Logo image
Back
The foreign market servicing behavior of multinational corporations: an empirical investigation
Conference paper

The foreign market servicing behavior of multinational corporations: an empirical investigation

Jane F Craig
Academy of Management Proceedings, Vol.1999, pp.C1-C6
Academy of Management
1999
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/APBPP.1999.27611557
url
https://doi.org/10.5465/APBPP.1999.27611557View
Published Version

Abstract

Business and Management
This paper classifies a set of the world's largest multinational corporations (MNCs) according to the strategic choice they make about servicing foreign markets: the three generic international strategies proposed here are global exporter, foreign producer and mixed mode. A fourth category includes firms with low levels of both exporting and foreign production. Applying this categorization schema focuses attention on a relatively neglected aspect of international strategy at the firm level. The classificatory analysis shows that almost a quarter (24.8%) of the 443 MNCs pursue a foreign producer strategy. However, dominant models of internationalization devote little descriptive or normative attention to managing such firms. Accordingly, the findings here suggest that a foreign production-centred firm strategy and its attendant organizational requirements are material for a significant subset of MNC managers and thus warrant specific research attention. In addition to industry and country effects, the findings also reveal significant within-industry variation in firm choice on this dimension of international strategy. As such, the research has implications for the relative importance of models based on industry versus firm choice of position within an industry, and for stages models of internationalization.

Details

Metrics

4 File views/ downloads
652 Record Views
Logo image