The geography of British exports: country-level versus firm-level evidence

This study investigates the degree of regionalization of UK exporters. The firm-level findings, based on an original set of primary data of 356 UK exporters, are contrasted with the UK national trade flows as well as with the geographic spread of the UK, European and the world's largest MNEs. The analysis produced consistent findings of regionalization regardless of the classification thresholds or sales matrices employed. The findings also imply that country-level data supports the firm-level findings of regionalization. White the analysis presents relatively strong corroborating evidence of regionalization of UK exports, it also indicates that UK exporters might be more multi-regional and global oriented than previously thought. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. ALL rights reserved

Reconciling internalization theory and the eclectic paradigm

The eclectic paradigm of Dunning (1980) (with its OLI and four motives for FDI framework) can be reconciled with the firm and country matrix of Rugman (1981). However, the fit is not perfect. The main reason for misalignment is that Dunning is focused upon outward FDI into host economies, whereas Rugman’s matrix is for firm-level strategy covering MNE activity in both home and host countries

The Regional Nature of World Banking

Of the forty banks included in the world’s largest 500 firms, none operate on a global basis. All but one are heavily dependent on their home region, with an average of 78.3% of their sales being intra-regional. The other bank is European owned but has a majority of its sales in North America, i.e. it is host-region oriented. The insularity of the world’s largest banks is not a sector-specific factor—only nine of the world’s 500 largest firms are global, and the vast majority are like the banks, home-region based.regional, triad, banking, intra-regional, global

Liabilities of Regional Foreignness and the Use of Firm Level and Country Level Data

We are pleased that Dunning et al. (2006) have provided macro (country) level data demonstrating the increased internationalization of many nations over the past decade. We also appreciate their findings lending support to our perspective on the regional nature of world business. Our work was based solely on micro (firm) level data, see Rugman and Verbeke (2004a). Both country level data and firm level data have methodological problems which we attempt to reconcile in this comment. We also address the broader conceptual issues of how to interpret country level versus firm level data.Regional strategy, home region bound firm-specific advantages, liability of regional foreignness, methodology

A Perspective on Regional and Global Strategies of Multinational Enterprises

It is widely accepted that multinational enterprises (MNEs) are the key drivers of globalization. The ultimate test to assess the level of globalization is the actual penetration of markets across the globe, especially in the broad ‘triad’ markets of NAFTA, the European Union and Asia. Yet, data on the activities of the 500 largest MNEs reveal that very few actually operate globally. For 320 of the 380 for which geographic sales data are available, an average of 80.3% of their total sales are in their home region of the triad. This means that the world’s largest firms are not global, but regionally based in terms of breadth and depth of market coverage. Globalization thus reflects a special, and rather unusual, outcome of doing international business, and regional strategies are more relevant than global ones. This has important implications for various strands of mainstream international business research, as well as for the broader managerial debate on the design of optimal strategies and governance structures for MNEs.Semi-globalization, regional strategy triad, value chain, firm specific advantages, localization, global strategy

The Regional Focus of Asian Multinational Enterprises

In recent issues of this journal a debate has raged concerning the appropriate nature of academic research in the Asia Pacific region. In keeping with the expressed desire for both rigor and regional relevance in this research, we wish to demonstrate a strong commonality between the performance of large Asian firms and others from Europe and North America. The large Asian firms mostly operate on an intra-regional basis. It has been assumed that the path to success for Asian firms is globalization, yet we show that the literature supporting this is confined to a handful of unrepresentative case studies.Asian multinationals, regional strategy, internationalization, bibliometric analysis, firm-specific advantages

Regional Strategies of Multinational Pharmaceutical Firms

This paper examines the R&D and strategies of the world’s largest firms in the pharmaceuticals sector and finds a high degree of intra-regional sales. R&D and sales are more concentrated within North America and Europe than in Asia. In addition, the relative size of the U.S. market, compared to other parts of the triad, creates imbalances with respect to R&D, sales and international strategy.

THE CANADA-U.S. FREE TRADE AGREEMENT AND CANADA'S AGRI-FOOD INDUSTRIES

International Relations/Trade,

Multinational Enterprises in the New Europe: Are They Really Global?

Despite a pervasive belief that the world’s largest firms compete globally, the vast majority have most of their sales in their home region. Of the top 500 firms for which regional sales data are available, 118 are from Europe, and they compete predominantly within the European region. On average, 62.8% of their sales are in their home region; only three are global, 8 are host-region oriented and 16 are bi-regional, while 86 are home-region based. To illustrate the four categories, we present case studies of 9 European multinationals — Carrefour, TotalFinaElf, Deutsche Bank, Nokia, Philips, GlaxoSmithKline, L’Oréal Paris, Diageo,and AstraZeneca. We analyze the geographical distribution of their operations and their current structure. We also show that management research is strongly focusedon the special cases of global and bi-regional firms, rather than on the large majority of home-region firms. This implies that managing in the new Europe needs tobe regional, not global.

Regional Transnationals and Triad Strategy

In this paper, we address the geographic distribution of sales of some of the world’s largest multinational enterprises (MNEs), with a focus on the share of each leg of the ‘Triad’ (the North-American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA-zone, the European Union - E.U., and Asia) in these firms’ overall sales. Our view is that a firm has achieved global corporate success only if it is able to earn a balanced regional distribution of sales. Only high actual sales across the globe, especially in the wealthy and technologically advanced triad regions, demonstrate both strong firm-level capabilities at the supply side to market products and services worldwide, and a high willingness of sophisticated consumers at the demand side, to pay for the firm’s output. With respect to the supply side, we develop a new conceptual framework, which distinguishes among the global, regional and national loci of MNE decision-making, as well as the global, regional and national levels of product standardization. Our main point is that the regional dimension is important for many firms, because it is a geographic level where many important decisions are made, and where product standardization may be appropriate. We then identify the twenty MNEs with the highest foreign-to-total (F/T) sales ratios in the UNCTAD list of most internationalized companies in terms of foreign asset base that are also Fortune 500 firms. For this set of large, highly internationalized companies, we measure the distribution of their sales across triad regions. We find that only three of these firms actually have a substantial portion of their sales across all three legs of the triad. The other MNEs are either bi-regional, host-region oriented or home-triad region oriented. In other words, the empirical evidence reveals that even these highly internationalized MNEs do not have a balanced global distribution of sales. We further elaborate on this empirical finding by investigating whether a regional component can be identified in twelve specific cases of MNE strategy, building upon our new framework.globalization, regionalization, triad, transnational enterprises, triad home-base, regional, global, bi-regional, Wal-Mart