Dragon multinationals: New players in 21st century globalization

Abstract

This review article starts from the question: how does the global business system appear to a challenger firm, and how have challenger Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) from formerly peripheral areas such as the Asia Pacific established themselves successfully, against the sometimes fierce resistance of incumbents? To answer this question, the review develops an argument concerning the pluralistic character of the process of globalization, as contrasted with the conventional account that sees global processes creating uniformity and convergence. This alternative account is based on a review of the experiences of latecomer and newcomer MNEs, particularly those from the Asia Pacific-such as Acer, Ispat International, Li & Fung and the Hong Leong Group-that are dubbed "Dragon Multinationals." I argue that the innovative features that these MNEs share, such as their accelerated internationalization, strategic innovation and organizational innovation, fit particularly well with the characteristics of the emergent global economy as one of complex inter-firm linkages. The core proposition of the review is that this complementarity between the characteristics of the emergent global economy and latecomer and newcomer strategic and organizational innovations is what drives the remarkable success of these Asia Pacific firms in establishing themselves as serious international players. Such a proposition carries implications for the process of globalization as well as for the dominant frameworks utilized in International Business. The review argues that Dragon Multinationals adopt a different perspective to the resources accessed through internationalization, and that this requires a rethink of the criteria normally utilized in resource-based accounts of strategy. The challenger firm internationalizing in order to access resources also poses a challenge to the dominant OLI (ownership, locational, internalization) account of multinational advantage. Thus it is argued that the question posed at the outset goes to the core of the IB frameworks, and thereby counts as one of the 'big questions' that should guide research in IB in the 21 st century.

Learning and technological capability building in emerging economies: The case of the biomass power equipment industry in Malaysia

“…Among such learning sources, Chen (2009) particularly stresses the role of inter-firm interactions in the form of informal knowledge spill-over among local competitors. As Mathews (2006) argues, however, since latecomer firms typically operate in isolation from world centres of science and innovation and sophisticated technology markets, the reliance on local learning sources may comprise a key barrier to technological capability building. This argument is further devolved in Plechero (2012), who emphasises that knowledge diffusion among local competitors may only enable firms to progress production capabilities -in order to reach more advanced levels of innovation capability, additional, complementary sources of learning may be required.…”

“…The lack of technological capability building through learning from foreign partners in this case were therefore not caused by a lack of opportunity, but rather by a lack of strategic decision to dedicate resources to pursue such learning. As emphasised by Figueiredo (2001Figueiredo ( , 2003 and Mathews (2006), the extent to which such external linkages with foreign firms facilitate learning and technological capability building is strongly related to the persistence and resources (the intensity of efforts) devoted to utilising such learning opportunities. This paper seems to corroborate this argument.…”

“…These dyadic relationships may be through linkages with foreign firms in the form of licensing agreements, joint ventures, technology cooperation, technical assistance, strategic alliances, and other forms of commercial inter-firm relationships that transcend the local economy. By facilitating the acquisition, assimilation, and possible improvement of foreign technologies, such transnational inter-firm linkages may comprise important sources of "learning by interacting" with foreign, more technologically advanced partners (Amsden, 1989;Hobday, 1995;Mathews, 2006). Another source of externally mediated inter-firm learning may take place when firms interact with local competitors either through formalised ventures, such as project partnering, or from non-formal channels such as "learning by imitation and copying" and local labour turnover.…”

“…Following Figueiredo (2001), attention is also paid to the intensity of management effort and financial commitment devoted to utilise a given source of learning, which Kim (1997) and Mathews (2006) also stress as an important determinant of technological capability building. These key characteristics of learning mechanisms, as operationalised in this paper, are illustrated in Table 2.…”

O desenvolvimento de competências organizacionais em diferentes modelos gerenciais de subsidiárias de empresas multinacionais Brasileiras

“…Esse resultado reforça a literatura sobre a importância dos relacionamentos das subsidiárias (Andersson & Forsgren, 2006) e o modelo metanacional (Doz et al, 2001), assim como confirma os estudos (Buckley et. al., 2007;Guillén & Garcia-Canal, 2009;Mathews, 2006) que apresentam a habilidade de estabelecer redes de negócios no estrangeiro, como característica diferenciada e superior das multinacionais emergentes.…”