National Structures and Multinational Corporate Behavior : Enduring Differences in the Age of Globalization

Liberal and critical theorists alike claim that the world political economy is becoming globalized. If they are right, leading corporations should gradually be losing their national characters and converging in their fundamental strategies and operations. Multinational corporations (MNCs) should be the harbingers of deep global integration. In fact, recent evidence shows little blurring or convergence at the cores of firms based in Germany, Japan, or the United States. In contrast to expectations now common both inside and outside academia regarding the imminent emergence of a truly global economy, this article shows that MNCs continue to diverge fairly systematically in their internal governance and long-term financing structures, in their approaches to research and development (R&D) as well as in the location of core R&D facilities, and in their overseas investment and intrafirm trading strategies. Durable national institutions and distinctive ideological traditions still seem to shape and channel crucial corporate decisions. Across the leading states of the three regions now commonly referred to as the "Triad," the foundations of corporate markets are not converging.Markets in this sense are not replacing political leadership and the necessity for negotiated adjustments among states