MNC Management
PRESENTATION TASKS
Multinational Management
Session 2
27th January 2015
Session 2
Strategic Management & Structure
Group presentations:
GROUP 1.
Based on Akoorie and Scott-Kennel (2005) Chapter 9, Table 9.1:
Objective: We are building a consulting concept for our newly founded
consulting firm. Our mission is to use and build on sound scholarly
work to provide our clients with the best available tools to generate
business-level international strategy.
Make an expert selection of theoretical concepts and frameworks (use
table 9.1 as guide), introduce them briefly, state your motivation for
selection and show us an integrated framework that can be applied for
internationally active firms.
Multinational Management
Session 2
Strategic Management & Structure
Session
2
th
27 January 2015
GROUP 2.
You are the new managing team of Nestlé.
The supervisory board of the corporation gives you the mandate to
transform the company from a multi-domestic firm into a
transnational corporation.
Introduce your management of change concept leaning on Bartlett &
Ghoshal’s Global Integration and Local Responsiveness Organising
Framework.
Put special emphasis on (a) standardisation gains; (b) local adaptation;
(c) synergies in purchasing, production, R&D and marketing;
(d) control and coordination of these operations; (e) configuration of
activities; and (f) a view of the overall organisational structure after
implementation.
Wrap all of these into a winning presentation to the board to get their
approval.
Multinational Management
Session 3
Entry Mode Choices
Session
3
th
29 January, 2015
GROUP 3.
Introduce Sharma & Erramilli (2004) resource-based explanation of
entry mode choice. What is the basis of the argument that their
explanation is newer, better, theoretically more sound and
managerially more useful?
How does this resource-based contribution to the decision augment
the behavioural, market-imperfection and market failure approaches
that dominate this type of literature?
How can this knowledge be made useful for managers specifically?
Develop a suggestion.
Multinational Management
Session 3
Session 3
Entry Mode Choices
29th
of January, 2015
GROUP 4.
Introduce the framework and findings of Ekeledo & Sivakumar (2004).
Evaluate their resource-based approach to entry mode selection and
contrast it to a market failure approach (Internalisation, Eclectic
Theory).
From this evaluation, create a practical tool that managers of a MNC in
a specific context (if you need to choose, then choose industry, size,
degree of internationalisation, concrete firm example, country market
etc) could realistically apply to make more advanced market entry
mode decisions.
Defend your decision making tool.
Multinational Management
Session 4
Session 4
Knowledge in the MNC
February 5th, 2015
GROUP 5.
Analyse Kogut & Zander’s (1993,2003) seminal article on the
knowledge of the firm in an evolutionary theory of the MNC.
How does their view challenge the common market
failure/imperfection paradigms?
What are their conclusions concerning the view that knowledge is a
public good for which no markets may exist?
How do they explain the implications of tacit knowledge for the theory
of the firm without appealing to transaction costs and opportunism?
How does the theory explain that firms may extend their operations
beyond their strict advantage?
Multinational Management
Session 4
Knowledge in the MNC
Session th4
February 5 , 2015
GROUP 6.
Analyse and introduce Eisenhardt & Martin (2000) key considerations
on Dynamic Capabilities. What are they?
Review Augier & Teece (2009) and investigate what is the manager’s
role in the dynamic capabilities of organizations.
Provide your synthesis in order to make practical managerial
suggestions how a company may use this knowledge in its own
pursue to stay relevant.
Multinational Management
Session 5
Session 5
February 10th
Managing MNCs and Subsidiary Roles
GROUP 7.
Introduce Andersson & Forsgren‘s(2000) concept toward a subsidiary
‘centre of excellence’ theory.
Evaluate the statement (p. 342) ‘As the development of the MNC, in
turn, is rooted in the development of its subsidiaries, the MNC
headquarters need knowledge about the subsidiaries’ networks if it
want to control the development of the MNC’.
Discuss the statement (p. 343) ‘[...] the more externally embedded a
subsidiary is the harder it is for the headquarters to compete with the
external network actors in influencing the subsidiary’s operations and
activities’.
Critique the findings and present what implications you see for HQ
managers and from subsidiary managers’ perspective.
Multinational Management
Session 5
Session 5
February 10th
Managing the Networked MNC: External
GROUP 8.
Introduce Luo’s (2005) integrated model of inter-unit coopetition
within an MNE. What are the conceptual bases of this model?
How does this model contribute to understanding of Transnational
firms and the management of those?
Based on ideas from this article: Develop a practical management tool
for an MNC with the purpose to develop structural solutions for a
transnational strategy.
Multinational Management
Managing Uncertainties
Session 6
Session 6
February 12th
Managerial and Entrepreneurial Actors
GROUP 9.
Read Wiltbank et al. (2006) and present the different archetypes
discussed in the prediction/control framework. How do they differentiate our
views on strategy? What different behaviours are assumed by these different
types? What are the consequences in strategy, organisational structure and
processes between these types?
Draw on understanding the framework and develop a consulting concept that
would allow MNCs to utilise important insights of the framework in order to
balance ‘exploitation of given’ with ‘exploration of new knowledge’ – in reference
to March’s (1991) seminal article.
Multinational Management
Managing Change
Session 6
Session 6
February 12th
Managerial and Entrepreneurial Actors
GROUP 10.
Review literature on ‘Change Management’. What are the most
common themes, challenges and solutions found in different approaches to
managing change? How does this ‘practice oriented literature’ compare with
the ideas by Farjoun (2010) who sees stability and change as a duality, making
them interdependent and reciprocally necessary.
Drawing on your evaluation build a synthesis of approaches that a CEO could
introduce in order to facilitate major strategic change being accepted and
implemented in their firms. Use an existing example or develop your own to
illustrate how your model would function in a given setting.