Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Multinational Formation
Keith Head
Sauder School of
Business
The “take-away” for this
chapter
• Chapter 7 asks “Where should we do the
things we do?”
– At home: the country where top mgmt is
based.
– Abroad: offshore, overseas, in a foreign
country
• The answer: “It all depends on the 4
elements of MN strategy: trade costs,
factor advantages, PLEoS, market
sizes.”
Nestle
IBM worldwide
LG Electronics (part of LG Group,
formerly Goldstar Electronics)
Levels of Multinational
Strategy
• Who is the we in “Where should we do it”?
– An individual business unit business strategy
– A collection of business units under the same
ownership corporate strategy
– A collection of business units linked through a
mix of equity ties and long term contractual
arrangements network strategy
Multinational (single) “Business” Strategy
Replication
R-form
Foreign Centralization
(Importing)
F-form
Examples of Centralization
• Home Centralization:
– Boeing commercial aircraft assembly in U.S.
(mainly Seattle)
– Airbus commercial aircraft assembly in EU
(mainly Toulouse)
• Foreign Centralization:
– Mattel’s Barbie dolls (2 factories in
Dongguan, China +1 in Malaysia +1 in Indon.)
– Matsushita’s TVs (Malaysia)
Boeing’s Everett Factory:
the largest building in the world
(472 million cubic feet of space )
Boeing’s Everett Factory:
sole location of 747 assembly
Boeing’s 747
Nestle, the Replicator
254,000 Employees in 508 Factories in 85 Countries
(2002 Management Report)