Global dialogue: a response to the responders in the special globalization issue of JIM

Globalization and location choice: an analysis of US multinational firms in 1980 and 2000

“…Franchises and non-commercial enterprises or institutions, such as hospitals, schools, etc., financed or operated by American philanthropic or religious organizations are not included. (Angel, 2001: i) This operationalization of US foreign location choice allows us to address, at least partially, some of the criticisms of drawing on sales as an overarching measure to capture MNC activities overseas (Clark et al, 2004;Dunning et al, 2007).…”

“…Government regulations and cultural differences segment the world into the broad triad regions of North America, the EU and Asia-Pacific. (Rugman, 2005: 2, emphasis added) The regionalists' arguments are in direct contrast with those scholars who assert that MNCs are at the core of the globalization process, and qualify Rugman et al's definition of globalization as 'parochial and myopic' (Bird and Stevens, 2003;Clark and Knowles, 2003;Clark et al, 2004;Stevens and Bird, 2004). Globalization scholars emphasize, first, that globalization goes beyond trade or economic events and, second, that even if one focuses on the economic dimensions of the globalization process, firms' revenues -the main dependent variable used by the Regionalists -do not necessarily capture MNC activities abroad Knowles, 2003, Stevens andBird, 2004).…”

“…On one side of this debate, scholars claim that MNCs' activities have become increasingly regional during this period (Rugman, 2003(Rugman, , 2005Verbeke, 2004, 2007); on the other side of the debate, scholars emphasize the growing significance of global activities (Bird and Stevens, 2003;Clark and Knowles, 2003;Clark et al, 2004). We believe that this globalizationregionalization debate is stalled because these two schools of thought use different conceptual frameworks and operationalizations of globalization, region and MNC activities.…”

Success Factors of Regional Strategies for Multinational Corporations

“…This empirical finding provides empirical evidence for the contention that truly global strategies are far from common for the world's largest firms (Rugman 2005b: 4-5;Rugman and Hodgetts 2001: 341;Rugman and Verbeke 2004: 6-7;Rugman and Verbeke 2008c: 327), 2 For further evidence at the macro-level regarding the importance of such non-triad-regions in the processes of regionalization, provided by both trade and FDI patterns, cf. Such more cautious applications of threshold values could address criticisms related to the narrow thesis of regionalization (Clark et al 2004: 513) -and thus could paradoxically redirect the attention from these quantitative data thresholds to the more qualitative nature of regional strategies, leading to further advances in the substance of this research field. which constitutes an important assumption of regionalization theory.…”

New Methods for Ex Post Evaluation of Regional Grouping Schemes in International Business Research: A Simulated Annealing Approach

“…Thus, understanding the impact of regional country groupings is increasingly important for explaining whether and how MNCs internationalize. This "regional argument" contrast with other arguments championed by other IB scholars who emphasize the value of global scale and scope in MNC operations (Agmon, 2003;Bird & Stevens, 2003;Clark, 1997;Clark & Knowles, 2003;Clark, Knowles, & Hodis, 2004). Regional patterns of operation are still important to study from this alternative view, however, as they represent intermediate steps in the internationalization trajectories of firms transforming themselves from domestic to regional, to worldwide competitors.…”