The Implications of Individuals in Multinational Organizations: Alternative Perspectives on International Business

This volume of studies deals with the leadership challenges of multinational corporations (MNCs) as they operate under turbulence and unpredictable conditions. MNCs are comprised of many unique individuals in different functional positions situated in various parts of the world with diverse cultures and value systems that represent business opportunities as well as added transaction costs. The advantage of international expansion is often analyzed using economic rationales like the ownership-location-internalization (OLI) framework. Other models consider dual pressures to integrate for economic efficiency versus responding to local market needs as structural determinants for MNC strategies. An alternative approach sees MNC performance as an outcome of the aggregated activities of many individuals within the MNC as sources of local responses and global strategic adaptation. It calls for qualitative studies to understand interpersonal relationships as they react to emerging disturbances and thereby determine the role of human agency across the MNC. It adopts a phenomenological perspective where the individual experiences are sources for new insights, knowledge creation, and thereby the ability to engage in effective adaptive moves. The ensuing chapters present different aspects of the MNC leadership challenge based on literature in strategy, international business studies, and institutional theory. Dynamic knowledge creation is linked to individual insights and interactive social processes to develop adaptive initiatives for strategic change supported by empathy in leadership. This points toward new semi-amorphous MNC forms that could resemble global amoeba organizations.