Managing the MNE
Renate Kratochvil, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
Sverre Tomassen, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
Managers of contemporary MNEs face manifold challenges and tensions. The local and global environment of MNEs becomes increasingly dynamic and complex. This contests the conceptualization of the MNE as the hierarchical organization orchestrated by the HQ. Partner- and platform networks, competence driven economies, complex value chains across organizational borders, technological novelties, ethical issues, and crises and turmoil’s make the managing of the MNE even more demanding. How do MNEs and their managers organize and orchestrate the various activities and units within their organizations and broader networks to explore and exploit international opportunities? How do these practices, processes and choices evolve over time or differ across contexts? What is the role of the decision-makers, their experiences, abilities and cognitions, in these processes? For this track, we welcome contributions on the change and implementation of MNE strategies and coordination of activities and resources across borders and organizational entities – within as well as outside the boundaries of the MNE. Relevant topics may include, but are not limited to, MNEs organization and design, headquarters-subsidiary-network relationships, stakeholder management, local and global coordination mechanisms and management of organizational change, as well as the creation and transfer of organizational capabilities across units and/or network partners. We encourage the submission of both conceptual and empirical papers, quantitative, qualitative and mixed method helping to understand these processes in the contemporary MNE.
Keywords
MNE management and organization; international competitive advantage; headquarters; subsidiaries; networks; organizational change; organizational learning; knowledge management; MNE practices and processes.