This chapter analyses the rise of the ‘global factory’ – the globally integrated network centred on a focal multinational enterprise. This is a response to the increased volatility of the global economy and involves the creation of systems that allow flexibility in both the location and...

Over the past decade, international business and international management researchers have utilized meta-analytic approaches to synthesizing findings in the extant literature. This chapter reviews the studies published in the top five international business and management journals from 2004 to...

Purpose – Integrating insights from the literatures on internationalization and knowledge externalities, we posit that the reservoirs of scientific knowledge residing in different locations around the world have significant power in explaining interfirm performance variations. We assert that...

The internalisation theory of the Multinational Enterprise (MNE) explains MNE decisions to make/buy and/or ally, based on market and intra-organisational (firm/hierarchy) transactions costs. The theory focused on a limited set of categories, actors and sources of transaction costs and has...

Infrastructural assets are vital for a country’s economic and social development. Governments typically provide the regulation and administration of these assets, while multinational enterprises (MNEs) develop, construct, finance, and operate them. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) promises...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the key analytical principles of internalisation theory as a general theory of the multinational enterprise (MNE). It illustrates the vitality, relevance and flexibility of the approach in explaining the continued evolution of the MNE. As a...