Subsidiaries, Innovation and the Strategic Development of Multinationals

Abstract

The central force driving the views of the Multinational Enterprise (MNE) in the papers that now comprise the core of this book is that of heterogeneity. Thus our view of the processes of globalization, that have conditioned the evolution of the MNE over the past 40 years, is that they have allowed these firms to leverage to greater competitive advantage the differences between locations. This has resulted in MNEs generating heterogeneity in their own increasingly internationally-networked operations. It has also meant that countries (or discrete policy-defined regions within them) have also learnt the benefits of generating differentiated sources of comparative advantage (increasingly deriving from specific institutional and policy arrangements, such as those constituting national systems of innovation).