International Business Strategy
About the Book
The book of International Business Strategy provides a new perspective by combining analytical rigour and true managerial insight on the functioning of large multinational enterprises (MNEs). With unique commentary on seventy-four seminal articles published in the Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review and California Management Review over the past four decades, the book shows how these can be applied to real businesses engaged in international expansion programmes, especially as they venture into high-distance markets.
The third edition has been thoroughly updated and features greater coverage of multinational entrepreneurship with a new chapter. Suited for courses at the advanced undergraduate, graduate and managerially oriented doctoral levels, students will benefit from in-depth perspectives on MNE functioning. New learning features include sections on ‘strategic challenges in the new economy’, i.e., state-of-the-art lessons that can be applied in contemporary MNEs, and a range of online resources, especially updated case studies. Educators can request access to the comprehensive teaching materials through the Cambridge University Press.
“In this textbook of unusual depth and scope, Alain Verbeke and Ian Lee provide a critical reassessment of Theodore Levitt’s famous edicts on global marketing, Michael Porter’s diamond, Prahalad and Hamel’s core competence, Bartlett and Ghoshal’s transnational solution, and many other conceptual models that have until now been treated as almost sacrosanct. These mainstream views are not analyzed in isolation, but systematically within the context of a simple but insightful conceptual framework, which synthesizes several decades of scholarly research on multinational enterprise strategy.”
– Jean-François Hennart, Fellow of the Academy of International Business; Fellow of the European International Business Academy; Professor of International Management, Tilburg University (The Netherlands), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and Aalborg University (Denmark)
About the Authors
Alain Verbeke
Dr. Alain Verbeke is a Professor of International Business Strategy and holds the McCaig Research Chair in Management at the Haskayne School of Business (HSB), University of Calgary (Canada). In 2014, Dr. Verbeke was elected as the Inaugural Alan M. Rugman Memorial Fellow at the Henley Business School, University of Reading (UK). In 2019, he was appointed as a Dean’s Circle Distinguished Research Fellow, College of Business, Florida International University (USA). He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Solvay Business School, University of Brussels – VUB (Belgium) and was previously associated with Templeton College (now Green Templeton), University of Oxford (UK). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Business Studies – JIBS (2017 – 2022)
Dr. Verbeke’s academic research agenda consists of rethinking and augmenting the core paradigms in strategic management and international business, especially internalization theory, which is a joint transaction cost economics and resource-based view of the firm, focused on the governance of new resource combinations. He has particular expertise in the management of headquarters – subsidiary relationships and broader governance challenges in large multinational enterprises. Dr. Verbeke has authored or edited 40 books and more than 200 refereed publications, including many articles in leading scholarly journals such as the Journal of International Business Studies, the Strategic Management Journal and the Journal of Management Studies.
Dr. Verbeke is an Elected Fellow of both the Academy of International Business – AIB and the European International Business Academy – EIBA. He is the recipient of the double Gold Medal for scholarly contributions and scholarly service to JIBS. He is also an Honorary Guest Professor at the University of International Business and Economics, Beijing (China).
In the realm of managerial practice, Dr. Verbeke has personally directed 150 consulting projects, many of these related to the economic and strategic evaluation of large-scale capital investments.
I.H. Ian Lee
Dr. Inhyeock “Ian” Lee is currently an Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy at the Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University Chicago (USA). He received his Ph.D. in Business (Major: International Business/Strategy and Minor: Entrepreneurship) from the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University in 2007.
Dr. Lee’s primary research interests relate to the location strategies of multinational enterprises and the contributions of entrepreneurial firms to cluster formation and performance. Another area of interest is how regional strategies of multinational enterprises and international new ventures can affect firm performance.
Dr. Lee has published in leading journals such as Regional Studies, Journal of International Management, International Business Review, Small Business Economics, Journal of Business Research, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management among others. He currently serves as an editorial board member for the Journal of International Management, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, and Asian Business & Management.
Prior to joining academia, Dr. Lee served for eight years as a Deputy Director at the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy in South Korea. He was the recipient of the 2018-19 Alan M. Rugman Visiting Research Fellowship at the Henley Business School, University of Reading (UK).
About the Contributors to the Cases
Wenlong Yuan
Dr. Wenlong Yuan is the Stu Clark Chair in entrepreneurship and innovation at the Asper School of Business, the University of Manitoba. Before his current position, he was Associate Professor of Strategy and International Business in the Faculty of Management at the University of Lethbridge, Canada. His main research interests cross entrepreneurship, strategy, and international business. His work currently focuses on entrepreneurship in large firms, the impact of top management teams’ (TMTs) characteristics on middle-level entrepreneurial activities, entrepreneurial learning from failure, and behaviors of academic entrepreneurs.
Dr. Alain Verbeke and Dr. Wenlong Yuan co-drafted most of the cases in the book’s earlier editions. They also updated and extended all cases as online materials.