Multinationals and subsidiaries: A bibliometric study on Ghoshal?s managing across borders

Abstract

Some scholars? imprint an academic discipline by their contribution to the manner in which we think and research, namely by putting forward novel concepts and insights. In this paper we examine the impact of Sumantra Ghoshal?s work on the study of subsidiaries and multinational enterprises and organizational formats for foreign operations. Specifically we perform a bibliometric study focused on Bartlett and Ghoshal?s well-known book ?Managing across borders: The transnational solution? to assess its impact in international business (IB) research. We examine the entire record of publications in the top leading IB journal: Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS). Theoretically supported, Ghoshal?s work was keenly influenced by his corporate experiences and his constant questioning of the dominant theories and assumptions. Our analyses show the impact of the work on the ?transnational solution? namely on the understanding of multinationals and subsidiaries, thus being one of the most notable contributions for IB research over the past twenty years.Sumantra Ghoshal, international business research, bibliometric study, transnational solution, multinational corporations, subsidiaries