Liberalization of the EC banking industry presents both EC and non-EC banks with strategic predicaments. EC banks will face fewer shelter-based entry barriers, and will have to rely on competitive advantages to erect natural entry barriers. In contrast, non-EC banks will be forced to rethink...

Summary The transnational solution developed by Bartlett and Ghoshal is shown to be suitable for only a few special cases of multinational enterprise (MNE) strategy and structure. As MNEs have most of their assets and sales within their home region, they are in need of regional, not...

We analyse the green strategies of six multinational enterprises subject to environmental regulations. In this framework we add government regulations as an explicit 'sixth force' to Porter's basic 'five forces' model. First, we distinguish between shifts in corporate strategy towards market...

Anti-dumping (AD) laws in the EC are intended to establish 'fairness' between trading partners. But there are negative effects, in particular, firms with weak firm specific advantages can shelter behind AD laws; they can even follow shelter-based strategies and lobby for protection. Alan Rugman...

This paper reports an empirical study of the world's 49 largest retail multinational enterprises (MNEs). Of these only one MNE is found to be a 'global' MNE, while five are 'bi-regional', i.e. with at least 20 per cent of sales in two parts of the 'triad' of the European Union, North America...

Recent research suggests that globalization is a myth. Far from taking place in a single global market, most business activity by large firms takes place in regional blocks. There is no uniform spread of American market capitalism nor are global markets becoming homogenized. Government...

A flagship firm is defined as a multinational enterprise which has taken on the strategic leadership of a business network consisting of four other partners: key suppliers, key customers, selected competitors and the non-business infrastructure. Successful flagship firms need to foster trust and...

This paper discusses the trans-European high-speed rail networks' (TERN) financing. The different goals of public and private investors are identified as these are critical to the development of a new form of integrated financing, whereby both public and private means are required. Government...

This article analyses recent strategic changes in the European flexible packaging industry. It demonstrates that the different forces driving international industry competition can always be translated into requirements for stronger integration or stronger national responsiveness. The flexible...

Basic theory suggests that multinational enterprises (MNEs) succeed when they develop knowledge-based capabilities, often called firm-specific advantages (FSAs). In China's case its large MNEs have few such knowledge based FSAs. Instead, they are building scale economies based on China's...