A
multinational corporation is a company which has operations in more than one nation. The
development of multinational corporations has challenged the belief of liberal ideology
that economic power can be counterbalanced by political power.
As multinational corporations have less dependence on a
national market and can adopt practices which minimize the effect of national policies
they move outside the reach of any political system.
For a long time research on multinational corporations (MNCs)
was dominated by a very critical assessment. But recently social scientists seem to have
changed their view of the multinational corporation; they now have a much more positive
opinion of this institution. This raises the question whether we are, now that the
multinational company is becoming the most powerful economic actor, on the way to an
economic order in which there are no losers and only winners. The article deals with this
question on the basis of three aspects of multinational corporations: forms of governance,
organisational strategies and industrial relations. -
iss.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/4/461 - THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF THE MULTINATIONAL
CORPORATION, Gerd Schienstock, International Sociology, Vol. 7, No. 4, 461-479 (1992) DOI:
10.1177/026858092007004007 © 1992 International Sociological Association.
A Strategic Model for Multinational Corporation Social Responsibility in the Third
World
By Jay L. Laughlin, and Mohammad Badrul Ahsan
Frequent criticism of multinational corporation social responsibility is contrasted with
the "Friedman Doctrine," which maintains that the social responsibility of
business is to increase profits. A general framework recognizing that the long-range
purpose of exchange is the mutual satisfaction of the interests of all parties leads to a
discussion of concepts from Blau's exchange structuralism. A structural model for
enhancing multinational corporation strategy for socially responsible exchange behavior
with developing nations is introduced. - ciber.msu.edu/
Research/periodicals/jim/abstract/abs-v2n3.htm
The Developing Countries, Development, and the Multinational Corporation
Richard D. Robinson
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 403, No. 1, 67-79
(1972) DOI: 10.1177/000271627240300107 © 1972 American Academy of Political & Social
Science
The point of departure is an explicit discussion of the nature of nationalism in terms of
resource allocational priorities. For a variety of reasons the priorities differ from
nation to nation. In that the penetration by an alien firm always requires the commitment
of local resources, conflict is possible. The corporation's overall profit-maximizing
objective pushes in the direction of centralizing control external to the host country,
which in fact also causes conflict. It is suggested that a time limit on foreign ownership
may be an appropriate response, as may be a higher level of sophistication with respect to
environmental analysis on the part of the foreign corporation. Given the instabilities
built into the multinational firm, two possible future scenarios are seen: (1) the
transnational firm—a multinational corporation that is owned and managed
multinationally—and (2) the multinational or transnational association—a
corporation linked internationally essentially by contract. The latter is seen as possibly
serving the best interests of the less developed countries. -
ann.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/403/1/67
The Use of the Multinational Corporation as a Research Context
Kendall Roth, Tatiana Kostova, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208,
USA
Journal of Management, Vol. 29, No. 6, 883-902 (2003) DOI: 10.1016/S0149-2063_03_00083-7
© 2003 Southern Management Association
The multinational corporation (MNC) has been increasingly used as a context for conceptual
and empirical work. Based on a review of several leading management journals, we identify
three main purposes for which the MNC has been employed: (1) study of MNC-specific
phenomena; (2) validation and expansion of existing theories; and (3) development of new
theories. We suggest that the latter purpose represents the highest potential contribution
of MNC research, yet it is the least utilized so far. We then offer ideas of how to
increase the contribution of MNC research through capturing the conceptual distinctiveness
of the context, examining the theoretical paradoxes inherent in these organizations, and
theorizing about novel combinative phenomena emerging in this context. -
jom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/29/6/883
Strategic Bridging: A Role for the Multinational Corporation in Third World
Development
Sanjay Sharma, Harrie Vredenburg, University of Calgary
Frances Westley, McGill University
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 30, No. 4, 458-476 (1994) DOI:
10.1177/0021886394304007 © 1994 NTL Institute
The traditional lending paradigms adopted by international development funding agencies
have not been very successful in fostering genuine economic development at the grassroots
level in developing Third World countries. Despite good intentions on the part of these
multilateral agencies, they sometimes lack perspectives on the unique social, cultural,
and ecological conditions affecting development in these countries. Multinational
corporations with a more permanent presence and long-term commitment of resources in these
countries have egoistic interests in long-term relationship building with stakeholders in
host Third World countries. They can provide collaborative mechanisms for partnering
international development funding agencies to foster grassroots development efforts in
developing countries. Collaboration theory and the concept of strategic bridging as a
unique form of collaboration are used as frameworks to analyze a case study involving the
role of a multinational firm as an unofficial strategic bridge between an international
development bank and a state government in a West African country to bring about a
successful outcome to an infrastructural funds lending exercise. -
jab.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/4/458
Management Styles Within a Multinational Corporation: A Five Country Comparative
Study
Cynthia Pavett, Tom Morris, School of Business Administration, University of San
Diego, San Diego, California.
Human Relations, Vol. 48, No. 10, 1171-1191 (1995) DOI: 10.1177/001872679504801004 © 1995
The Tavistock Institute
This study examines participatory management systems and productivity in similar plants
located in five different countries. Likert's System 4 theory was used as a tool to
measure the nature and extent of participation. All five plants were engaged in identical
operations that were designed and implemented by its U.S.-based owner. Each of the plants,
however, was under the direction of host nationals. Data demonstrated that the degree of
participation differed widely between the Italian, Mexican, Spanish, American, and English
plants. It appears that the management systems in each of the plants reflects the
expectations of the society and the local workforce. The data also revealed significant
differences in the levels of productivity. While the most productive plants had the lowest
levels of participation, the relationship between productivity and participation was not
statistically significant across the five plants. The study concludes that management
systems which are culturally congruent can produce equal levels of productivity
independent of whether managers are empowered, or operate under centralized, autocratic
control. - hum.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/48/10/1171
The Multinational Corporation Today
PAUL BRACKEN, Yale School of Management
Yale SOM Working Paper No. OB-06, PM-05, OL-19
Abstract: The core focus on multinational corporations is changing. Originally it focused
on power relations between it and the nation state. For the past decade this focus has
shifted to the efficiency of the multinational enterprise. Today it is shifting again,
back to power relationships. Four key areas define research on the multinational firm: its
relationship to globalization; the multinational firm as a learning engine; the rise of
non-western multinationals; and the growing importance of political analysis and risk
assessment as a core competence within the multinational corporation itself. -
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=514422
THE VISIBLE HAND OF THE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION A REVIEW
HELGA HERNES, Institute of Sociology, University of Bergen, Norway, Institute of
Sociology, University of Bergen, Norway
European Journal of Political Research 1 (3), 265–291.
doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.1973.tb01230.x
ABSTRACT: This article is a taxonomy of a new field of interest to political scientists,
namely the study of multinational corporations as political actors on the local, national
and international level. It describes the interests and activities of the four major
actors involved: parent companies, subsidiaries, investor countries, and host countries.
The article bases itself in part on seven books which represent these various
actors'perspectives, and suggests what kind of further research is needed to describe the
cooperative and conflictual relations among them. The theoretical challenges presented by
the multinationals are related in part to their dual character as economic and political
actors, and in part to the fact that they integrate activities among various levels of
political organization, thus cutting across traditional divisions of scholarly disciplines
such as local, comparative and international politics, as well as economics, international
business, and industrial relations. - blackwell-synergy.com
John Kenneth Galbraith and the Multinational Corporation
Stephen Dunn, Abstract: Increasingly, economists are concerned with the power and
efficiency of the modern corporation. Many theories, largely based in neoclassical
economics, have been advanced to explain the large corporation and the role of management.
But the author notes that the theories of John Kenneth Galbraith, though eclipsed, deserve
to be rehabilitated. He summarizes these contributions and emphasizes Galbraith's work on
the multinational corporation to show its relevance to the globalization debate. -
ideas.repec.org/a/mes/challe/v48y2005i2p90-112.html |