In this paper we call for a better understanding of cultural distance and its importance to managers across borders. We report on the structuring and interpretation of cultural distance by managers from Germany, the UK and Poland. In particular we are interested in the German/Polish, and the...

This unique, extensive Handbook illustrates that multinational enterprises can contribute substantially to the competitive advantage of small countries. It advances the notion that small nations increasingly need to rely on both home-grown and foreign multinational enterprises to achieve...

Service activities are now acknowledged as key players in economic development, societal change and public policy worldwide. This exciting Handbook not only contributes to ongoing conceptual debates about the nature of service-led economies and societies; it also pushes back the frontiers of...

This paper examines the incentives for both multinational enterprises and host developing countries to create, through partial privatisation, mixed-ownership enterprises. The paper argues that the likely benefits of such ventures have been overstated. Some limitations of mixed-ownership...

At a conceptual level, the eclectic paradigm of international production has evolved in response to the growth of inter-firm alliances and networks. Yet, there is little empirical research on the nature, extent and compatibility of external network relationships formed at the subsidiary level to...

Thompson's (1967) framework is regarded as one of the classic work for analysing organizations in the West. This paper analyses organizational changes in Sinotrans utilizing a longitudinal case study to examine whether Thompson's framework is valid for understanding firms in a transitional...

This paper examines export-orientated and market-orientated foreign direct investment (FDI) in China's manufacturing industry. Based on Fung's (1995) survey estimation of China's market-orientated FDI in 1992 and China's Third National Industrial Census in 1995, we quantify the proportion of...

This paper moves from the general to the particular. First, it examines the differential speed of globalization in different types of market - specifically markets in finance, goods and services, and finally labour markets. It then analyses the location and ownership strategies of multinational...