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"THE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION AS ANETWORK: PERSPECTIVES-FROMINTERORGANIZATIONAL THEORY"
bySumantra GHOSHAL*
Christopher A. BARTLETT**
N° 88 / 28
* Sumantra GHOSHAL, Assistant Professor of Business Policy,INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France
** Christopher A. BARTLETT, Harvard Business School, USA
Director of Publication :
Charles WYPLOSZ, Associate Deanfor Research and Development
Printed at INSEAD,Fontainebleau, France
The Multinational Corporation as a Network:Perspectives from Interorganizational Theory
SUMANTRA GHOSHALINSEAD
Boulevard de Constance77305 Fontainebleau, France
(1) 6072-4000
CHRISTOPHER A. BARTLETTHarvard Business SchoolSoldier's Field, Boston
MA 02139, USA(617) 495-6308
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The Multinational Corporation as a Network:
Perspectives from Interorganizational Theory
Abstract
A multinational corporation consists of a group of
geographically dispersed and goal disparate organizations that
include its headquarters and the different national subsidiaries.
Such an entity can be described as an interorganizational network
that is embedded in an external network consisting of all the other
organizations with which the different parts of the multinational
have to interact. Based on this conceptualization, the paper
develops a model of the multinational as an internally
differentiated interorganizational network, and proposes some
hypotheses that relate certain attributes of the multinational,
such as resource configuration and centrality, to certain
structural properties of its external network.
In a recent review of the literature on organizational aspects of
multinational corporations (MNC's), Martinez and Jarillo (1987) presented a
list of 82 research-based publications that, according to the authors, was
merely an enumeration of "key studies" and did not constitute an exhaustive
inventory of all academic work on this topic. Of these 82 publications, 53
have appeared within the last 10 years. In other words, this topic has
received a significant amount of attention from researchers, and not
surprisingly, given the increasing importance and visibility of multinationals
both as key economic actors and as forces of social change (Stopford, 1983:
Dymsza, 1984; Root, 1984), and the opportunity they provide to the social
scientist for exploring one of the most complex organizational forms that
currently exist.
A careful review of this literature may, however, generate some mixed
feelings about its theoretical and normative contributions. On the one hand,
a few studies and conceptualizations such as those by Perlmutter (1969),
Stopford and Wells (1972), and Prahalad and Doz (1987) have contributed simple
yet powerful frameworks that have helped both academics and managers develop a
better understanding of environmental and organizational factors that
influence choice of basic structures and decision making processes in MNC's.
On the other hand, an overwhelming majority of the studies have focused on
minor modifications to these frameworks that have had very limited theoretical
or practical import. With very few exceptions (e.g., Bartlett, 1982; Leksell.
1981; Prahalad and Doz, 1981), most effort has been expended on building
contingency frameworks for explaining differences in different structural
attributes of MNC's, but such effort has been non-cumulative because of
inconsistencies and contradictions in findings across studies: variables that
have been found in one study to have positive correlations with particular
structural aspects such as centralization, have been found to have no effect
or even negative effect in others (Gates and Egelhoff, 1984). Besides, the
overall theoretical apparatus that has been constructed has generally proven
to be too static to deal with issues such as evolution, stability and change
in MNC organizational structures and processes (Bartlett, 1982).
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The objective of this paper is to propose that a new vitality can be
infused into academic research on this topic if the underlying theoretical
anchor is broadened from the current exclusive dependence on the
intraorganizational approach and, more specifically, on the contingency models
that dominate this approach, to greater openness toward another strand of
organization theory, namely, the concepts of action-sets and networks that are
more commonly used for exploring interorganizational phenomena (Evan, 1967;
Aldrich and Whetten, 1981). We believe the interorganizational approach to be
theoretically more appropriate because its constructs match more closely the
nature and level of complexity of the phenomenon that is under investigation.
Multinational companies are physically dispersed in environmental settings
that represent very different economic, social, and cultural milieu (Robock et
al, 1977; Fayerweather, 1978; Hofstede, 1980); are internally differentiated
in complex ways to respond to both environmental and organizational
differences in different businesses, functions, and geographic locations
(Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1987; Prahalad and Doz, 1987); and, as a result of such
dispersal and differentiation, possess internal linkages and coordination
mechanisms that represent and respond to many different kinds and extents of
dependency and interdependency in inter-unit exchange relationships (Ghoshal
and Nohria, 1987). The concept of a network, both as a metaphor and in terms
of the tools and techniques of analysis it provides, is better equipped to
deal with such complexity in comparison to the corresponding constructs and
tools that are available from more traditional approaches of organizational
analysis.
As suggested by Aldrich and Whetten (1981), interorganizational
groupings such as organization sets or networks are constructs created by an
investigator and the relevant issue is not whether a multinational corporation
indeed exists in the form of a network, but how might such a conceptualization
be useful for analyzing different attributes of such organizations.
Therefore, the main thrust of our arguments in this paper is directed at
showing the potential advantages that the interorganizational approach can
provide in investigating organizational characteristics of MNC's, illustrating
some of the new concepts and hypotheses that can be imported into the process
of inquiry by such a change in the underlying theoretical infrastructure, and
highlighting the relevance and practical significance of those hypotheses.
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Interorganizational Theories Applied to the Multinational Corporation
In defining the interorganizational field as a focus of investigation.
Warren (1967) developed a typology of organizational contexts that
distinguished between the ways in which organizational units interact. These
were labeled unitary, federative, coalitional, and social choice. Instead of
being discrete categories, these contexts were proposed to vary in ordinal
fashion in the direction from one extreme - The unitary, to the other - social
choice, along a number of dimensions such as relations of units to an
inclusive goal, locus of decision making and authority, and prescribed
collectivity orientation of units.
A number of theoretical perspectives have emerged in the discussion of
interorganizational relations such as the exchange theoretic approach (Levine
and White, 1961; Emerson, 1962, 1975; Aiken and Hage, 1968; Cook, 1977), a
resource dependency model (Aldrich, 1976; Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978), a
political economy perspective (Benson, 1975) and a Marxian dialectic approach
(Zeitz, 1980). Despite the general theoretical scope of these perspectives,
their empirical applications have largely been limited to contexts that range
from federative to social choice. Thus, studies have focused on such linkages
as among social service organizations (Van de Ven and Walker, 1984),
federative structures such as the United Way (Provan, 1982), Universities
(Pfeffer and Salancik, 1974), and local governments (Bacharach and Aiken,
1976). Interaction contexts that range from Unitary to federative have been
excluded from the domain of interorganizational enquiry and placed in the
domain of interorganizational analysis (Cook, 1977). As such, the
relationships between different units of diversified business organizations
such as the multidivisional or multinational corporation have rarely been
examined from an interorganizational perspective.
One consequence of such a research approach has been that much of the
existing analysis of such complex and often dispersed business organizations
has been limited by a relatively narrow conceptualization of an "organization"
and its relevant "environment". According to Nohria and Venkatraman, this
limitation has stemmed mainly from the tendency of researchers toward "(i)
general categorization of an organization in formal distributional (e.g.,
organization chart, division of responsibility, authority, etc) and categorial
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(e.g., centralized versus decentralized, mechanistic versus organic,
differentiated versus integrated, etc.) terms as opposed to relational terms
(i.e., actual interaction patterns based on both internal and external flows
of goods, information and authority) and (ii) their abstraction of the
environment as a source of undefined uncertainties (e.g., volatility,
turbulence, resource scarcity, etc) as opposed to a field of specific
interacting organizations which locate the source of these contingencies"
(1987:2).
In contrast to this limitation of traditional intraorganizational
analysis, the dominant construct in most interorganizational theories is an
exchange relation (e.g., Ax and By) which may be defined as consisting of
"transactions involving the transfer of resources (x,y) between two or more
actors (A, B, ..) for mutual benefit" (Cook, 1977:64). Furthermore, as Cook
observes (1977:63), "The term actor in the theory refers not only to
individuals but also to collective actors or corporate groups [thus making] it
uniquely appropriate when organizations or subunits of organizations are used
as the primary unit of analysis".
From this perspective of interorganizational theory, a multinational
corporation can be conceptualized as a network of exchange relationships among
different organizational units including the headquarters and the national
subsidiaries that are collectively embedded in what Homans (1974) described as
a structured context. Further, following Tichy, Tushman, and Fombrun (1979),
we can also visualize this network as embedded in an "external network"
consisting of all the organizations such as customers, suppliers, regulators,
and competitors with which the different units of the multinational have to
interact. And, as suggested by Benson (1975) and empirically supported by
Provan, Beyer and Kruytbosch (1980), different attributes of the multinational
network can then be related to selected attributes of this external network on
which the company is dependent for its survival. A relatively clear
exposition of this concept is the main agenda of this paper. However, before
proceeding with such analysis, certain concepts and terms must be defined and
related to their theoretical origins.
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Terminology
Let us consider a multinational corporation M with operating units in
countries A, B, C, D, E, and F, and a focal organization in the corporate
headquarters HQ. Note that HQ serves as a coordinating agency and plays the
role that Provan (1983) described as belonging to the "Federation Management
Organization (FMO)" and must, therefore, be clearly distinguished from the
organizational unit (say A) that is responsible for operations in the home
country of M, even though the two may be located in the same premises. By the
term "multinational network" we shall refer to all the relationships and
linkages that exist among the different affiliated units of M, i.e., among A,
B, C, D, E, F, and HQ.
Each of the affiliated units of M is embedded in an unique context
and, hence, has its unique action set (Aldrich and Whetten, 1981). For
example, the unit A has relationships with a specific set of suppliers [GA],
buyers [b A ], regulatory agencies [r A ], and competes for resources with an
identifiable set of competitors [c A ]. Collectively, the group consisting of
[s A , bA , rA , cA , etc] constitute what we shall call the "action set" of A and
refer to as [ASA].
Different members of the action set [ASA] may be connected by ties
that many be strong or weak, resulting in different levels of cohesiveness
within the group (O'Reilly and Roberts, 1977). By the term "connectedness
within the action set" we shall refer to the extent of such cohesiveness among
members within the different action sets such as [ASA ], [ASB ], etc.
These different action sets of the different affiliated units of M may
themselves be interconnected through different coercive, normative, or mimetic
ties (Dimaggio and Powell, 1983). By the term "connectedness among the action
sets" we shall refer to the extent of such interlinkages among the different
action sets such as [ASA ], [ASO, etc.
Because of such physical, cognitive, affective or other interlinkages
among the different action sets, all members of all the action sets of the
different affiliated units of M collectively constitute what we shall describe
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as the "external network" within which the multinational network is embedded
(Tichy, Tushman, and Fombrun, 1979). The external network will therefore be
the population of all organizations that enter into exchange relations with
one or more affiliated units of the multinational. Some of the members of
this external network may be connected directly, while some others may be
connected indirectly.
Our main thesis in this paper is that different attributes of the
multinational network can be explained in terms of selected attributes of the
external network. As argued by Benson (1975), the interactions within a
network are best explained at the level of resource exchange. This suggests
two attributes of the multinational network as particularly relevant to our
analysis: (1) The configuration of resources within the network, and (2) The
structural characteristics that mediate internal exchange relations and
continually restructure the resource configuration (Zeitz, 1980).
Resources such as production equipments, finance, technology, market-
ing skills, and strategic or management capabilities may be located in any one
or more of the different affiliated units of M. By the term "resource confi-
guration" we shall refer to the way in which the resources of M are distri-
buted among A, B, C, D, E, F, and HQ. In particular, we will discuss two
aspects of resource configuration, namely, dispersal and specialization. The
former refers to' the extent to which the company's resources are concentrated
in one unit versus dispersed among the different affiliated units; the latter
represents the extent to which the resources located in each unit is differen-
tiated from those in others.
As for structural characteristics, prior research has identified a
number of attributes that are relevant for analysis at nodal, dyadic, triadic
or network levels (Fombrun, 1982; Pearce and David, 1983). We shall not
attempt a comprehensive discussion of all these relevant attributes, but will
limit our attention to only one, namely, centrality. By this term we shall
refer to the degree to which relations within the multinational network are
guided by the formal hierarchy (Tichy et al, 1979). We choose this attribute
primarily because it corresponds to the structural characteristic of centrali-
zation that has been perhaps the most analyzed attribute of multinational
organizations and therefore provides a basis for directly relating our
analysis to a large body of empirical findings that are available in the
existing literature.
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Resource Configuration in HtiCs
Resource configuration in MNC's has traditionally been analyzed from
an economic perspective, with the assumption that resource location decisions
are primarily based on the desire to minimize costs (Hirsch, 1976) and risks
(Lessard and Lightstone, 1986). Explanations of both dispersal and
specialization have therefore focused on economic factors such as differences
in the costs of inputs (e.g., Stevens, 1974), the potential benefits of
portfolio diversification (e.g., Jacquillat and Solnik, 1978), and potential
scale economies in different activities (e.g., Porter, 1985).
We present here an alternative analytical framework that relates
dispersal and specialization of an MNC's resources to the extents of
connectedness within and among the action sets of its different affiliated
units. While the constructs we use are not those that are typically used for
economic analysis, we believe it might be possible to relate them. For
example, stucture of the domestic industries in different countries,
including the extent of horizontal and vertical integration, has been proposed
in the economic literature as an important determinant of a multinational's
resource configuration (Caves, 1982). High levels of connectedness in the
local action sets can clearly lead to such integration, formal or tacit, and
thereby provide a theoretical link between our arguments and the substantial
body of economic literature Caves reviews. Similarly, imperfections in the
world's factors, goods, and intermediate product markets have been proposed in
economic theory as a key determinant of foreign direct investment (see review
in Calvet, 1981). Interconnections among the different action sets can reduce
these imperfections, and our hypotheses on the consequences of high
connectedness in the external network, derived largely from interorganization
theory, are not inconsistent with the consequences of decreasing market
imperfections suggested by economic theory. Kogut (1986) has already
presented an well argued case, grounded principally in the economic
literature, on how the inter-institutional set-up in different countries might
affect the strategic actions of MNC's. Our analysis is rooted in a view very
similar to his, and has indeed been influenced strongly by his work.
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Connectedness Within Each Action Set
As described by Westney and Sakakibara (1985), some countries such as
Japan may be characterized by much stronger and denser linkages among the
suppliers, producers, regulators, customers, etc. involved in a particular
field of industrial activity compared to other countries where such linkages
may be weaker due to economic, legal, sociological, cultural, or historical
reasons. Such linkages among the different actors may be established and
maintained through many different mechanisms such as interlocking boards of
directors, cross-holding of equity, institutionalized systems of personnel
flows, long term contracts and trust-based relationships, and mediating roles
of gatekeeping organizations such as trade associations, banks, and
consultants (see, for example, the collected essays in Evan, 1976).
In locations where the local action sets are strongly interconnected,
the local units of the multinational would require all the complementary
resources that are necessary to interface with all members of their action
sets. If they have only one or the other kind of resources such as only
research, or manufacturing, or marketing facilities, they will not be accepted
within the action sets since strong and multiplexed ties among the other
members will lead to exclusion from the sets of those who cannot establish
equally strong and multiplexed ties with each member. This argument follows
from the effects of strong ties in a network described by Granovetter (1973)
while establishing his thesis about the strength of weak ties. The strength
of ties within the local action set raises the entry barriers, and therefore
requires greater resource commitments on the part of a company that wants to
operate in the market (Caves, 1982). At a more practical level, Westney and
Sakakibara's (1985) study on the R&D activities of Japanese and American
computer companies illustrates the proposed effects of connectedness in local
action sets. According to these authors, the Japanese R&D centers of some of
the American computer companies could not tap into local skills and
technologies because the absence of associated manufacturing and marketing
activities prevented the isolated research establishments from building
linkages with the local "knowledge networks" that were embedded in the strong
and dense connections among different members of the action set for the
computer business in Japan.
Therefore, in locations where the local action sets have high
connectedness, the MNC will locate a full range of resources at the
appropriate level so that its local units can act as independent and
autonomous organizations that are fully paid-up members of the local action
sets. As a result, high levels of internal connectedness within the different
local action sets of the affiliated units of the multinational will lead to a
high level of dispersal of the company's resources, but low levels of
specialization since each unit must have all the resources that are necessary
for carrying out all related activities. Hence,
Hl: Connectedness within action sets will be positively
associated with dispersal and negatively associated with
specialization in the configuration of resources in a
multinational.
Connectedness Among Different Action Sets
In a world that some authors have characterised as a global village
(Levitt, 1983), the different action sets in different locations can
themselves be mutually interlinked through physical or normative ties. For
example, a particular customer of B may actually be an affiliated unit of
another multinational company, and other units of M such as C, D, and E may
also be serving that company's affiliated units that are part of their local
action sets. These different affiliated units of a multinational customer may
engage in such activities as comparative evaluation of prices and terms of
supply offered by B, C, D, and E, and may also demand overall commonalities in
the conditions of their exchange relationships with the different units of M
(Terpstra, 1982).
Similarly the actions of regulatory agencies in one location (say, rA)
may influence the actions of their counterparts in other locations (say r8).
Such influence may be manifest in action such as retaliation by r B to what is
seen as protectionist actions of r A , or deregulation by r B to reciprocate or
just emulate similar action by rA (Mahini and Wells, 1986). Such physical or
normative linkages may also exist among suppliers and competitors. In fact,
much of the current literature on the strategic and organizational choices of
multinationals considers such linkages among competitors as a key factor for
explaining different aspects of MNC behaviors and performance (Hamel and
Prahalad, 1983; Porter, 1986).
A low level of connectedness among the different external action sets
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will typically be the consequence of factors such as lack of transportation
and communication facilities or regulatory barriers and the same factors will
also prevent internal flows of goods, people or information among the
different units of the multinational (Chandler, 1986). In the extreme case of
total absence of any connections, a multinational company might not exist in
that business since it would have no advantages over separate domestic
companies in each environment. In the more typical case of low connectedness
when only a few members of the different action sets might share weak ties, a
multinational might exist but its resources will tend to be highly fragmented
and dispersed among the different units so that each can carry out all related
activities more-or-less independently on a local-for-local basis. In the
normative literature, this context and the resulting dispersed and
unspecialized configuration of resources have been described as the
multidomestic (Porter, 1986), or locally responsive (Prahalad and Doz, 1987)
approach to multinational management.
A high level of connectedness among the different external action
sets, on the other hand, will provide the MNC with greater discretion and
choice on its resource configuration. Such choice can be exercised on the
basis of different criteria. In some cases, even though the overall linkages
among the action sets may be high, some specific members in the different
action sets may only be weakly connected, or not connected at all. Such a
situation typically exists in the input action sets because of regulations
that selectively prohibit certain flows of people and products. Such
situations will tend to protect the "resource niches" (Aldrich, 1979) that may
have developed in some of the action sets because of traditional or non-
traditional comparative advantages of countries (Kogut; 1986). In this case,
the MNC might tend to concentrate specific activities in specific locations so
as to maximize its access to these resource niches on a global basis, and also
to benefit from such economies of scale as may be available for those
activities. In other words, its resource configuration may follow the
economic rationale proposed in location theories of foreign direct investment
(see review in Caves, 1982) and be concentrated and specialized in a few
locations instead of being dispersed among all the affiliated units.
When the connectedness among all the elements of the different action
sets is high, such resource niches may be eliminated because of freer flows.
If technologies developing in one location can be accessed instantaneously
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from others, or if excess capital available in one environment can be borrowed
in markets located in others, there is no longer any need to locate specific
activities in specific locations to benefit from access to local resources.
In this situation, the MNC can adopt a different set of criteria that emerge
from the attributes of the complex external networks that are formed through
the interconnections among the different local action sets.
Consider, for example, the situation when customers in locations A, B,
D, and E are strongly influenced by the tastes and preferences of customers in
C. Bartlett and Ghoshal (1986) and Prahalad and Doz (1987) have described the
existence of such "lead markets" in many businesses and their existence is
predicted by the "normative systems" that Laumann et al (1978) proposed as one
of the modalities that influence the behaviors of members in a network. In
such a situation, the MNC will tend to locate a significant amount of
resources in C so as to be able to sense the demands of local customers and
respond to them in a fashion that attracts their patronage. The level of
resources in C will match not the resources and opportunities that are
available in the local action set [AS] but the greater role of C as a nodalc
point in the broad external network that is created by the linkages among
[ASA ], [ASB ], [ASc ], etc.
In either of these two cases, however, the following hypothesis will
remain valid:
H2: Connectedness among action sets will be positively
associated with specialization and negatively associated
with dispersal in the configuration of resources in a
multinational.
A General Model And Three Special Cases.
We can now consider these two hypotheses collectively to propose a
general model of resource configuration in multinational companies, and also
suggest some specific cases that emerge under particular conditions.
To consider the general case, let us recognize that for most worldwide
businesses, the levels of connectedness within and across the action sets are
different in different national environments. Connectedness among the
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different action sets may be high in the developed countries of the west, or
among regional groupings, but low in developing countries or countries that
are relatively more regulated and autarcic. Similarly, connectedness within
the local action sets may be high in homogeneous societies with strong inter-
institutional linkages and low in countries where such linkages are
discouraged through legislation, or impeded because of societal heterogeneity
and the absence of linking institutions, or rendered ineffective because of
poor local communication infrastructures.
Therefore, the configuration of resources in multinationals engaged in
such businesses will be influenced by multiple criteria. In some locations
internal connectedness within the local action sets may be high, but external
connectedness with other action sets may be low. In such locations, the
multinational may provide all required resources in appropriate measures so
that its local units can be self-sufficient and can carry out all necessary
tasks independently on a local-for-local basis. The action sets in some other
countries may be weakly connected internally, but different elements of those
action sets may be strongly connected across the different countries. For
these locations, the multinational may create a resource structure that is
concentrated and specialized, and in some cases the location of the
specialized resources may reflect the desire to access special resource
niches, while in other cases the location choice may be motivated by the
modalities in the network that is created by the linkages among the action
sets. Finally, the action sets in a third group of locations may be
characterized by high connectedness both within and among themselves. In
these locations, the multinational may establish all the complementary
resources for integrated operations, but it may link these locations with
others so as to leverage those resources and achieve the economies of
concentration and specialization.
The overall resource configuration in the multinational's network of
affiliated organizations then, will reflect a mix of some resources that are
dispersed among some units on a purely local-for-local basis; some that are
concentrated in some countries to access specialized local resource pools, or
benefit from economies of scale, or in response to special roles that may be
played by actors in those locations in the external network of interconnected
action sets; and still others that are dispersed in certain locations, not for
meeting the local needs alone, but for serving other locations to which
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members of the local action sets might be connected. Thus, in this general
case, the multinational's resource configuration will reflect both dispersal
and specialization, and some parts of the dispersed and specialized resources
will be interlinked with multiplexed ties to support the intense internal
flows of products, people, and information that will be generated by such a
complex and interdependent system. This general case may be represented by a
model of multinationals as Differentiated Networks (DN): the word
differentiated highlighting the differences in the levels and kinds of
resources that are made available to the different units, and the word network
emphasizing the communication and exchange contents of the flows that must
internally link those differentiated, dispersed, and specialized resources.
From this general model, we can now derive three special cases that
would be obtained under specific conditions of connectedness within and among
the different local actions sets (see figure 1).
[Insert figure 1 about here]
If the connectedness within each of the local action sets is low, and
if the connectedness among all the different action sets is high, the
multinational can concentrate all its resources in any location of its choice.
Under such a condition, it might choose to locate almost all its resources in
one location, perhaps the home country because of the benefits of proximity
(Dunning, 1980), and may locate minimal resources in the other operating units
which may act merely as the local distributors of standardized products that
are designed and manufactured centrally. The resulting configuration of its
resources will match Perlmutter's (1969) model of the ethnocentric
multinational and Bartlett's (1986) description of the centralized hub.
Second, consider a situation where all the local action sets are
strongly connected internally but are not connected among themselves. In such
a situation, most of the resources of the MNC will be dispersed among the
operating units on a local-for-local basis, with little or no specialization,
so as to make each unit fully autonomous and self-sufficient. The resulting
configuration of resources will correspond to what Perlmutter described as the
polycentric multinational and Bartlett called the decentralized federation.
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Third, assume a situation when all the local action sets are highly
connected internally and also highly connected among themselves. In this
situation, the resources of the company will be dispersed among the various
operating units, and each unit will have a broad range of complementary
resources to facilitate integrative operations. However, each of these units
will have broader responsibilities for certain tasks for either the whole or
some part of the total network of all affiliated units. Such a configuration
corresponds to Perlmutter's description of the geocentric multinational,
Bartlett's proposal for the integrated network, and Hedlund's (1986)
conceptualization of a holographic organizational form that he labelled the
heterarchy.
The fourth situation of low connectedness both within and among the
action sets typically represents highly fragmented businesses that are not
international and often not even national in their structures. A
multinational is not expected to operate in such a context (Caves, 1982).
Centrality in the HNC Network
Centrality of a network has been defined differently by different
authors (Freeman, 1979, identifies three definitions) and has been typically
operationalized in terms of the communication content of the network (Aldrich
and Whetten, 1981). However, as suggested by Tichy et al (1979), it refers
essentially to the degree to which relations within the network are guided by
the formal hierarchy and is therefore determined by the distribution of power
within the network (Cook, 1977). The greater the asymmetries in internal
distribution of power, the greater the centrality in both the information and
the exchange contents of the network (Mitchell, 1973).
Recent literature on the distribution of power in a social network
reveals two main sources of power in such collectivities (Fombrun, 1983).
First, power is an antipode of dependency in exchange relations (Emerson,
1962) and accrue to those members of the network who control critical
resources required by others but do not depend on others for resources
(Aldrich, 1979; Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). Following Cook (1977), this
might be called "exchange power" to distinguish it from the second source of
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power which may arise from structural rather than exchange dependencies.
"Structural power" can emanate from the position of a member within the
network: as described by Fombrun, "it can accrue to a member who occupies a
strategic position in a web of exchange relations" (1983:495).
Exchange-based distribution of power within a multinational would
depend on the dispersal of resources among its members. The greater the
dispersal of resources (controlling for specialization), the lesser is the
dependency of any affiliated organizational unit on others for resources, and
hence, the extent of asymmetry in internal exchange transactions. We can
therefore formulate the following hypothesis which derives support from the
well-established resource dependency perspective in organization theory
(Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978).
H3: Centrality of a multinational network will be negatively
associated with dispersal of resources within the network.
Similarly, structure or position based power within a multinational
will depend on the specialization of resources among its members. The greater
the specialization of resources (controlling for dispersal), the lesser is the
extent of one-way dependencies within the network and the greater the extent
of reciprocal dependencies (Thompson, 1967), and therefore, the frequency of
"balanced" relations that reduce the role of exchange based power (Emerson,
1962). However, a network of mutual dependencies also enhances the need for
coordination, and hence the power of "mediators" (Cook, 1977:72) who can
provide such coordination by virtue of their position in the network that
allows them to act as brokers in the flow of resources within the network.
The higher the specialization of resources in the network, the higher
the vulnerability of the network to the removal of the mediating actor (Cook,
1977), and hence higher the centrality of the mediating actor even though the
actor may not control any of the key resources directly. The following
hypothesis summarizes this argument:
H4: Centrality of a multinational network will be positively
associated with specialization of resources within the
network.
- 18 -
H3 and H4, in conjunction with HI and H2 lead to the following
hypothesis that relates the centrality of the multinational network directly
to the extents of connectedness within and among the different action sets of
its affiliated members:
H5: Centrality of a multinational network will be negatively
associated with connectedness within the action sets of
its affiliated members and positively associated with
connectedness among those action sets.
This derived hypothesis finds independent support from a different
strand of interorganizational theory, namely, the political economy pers-
pective developed by authors such as Benson (1975), and Provan et al (1980).
Benson, for example, had suggested that power in intraorganizational relations
may be influenced by the broader interorganizational linkages that are
established by the members. Subsequently, Provan et al provided empirical
support to this proposal when they demonstrated that power relations within
the network of United Way organizations were significantly modified by the
linkages between the individual agencies and other elements in their
communities upon which the United Way organization depended for its survival.
The dependence of the United Way on the local communities of its different
organizations is no different from the dependencies of the multinational on
the local action sets of its affiliated units: just as strong linkages within
the key elements of their communities enhanced the powers of the United Way
organizations, high levels of connectedness within the local action sets
enhance the powers of the individual members of the multinational network and
thereby reduce the centrality of the overall network. And, as a direct
corrolary of this argument, the higher the connectedness among the different
action sets, the lower the ability of individual members to accumulate power
by virtue of their links with their local action sets, and, therefore, the
potential centrality of the network.
Internal Coalitions and Multiple Centers
In the preceeding analysis of centrality, we have retained the
assumption that is pervasive in the existing literature on multinational
organizations, namely, that there is one center in the MNC - the headquarter -
- 19 -
and that the subsidiaries' activities and influences are limited to their
local jurisdictions. However, the very conceptualization of the MNC as an
interorganizational network that is embedded in an external network suggests
that this assumption might not be true. There is no reason for the external
network to have a single focal point. Further, even if it does have just one
node in the form of a single market that dominates all aspects of the business
on a world-wide basis, there is no guarantee that the node will coincide with
the location of the MNC's headquarters. Further, it is only for analytical
simplicity that we have considered only one external network for the MNC. In
reality, there will be multiple external networks, one each for the different
ways in which its activities can be defined. Consequently, the MNC network
can also have multiple centers, and different internal coalitions
corresponding to the different coalitions and nodes that may exist in its
multiple external networks (Burt, 1978).
Typically, these multiple external nodes have existed on a regional
basis, leading to the regional structure that has been adopted by many MNC's
(see the discussion on "regiocentric" MNCs in Heenan and Perlmutter, 1979).
Increasingly, however, the pattern is becoming more complex. To cite an
illustration, there is growing collaboration among the Post, Telegraph and
Telephone authorities (PTT) in different countries that are characterized by
thin population densities since their needs for public switching systems are
similar. Therefore, while Finland is located in Europe, its PTT has stronger
connections with the PTT in Australia than those in Germany or France. Such
collaboration among these key members of their external networks are forcing
multinationals supplying telecommunications switching equipment to redefine
the communication and exchange structures of their internal networks: for
example, Australia is emerging as a nodal point within Ericsson, the Swedish
telecommunications equipment company, specifically for its rural switching
business. Further, it is also leading to the formation of an internal
coalition (Pearce and David, 1983) within Ericsson involving Australia,
Finland, and Sweden with extensive flows of resources and information among
these units of the company to coordinate their rural switching operations (see
Bartlett and Ghoshal, forthcoming).
A detailed theoretical analysis of the formation of such multiple
nodes and coalitions within a multinational network is beyond the scope of
this paper and will be the topic of a forthcoming analysis. We mention the
- 20 -
issue, however, since the network approach predicts this phenomenon, the
existence of which has been documented by many authors (e.g., Poynter and
White, 1984; Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1986; Prahalad and Doz, 1987).
Conclusion
We have claimed that the main benefit of importing an interorganiza-
tional perspective into the analysis of multinational organizations is the
better match between complexity of the phenomenon and the ability of the
analytical concepts and tools to deal with such complexity. In this
concluding section, we return to this initial assertion and suggest how the
kind of analysis we have presented in this paper might provide the advantages
we have claimed. In particular, we highlight two potential strengths of the
network-theoretic approach. First, it provides an integrative framework for
simultaneous analysis at multiple levels such as the dyadic relationship
between any two organizational units of the multinational, overall attributes
of the multinational organization, and even higher order aggregates such as
the alliances that are increasingly being formed by different multinational
companies. Such simultaneous investigation across different levels of
analysis, we claim, is essential for the study of complex multi-unit
organizations such as the multinational. Second, such a conceptualization
also enables a single theoretical approach within which cross-sectional
analysis of organizational attributes of a multinational can also lead to an
understanding of the processes of its evolution, stability, and change.
Simultaneous Exploration at Different Levels of Analysis
Much of the existing literature on multinational organizations has
tended to focus exclusively on explaining differences among companies and,
therefore, to ignore differences within companies (see, for example, Daniels
et al, 1984; Egelhoff, 1982; Stopford and Wells, 1972). Such an approach may
be entirely appropriate for analysis of relatively small and simple
organizations in which case internal differences within them may be dwarfed by
the differences among them. In the case of complex multi-unit organizations
such as the multinational, however, an assumption of internal homogeneity may
be inappropriate and the analytical model may remain incomplete until
differences within and among organizations are incorporated within a broader
21 -
theoretical framework. The network approach provides such a framework within
which multiple levels of analysis can be addressed simultaneously, both for
theoretical formulations and for empirical studies.
Let us illustrate the issue with an example from the existing
literature. Centralization is perhaps the most studied attribute of
multinational organizations and much effort has been expended by scholars to
explain the level of centralization in MNCs as a function of a range of
organizational and environmental attributes such as foreign product diversity,
size of foreign operations, size of parent company, experience in
international operations, ownership of subsidiaries, technology complexity of
industry, age of subsidiary, intercompany transfers of products, dynamism in
competitive climate, and so on. Table 1 shows the authors who found positive,
negative, and no associations between centralization and each of these
different variables. The differences in the findings have typically been
ascribed to differences in samples and measurement procedures but, as is
manifest from the table, each new study has only provided an additional set of
data points without resolving the ambiguity in any way.
[Insert Table 1 about here]
The network concept, on the other hand, suggests that the problem with
these studies may well lie not in the samples or measurements, but in their
focus on differences among MNC's in isolation of the differences within them.
By ignoring the potentially significant differences in centralization for
different organizational units of the multinational, these studies may well
have been victims of what Fisher (1970:172) called the "reductive fallacy (;)
the fallacy of reducing complexity to simplicity, or diversity to uniformity."
The network formulation would provide the tools for simultaneous
analysis of each dyadic linkage within the multinational, and the overall
attributes of the network that are not mere aggregates of the dyadic
relationships but are independently influenced by the structure of the
network. The individual linkages, for example, can be operationalized as
mixed-motive dyads and the governance structure for each linkage can be
analyzed on the basis of mutual resource dependencies (Schmidt and Kochan,
1977). A recent empirical study by Ghoshal and Nohria (1987) illustrates such
- 22 -
an approach and shows how internal differences in structural attributes such
as centralization, formalization, and socialization can be related to the
resource structures of MNC's. At the same time, information of the different
dyadic links can be analyzed through partitioning and blockmodelling
techniques for studying different network level attributes and for explaining
aggregate level differences among MNC's (for review and references, see Nohria
and Venketraman, 1987).
Further, the traditional approaches of organizational analysis
requires a clear definition of the organization's boundary. As suggested by
Powell (1987), the proliferation of "hybrid organizations" is making such a
distinction between the organization and its environment increasingly
difficult and arbitrary. Nowhere is the problem more accute than in the
analysis of MNCs who are increasingly forming alliances of different kinds
with their suppliers, customers, and competitors (see Horwitch, forthcoming).
As a recent collection of work on such alliances (Contractor and Lorange,
1987) demonstrates clearly, it is proving to be difficult to incorporate this
phenomenon within traditional analytical frameworks. By focusing on relations
among actors, the network analytic approach provides greater flexibility with
regard to the definition of boundaries, and can therefore be applied for
analyzing the complex structures that are formed by such alliances. Recent
methodological developments of network partitioning have now created the
opportunity for incorporating a level of rigour in the analysis of such
relationships - for example, the definition of the "roles" of different
partners as revealed through blockmodelling algorithms - that has been lacking
in most existing studies (see Walker, 1987 for suggestions on how network
methodologies can be applied to the analysis of inter-firm cooperative
relationships).
Linking cross-sectional analysis with evolution and change
Observers of evolution and change in multinational organizations have
repeatedly lamented that the traditional tools of structural analysis provide
little help in explaining the dynamics of such organizations (see, for
example, Bartlett, 1982 and Leksell, 1981). As suggested by Bartlett,
evolution and change in multinationals are driven by changing patterns of
relationships among organizational units that participate in different
- 23 -
decision processes. Traditional cross-sectional analysis, on the other hand,
has typically focused on structural artifacts such as the choice between area,
product, and matrix structures (Stopford and Wells, 1972) which provide little
information on the nature of internal relationships and actual management
processes. Consequently, the literature has developed along two parallel
paths of increasingly sophisticated cross-sectional and dynamic analysis but
without developing a bridge between the two.
Network analysis, by its very focus on relationships and flows, can
provide such a bridge. For example, based on the concepts presented in this
paper, we can formulate the change process as arising from the sequential
influences of the external network of the internal resource configuration, and
of resource configuration on governance and coordination mechanisms. Changing
levels of connectedness within and across the external action sets can be pro-
posed as the exogenous elements that would determine the nature and direction
of change. The strength of internal ties (Granovetter, 1973) and the
perceived fairness of internal exchange relationships (Zeitz, 1980) - both
attributes being influenced directly by the nature of the external network but
also by what Bartlett (1986) describes as the administrative heritage of the
company - can be seen as the mediating factors that determine the rate and
pace of change. Through such a formulation, different constructs of which are
relatively well developed in the literature, an overall theory can be deve-
loped for linking cross-sectional analysis with the study of evolution,
stability, and change in MNC's.
As a concluding point, it needs to be noted that our proposal to
conceptualize multinational organizations as interorganizational networks is
not an altogether new research approach but an effort to build on some con-
cepts that exist in the international management literature but that, to our
view, have not been sufficiently developed because of inadequate research
attention. We have referred earlier to the seminal work of Perlmutter (1969),
and his scheme of categorizing multinationals as ethnocentric, polycentric,
and geocentric organizations is clearly a network theoretic view. His work
and the subsequent refinements and elaborations of his models (e.g.,
Rutenberg, 1970) both motivate and influence our analysis. Similarly, the
stylized models of MNC organizations developed by Bartlett (1986) and Hedlund
(1986) are grounded in the same concepts and constructs of network theory that
- 24 -
we have utilized in our formulation of the differentiated network model pre-
sented in this paper. Further, if the interorganizational approach is impli-
cit in the work of these authors, it is explicit in Herbert's (1984) analysis
which shows the relevance of the resource dependency model in explaining
strategy-structure configurations in MNC's. It is unfortunate that these
proposals have not been pursued more vigourously by empirical researchers,
perhaps because the conceptual models were not adequately related to the
relevant strands of theory. Our objective in this paper was to take a step,
albeit small, in the direction of building a bridge between these rich and
inductively derived models of multinational organizations and some recent
perspectives from interorganizational theory and network analysis.
Multinational organizations
not expected to exist in
this context
The ethnocentric
multinational
(Perlmutter)
The centralized hub
(Bartlett)
The Polycentric multina-
tional (Perlmutter)
The geocentric multi-
national (Perlumtter)
The decentralized federation The integrated network
(Bartlett) (Bartlett)
The heterarchy
(Hedlund)
- 25 -
Connectedness among the different local action sets
LOW HIGH
LOW
Figure 1
Multinational organizational forms under different
conditions of external action sets
Connectedness
within each
local action
set
HIGH
Stopford and Wells (1972),Alsegg (1971), Hedlund(1980), Picard (1977),Gates and Egelhoff (1984)
Brooke and Remmers (1978),Gates and Egelhoff (1984)
Picard (1977)
Gates and Egelhoff (1984)
Hedlund (1980)
Association with CentralizationsContingencyvariables
PositiveCorrelation
No correlation/Mixed Results
NegativeCorrelation
1. Foreign productdiversity
2. Size of foreignoperations
3. Size of parent
4. Experience ininternationaloperations
5. Ownership ofsubsidiaries
6. Technologycomplexity ofindustry
Garnier (1982)
Picard (1977)
Garnier (1982),Youssef (1975),Picard (1977),Gates andEgelhoff (1984)
Hedlund (1980)
Garnier (1982)
Hulbert andBrandt (1980)
Picard (1977),Garnier (1982)
Aylmer (1970),Weichmann (1974),Hulbert andBrandt (1980),Hedlund (1980)
Hedlund (1980)
Picard (1977)
7. Age of subsi- Alsegg (1971),diary Youssef (1975),
Gates andEgelhoff (1984)
8. Intercompany Garnier (1982),transfers of Picard (1977).products Hedlund (1980)
9. Dynamism in Gates andcompetitive Egelhoff (1984)climate
Garnier (1982),Goehle (1980).Roccour (1966)
- 26 -
Table 1
Research on Centralization in HNC's: Summary of Findings
- 27 -
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NOTE
Sumantra Ghoshal (Ph.D, MIT and DBA, Harvard) is AssistantProfessor of Management at the European Institute of BusinessAdministration (INSEAD), Fontainebleau, France. Christopher A.Bartlett (DBA, Harvard) is Associate Professor at the HarvardBusiness School. The authors thank Nitin Nohria who was anactive and equal partner during the idea development phase, and
would have been a co-author of this paper but for the temporary
distraction of having to write a doctoral dissertation.
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85/03 Philippe A. NAERTand Els GIJSBRECHTS
85/04 Philippe A. NAERTand Marcel WEVERBERCH
85/05 Ahmet AYKAC,Marcel CORSTJENS,David GAUTSCHIand Ira HOROWITZ
85/06 Kasra FERDOWS
85/07 Kasra FERDOWS,Jeffrey G. MILLER,Jinchiro NAKANE andThomas E.VOLLMANN.
85/08 Spyros MAKRIDAKISand Robert CARBONE
85/09 Spyros MAKRIDAKISand Robert CARBONE
85/10 Jean DERMINE
85/11 Antonio M. BORGES andAlfredo M. PEREIRA
85/12 Arnoud DE MEYER
85/13 Arnoud DE MEYER
85/14 Ahmet AMC,Marcel CORSTJENS,David GAUTSCHI andDouglas L. MacLACHLAN
85/15 Arnoud DE MEYER andRoland VAN DIERDONCK
85/16 Hervig M. LANGOHR andAntony M. SANTOMERO
"The measurement of interest rate risk byfinancial intermediaries", December 1983,Revised December 1984.
"Diffusion model for nev product introductionin existing markets" .
"Towards a decision support system forhierarchically allocating marketing resourcesacross and within product groups" ."Market share specification, estimation andvalidation: towards reconciling seeminglydivergent views" .
"Estimation uncertainty and optimaladvertising decisions",Second draft, April 1985.
"The shifting paradigms of manufacturing:inventory, quality and nov versatility", March1985.
"Evolving manufacturing strategies in Europe,Japan and North-America"
"Forecasting when pattern changes occurbeyond the historical data" , April 1985.
"Sampling distribution of post-sampleforecasting errors" , February 1985'.
"Portfolio optimization by financialintermediaries in an asset pricing model".
"Energy demand in Portuguese manufacturing: atwo-stage model".
"Defining a manufacturing strategy - a surveyof European manufacturers".
"large European manufacturers and themanagement of R I 0".
"The advertising-sales relationship in theU.S. cigarette industry: a comparison ofcorrelational and causality testingapproaches".
"Organizing a technology jump or overcomingthe technological hurdle".
"Commercial bank refinancing and economicstability: an analysis of European features".
"The darker side of entrepreneurship".
"Narcissism and leadership: an objectrelations perspective".
"Interpreting organizational texts".
"Nationalization, compensation and wealthtransfers: Prance 1981-1982° 1, Final versionJuly 1985.
"Takeover premiums, disclosure regulations,and the market for corporate control. Acomparative analysis of public tender offers,controlling-block trades and minority buyout inPrance", July 1985.
"Barriers to adaptation: personal, culturaland organizational perspectives".
"The art and science of forecasting: anassessment and future directions".
"Financial innovation and recent developmentsin the French capital markets", October 1985.
"Patterns of competition, strategic groupformation and the performance case of the USpharmaceutical industry, 1963-1982",October 1985.
"European manufacturing: a comparative study(1985)".
"The R I 0/Production interface".
"Subjective estimation in integratingcommunication budget and allocationdecisions: a case study", January 1986.
"Sponsorship and the diffusion oforganizational innovation: a preliminary view".
"Confidence intervals: an empiricalinvestigation for the series in the K-Competition" .
"A note on the reduction of the workweek",July 1985.
85/18 Manfred F.R. KETSDE VRIES
85/19 Manfred F.R. KETS DEVRIES and Dany MILLER
85/20 Manfred F.R. VETS DE
VRIES and Dany MILLER
85/21 Hervig M. LANGOHRand Claude J. VIALLET
85/22 Hervig M. LANGOHR andB. Espen ECKBO
85/23 Manfred F.R. KETS DEVRIES and Dany MILLER
85/24 Spyros MAKRIDAKIS
85/25 Gabriel HAWAWINI
85/26 Karel O. COOL andDan E. SCHENDEL
85/27 Arnoud DE MEYER
1986
86/01 Arnoud DE MEYER
86/02 Philippe A. NAERTMarcel WEVERBERGHand Guido VERSVIJVEL
86/03 Michael BRIMM
86/04 Spyros MAKRIDAKISand Michele HIBON
86/05 Charles A. WYPLOSZ
86/06 Francesco GIAVAllI,Jeff R. SHEEN andCharles A. WYPLOSZ
"The real exchange rate and the fiscalaspects of a natural resource discovery",Revised version: February 1986.
86/22 Albert CORHAY, "Seasonality in the risk-return relationshipsGabriel A. HAWAWINI some international evidence", July 1986.and Pierre A. MICHEL
86/07 Douglas L. MacLACHLANand Spyros MAKRIDAKIS
86/08 Jose de la TORRE andDavid H. NECKAR
86/09 Philippe C. HASPESLAGH
86/10 R. MOENART,Arnoud DE MEYER,J. BARGE andD. DESCHOOLMEESTER.
86/11 Philippe A. NAERTand Alain BULTEZ
86/12 Roger BETANCOURTand David GAUTSCHI
86/13 S.P. ANDERSONand Damien J. NEVEN
86/14 Charles WALDMAN
B6/15 Mihkel TOMBAK andArnoud DE MEYER
"Judgmental biases in sales forecasting",
February 1986.
"Forecasting political risks forinternational operations", Second Draft:March 3, 1986.
"Conceptualizing the strategic process indiversified firms: the role and nature of thecorporate influence process", February 1986.
"Analysing the issues concerningtechnological de-maturity".
"Prom "Lydiametry" to "Pinkhamization":■isspecifying advertising dynamics rarelyaffects profitability".
"The economics of retail firms", RevisedApril 1986.
"Spatial competition A la Cournot".
"Comparaison internationale des merges brutesdu commerce", June 1985.
"goo the managerial attitudes of firms withFMS differ from other manufacturing firms:survey results", June 1986.
"An exploratory study on the integration ofinformation systems in manufacturing",July 1986.
"A methodology for specification andaggregation in product concept testing",July 1986.
"Protection", August 1986.
"The economic consequences of the FrancPoincare", September 1986.
"Negative risk-return relationships inbusiness strategy: paradox or truism?",October 1986.
"Interpreting organizational texts.
"Why follov the leader?".
"The succession game: the real story.
"Flexibility: the next competitive battle",
October 1986.
"Flexibility: the next competitive battle",Revised Version: March 1987
86/23 Arnoud DE MEYER
86/24 David GAUTSCHIand Vithala R. RAO
86/25 H. Peter GRAYand Ingo WALTER
86/26 Barry EICHENGREENand Charles WYPLOSZ
86/27 Karel COOLand Ingemar DIERICKK
86/28 Manfred KETS DEVRIES and Danny MILLER
86/29 Manfred KETS DE VRIES
86/30 Manfred KETS DE VRIES
86/31 Arnoud DE MEYER
86/31 Arnoud DE MEYER,Jinichiro NAKANE,Jeffrey G. MILLERand Kasra FERDOWS
86/16 B. Espen ECKBO andHervig M. LANGOHR
86/17 David B. JEMISON
86/18 James TEBOULand V. MALLERET
86/19 Rob R. WEITZ
86/20 Albert CORHAY,Gabriel HAWAWINIand Pierre A. MICHEL
86/21 Albert CORHAY,Gabriel A. HAWAWINIand Pierre A. MICHEL
"Les primes des offres publiques, la noted'inforaation et le marche des transferts decontrAle des sociAtes".
"Strategic capability transfer in acquisitionintegration", May 1986.
"Towards an operational definition ofservices", 1986.
"Nostradamus: a knowledge-based forecastingadvisor".
"The pricing of equity on the London stockexchange: seasonality and size premium",June 1986.
"Risk-premia seasonality in U.S. and Europeanequity markets", February 1986.
86/32 Karel COOLand Dan SCHENDEL
86/33 Ernst BALTENSPERGERand Jean DERMINE
86/34 Philippe HASPESLAGHand David JEMISON
86/35 Jean DERMINE
86/36 Albert CORHAY andGabriel HAWAVINI
86/37 David GAUTSCHI andRoger BETANCOURT
86/38 Gabriel HAWAWINI
Performance differences among strategic groupmembers", October 1986.
"The role of public policy in insuringfinancial stability: a cross-country,comparative perspective", August 1986, RevisedNovember 1986.
"Acquisitions: myths and reality",July 1986.
"Measuring the market value of a bank, aprimer", November 1986.
"Seasonality in the risk-return relationship:
some international evidence", July 1986.
"The evolution of retailing: a suggestedeconomic interpretation".
"Financial innovation and recent developmentsin the French capital markets", Updated:September 1986.
86/39 Gabriel HAWAWINIPierre MICHELand Albert CORHAY
86/40 Charles WYPLOSZ
86/41 Kasra FERDOWSand Wickham SKINNER
86/42 Kasra FERDOWSand Per LINDBERG
86/43 Damien NEVEN
86/44 Ingemar DIERICKXCarmen MATUTESand Damien NEVEN
1987
87/01 Manfred KETS DE VRIES
87/02 Claude VIALLET
87/03 David GAUTSCHIand Vithala RAO
87/04 Sumantra CHOSHAL andChristopher BARTLETT
87/05 Arnoud DE MEYERand Kasra FERDOWS
87/06 Arun K. JAIN,Christian PINSON andNaresh K. MALHOTRA
87/07 Rolf BANZ andGabriel HAWAVINI
87/08 Manfred KETS DE VRIES
87/09 Lister VICKERY,Mark PILKINGTONand Paul READ
87/10 Andre LAURENT
87/11 Robert PILDES andSpyros MAKRIDAKIS
"The pricing of common stocks on the Brusselsstock exchange: a re-examination of theevidence", November 1986.
"Capital flows liberalization and the EMS, aFrench perspective", December 1986.
"Manufacturing in a new perspective",July 1986.
"FMS as indicator of manufacturing strategy",December 1986.
"On the existence of equilibrium in hotelling'smodel", November 1986.
"Value added tax and competition",December 1986.
"Prisoners of leadership".
"An empirical investigation of internationalasset pricing", November 1986.
"A methodology for specification andaggregation in product concept testing",Revised Version: January 1987.
"Organizing for innovations: case of themultinational corporation", February 1987.
"Managerial focal points In manufacturingstrategy", February 1987.
"Customer loyalty as a construct in themarketing of banking services", July 1986.
"Equity pricing and stock market anomalies",February 1987.
"Leaders who can't manage", February 1987.
"Entrepreneurial activities of European MBAs",March 1987.
"A cultural view of organizational change",March 1987
"Forecasting and loss functions", March 1987.
87/13 Sumantra GHOSHALand Nitin NOHRIA
87/14 Landis GABEL
87/15 Spyros MAKRIDAKIS
87/16 Susan SCHNEIDERand Roger DUNBAR
87/17 Andre LAURENT andFernando BARTOLOME
87/18 Reinhard ANGELMAR andChristoph LIEBSCHER
87/19 David BEGC andCharles WYPLOSZ
87/20 Spyros MAKRIDAKIS
87/21 Susan SCHNEIDER
87/22 Susan SCHNEIDER
87/23 Roger BETANCOURTDavid GAUTSCHI
87/24 C.B. DERR andAndre LAURENT
87/25 A. K. JAIN,N. K. MALHOTRA andChristian PINSON
87/26 Roger BETANCOURTand David GAUTSCHI
87/27 Michael BURDA
87/28 Gabriel HAVAVINI
87/29 Susan SCHNEIDER andPaul SHRIVASTAVA
"Multinational corporations as differentiatednetworks", April 1987.
"Product Standards and Competitive Strategy: AnAnalysis of the Principles", May 1987.
"METAFORECASTING: Ways of improvingForecasting. Accuracy and Usefulness",May 1987.
"Takeover attempts: vhat does the language tellus?, June 1987.
"Managers' cognitive maps for upward anddownward relationships", June 1987.
"Patents and the European biotechnology lag: astudy of large European pharmaceutical firms",June 1987.
"Why the EMS? Dynamic games and the equilibriumpolicy regime, May 1987.
"A new approach to statistical forecasting",June 1987.
"Strategy formulation: the impact of nationalculture", Revised: July 1987.
"Conflicting ideologies: structural andmotivational consequences", August 1987.
'The demand for retail products and thehousehold production model: new views oncomplementarity and substitutability".
"The internal and external careers: atheoretical and cross-cultural perspective",Spring 1987.
"The robustness of MDS configurations in theface of incomplete data", March 1987, Revised:July 1987.
"Demand complementarities, household productionand retail assortments", July 1987.
"Is there a capital shortage in Europe?",August 1987.
"Controlling the interest-rate risk of bonds:an introduction to duration analysis andimmunization strategies", September 1987.
"Interpreting strategic behavior: basicassumptions themes in organizations", September1987
87/12 Fernando BARTOLOMEand Andre LAURENT
"The Janus Bead: learning from the superiorand subordinate faces of the manager's Job",April 1987.
87/30 Jonathan HAMILTON "Spatial competition and the Core", AugustW. Bentley MACLEOD and 1987.Jacques-Francois THISSE
07/31 Martine OUINZII and "On the optimality of central plac•:,",Jacques-Francois THISSE September 1987.
87/32 Arnoud DE MEYER
"German, French and British manufacturingstrategies less different than one thinks",September 1987.
87/33 Yves DOZ and "A process framevork for analyzing cooperationAmy SHUEN betveen firms", September 1987.
07/34 Kasra FERDOVS and
"European manufacturers: the dangers ofArnoud DE MEYER
complacency. Insights from the 1987 Europeanmanufacturing futures survey, October 1987.
07/35 P. J. LEDERER and "Competitive location on networks under
J. F. TIIISSE discriminatory pricing", September 1907.
87/36 Manfred KETS DE VRIES "Prisoners of leadership", Revised versionOctober 1987.
87/37 Landis GABEL "Privatization: its motives and likelyconsequences", October 1987.
87/38 Susan SCHNEIDER
"Strategy formulation: the impact of national
culture", October 1987.
87/39 Manfred KETS DE VRIES "The dark side of CEO succession", November
1987
81/40 Carmen MATUTES and
"Product compatibility and the scope of entry",
Pierre REGIBEAU
November 1987
87/41 Cavrlel flAWAVINI and "Seasonality, size premium and the relationship
Claude VIALLET betveen the risk and the return of Frenchcommon stocks", November 1987
87/42 Damien NEVEN and
"Combining horizontal and vertical
Jacques-F. TIIISSE
differentiation: the principle of max-mindifferentiation", December 1987
87/43 Jean GABSZEW1CZ and
"Location", December 1987Jacques.F. THISSE
87/44 Jonathan HAMILTON,
"Spatial discrimination: Bertrand vs. CournotJacques-F. THISSE
in a model of location choice", December 1987
and Anita WESKAMP
87/45 Karel COOL, "Business strategy, market structure and risk-
David JEHISON and
return relationships: a causal interpretation",
Ingemar DIERICKX
December 1987.
87/46 Ingemar DIERICKX
"Asset stock accumulation and sustainability
and Karel COOL of competitive advantage", December 1907.
"Factors affecting judgemental forecasts andconfidence intervals", January 1988.
"Predicting recessions and other turningpoints", January 1988.
"De-industrialize service for quality", January1988.
"National vs. corporate culture: implicationsfor human resource management", January 1988.
"The swinging dollar: is Europe out of step?",January 1988.
"Les conflits dans les canaux de distribution",January 1988.
"Competitive advantage: a resource basedperspective", January 1988.
"Issues in the study of organizationalcognition", February 1988.
"Price formation and product design throughbidding", February 1988.
"The robustness of some standard auction gameforms", February 1988.
"When stationary strategies are equilibriumbidding strategy: The single-crossingproperty", February 1988.
"Business firms and managers in the 21stcentury", February 1988
"Alexithymia in organizational life: theorganization man revisited", February 1988.
"The interpretation of strategies: a study ofthe impact of CEOs on the corporation",March 1988.
"The production of and returns from industrialinnovation: an econometric analysis for adeveloping country", December 1987.
"Market efficiency and equity pricing:international evidence and implications forglobal investing", March 1988.
"Monopolistic competition, costs of adjustmentand the behavior of European employment",
88/01 Michael LAWRENCE andSpyros MAKRIDAKIS
88/02 Spyros MAKRIDAKIS
88/03 James TEBOUL
88/04 Susan SCHNEIDER
88/05 Charles WYPLOSZ
88/06 Reinhard ANGELMAR
88/07 Ingemar DIERICKXand Karel COOL
88/08 Reinhard ANGELMARand Susan SCHNEIDER
88/09 Bernard SINCLAIR-DESGAGNe
88/10 Bernard SINCLAIR-DESGAGNe
88/11 Bernard SINCLAIR-DESGAGNe
88/12 Spyros MAKRIDAKIS
88/13 Manfred KETS DE VRIES
88/14 Alain NOEL
88/15 Anil DEOLALIKAR andLars-Hendrik ROLLER
88/16 Gabriel HAWAWINI
88/17 Michael BURDA
88/18 Michael BURDA "Reflections on "Wait Unemployment" inEurope", November 1987, revised February 1988.
88/24 B. Espen ECKBO andHerwig LANGOHR
"Individual bias in judgements of confidence",March 1988.
"Portfolio selection by mutual funds, anequilibrium model", March 1988.
"De-industrialize service for quality",March 1988 (88/03 Revised).
"Proper Quadratic Functions with an Applicationto AT&T", May 1987 (Revised March 1988).
"Equilibres de Nash-Cournot dans le march6europeen du gaz: un cas oil 1es solutions enboucle ouverte et en feedback coincident",Mars 1988
"Information disclosure, means of payment, andtakeover premia. Public and Private tenderoffers in France", July 1985, Sixth revision,April 1988.
88/19 M.J. LAWRENCE andSpyros MAKRIDAKIS
88/20 Jean DERMINE,Damien NEVEN andJ.F. THISSE
88/21 James TEBOUL
88/22 Lars-Hendrik ROLLER
88/23 Sjur Didrik FLAMand Georges ZACCOUR
88/25 Everette S. GARDNERand Spyros MAKRIDAKI
"The future of forecasting", April 1988.S
88/26 Sjur Didrik FLAM
"Semi-competitive Cournot equilibrium inand Georges ZACCOUR
multistage oligopolies", April 1988.
88/27 Murugappa KRISHNAN
"Entry game with resalable capacity",Lars-Hendrik ROLLER
April 1988.