnership success; that partners may have competitive, as well as collaborative aims, vis-a-vis each other; and that process may be more important than structure in determining learning outcomes.
4,408 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a nodal (i.e., subsidiary) level analysis of knowledge transfer within multinational corporations (MNCs) is proposed, where the authors predict that 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.
Abstract: 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.
3,672 citations
TL;DR: The authors empirically examined the decision to transfer the capability to manufacture new products to wholly owned subsidiaries or to other parties and found that the less codifiable and the harder to teach is the technology, the more likely the transfer will be to wholly-owned operations.
Abstract: Firms are social communities that specialize in the creation and internal transfer of knowledge. The multinational corporation arises not out of the failure of markets for the buying and selling of knowledge, but out of its superior efficiency as an organizational vehicle by which to transfer this knowledge across borders. We test the claim that firms specialize in the internal transfer of tacit knowledge by empirically examining the decision to transfer the capability to manufacture new products to wholly owned subsidiaries or to other parties. The empirical results show that the less codifiable and the harder to teach is the technology, the more likely the transfer will be to wholly owned operations. This result implies that the choice of transfer mode is determined by the efficiency of the multinational corporation in transferring knowledge relative to other firms, not relative to an abstract market transaction. The notion of the firm as specializing in the transfer and recombination of knowledge is the foundation to an evolutionary theory of the multinational corporation
3,376 citations