Chapter 19 Successful and Unsuccessful Radical Transformation of Multinational Mobile Telephony Companies: The Role of Institutional Context

A number of prominent European multinational mobile telephony companies (MNMTCs) have their origins in state-owned monopolies that successfully undertook radical transformation in the late 1980s to late 1990s. Not only did they face liberalization of their domestic markets but they also moved from fixed-line telephony to mobile telephony prior to rapid expanded overseas. This study focuses on Telenor whose operations currently span the Nordic region and Southeast Asia. Like other MNMTCs, Telenor currently faces another period of radical change as global digital services providers are set to ride on the connectivity MNMTCs supply thereby reducing them to “dumb-pipes.” This study indicates that Telenor has abandoned radical transformation for “modernization” of its extant operations. For an understanding of why this second radical change is proving arduous for MNMTCs, the authors argue that there is a need to take into consideration institutional change.