THEORIES OF THE MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES – TWO DIFFERENT APPROACHES

Multinational enterprises – as key determinants and results (in the same time) of the globalization process that characterize the economic world nowadays – know a lot of different approaches in the academic literature; this is a consequence of the refinement (in time) of the (firm’s) internationalization strategies and practices – which is determined, at its turn, by the continuous dynamics and challenges of the world economy. By this paper we would like to bring into attention two of these general theoretical frameworks; they were developed by Wladimir Andreff (into his 2003 book: Les multinationals globales), and Mats Forsgren respectively (into his 2008 book: Theories of the Multinational Firm). The main idea is to capture the essence of the theories of the multinationals on one hand (no matter if they claim their roots to be into the international business, theory of the firm or international management academic field), and to discover the particularities that each one of the theories and approaches emphasize, on the other hand.