Strategies of multinational enterprises (MNE): The microeconomic dimension of globalization

Yorgos RIZOPOULOS
Professeur d’économie, Université de Paris
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Goals

This seminar draws from a variety of disciplines including business, economics, management, political economy and public policy. The objective is to propose a microeconomic analysis of globalization (internationalization of firms) and a critical synthesis of the main theoretical approaches concerning MNEs, focusing on oligopolistic interactions and cooperative strategies, organization, coordination and governance patterns, MNEs’ institutional anchoring and State/business relations.

Outline

  1. Introduction: Phases of capitalist international expansion, financial globalization, types of business internationalization, foreign direct investment (FDI) and recent trends, vertical and horizontal FDI, types of multinational enterprises, relation with trade, FDI and diversification.
  2. Theoretical determinants of internationalization strategies.
  3. International strategic alliances.
  4. The MNE as organization.
  5. MNE and the State.
  6. Two case studies.

Evaluation

Each student have to do a short synthesis of 2000 words of two or three readings concerning a specific issue (summarize the papers’ objectives and results, raise issues of debate, critiques that can be addressed to the papers, etc.). Students have also to deliver a 10 minutes oral presentation of their essay. The essay (written synthesis and oral presentation) counts for 40% of the mark and there is a two-hour final exam (60% of the mark).

Selected readings

  • Boddewyn, J. & Brewer, T. (1994). International-business political behavior: New theoretical directions. Academy of Management Review, 19 (1), p. 119-143.
  • Das, T. & Teng, B. (2000). A resource-based theory of strategic alliances. Journal of Management, 26(1), p. 31-62.
  • Dunning, J. (2001). The eclectic (OLI) paradigm of international production: Past, present and future. International Journal of the Economics of Business, 8 (2), p. 173-190.
  • Gereffi G., Humphrey J. & Sturgeon T. (2005). The governance of global value chains. Review of International Political Economy, 12 (1), February, p. 78–104.
  • Ghoshal, S. & Bartlett, C.A. (1990). The multinational corporation as an interorganizational network. Academy of Management Review, 15 (4), p. 603-625.
  • Hillman, A. (2003). Determinants of political strategies in U.S. multinationals. Business & Society, 42 (4), p. 455-484.
  • Kobrin S. (2015). Is a global nonmarket strategy possible? Economic integration in a multipolar world order. Journal of World Business, 50 (2), p. 262-272.
  • Levy, D. & Prakash, A. (2003). Bargains old and new: Multinational corporations in global governance. Business and Politics, 5 (2), p. 131-150.
  • Ramamurti, R. (2001). The obsolescing “Bargaining Model”? MNC-host developing country relations revisited. Journal of International Business Studies, 32 (1), p. 23-39.
  • Rizopoulos, Y. & Sergakis, D. (2010). MNEs and policy networks: Institutional embeddedness and strategic choice. Journal of World Business, vol. 45 (3), p. 250-256.
  • UNCTAD. World investment report (various years).
  • Vernon, R. (1979). The product cycle hypothesis in a new international environment. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 41, p. 255–67.