Transnational networks and global competition: An organizing framework

Abstract

Porter's single diamond home base framework needs to be extended to capture the reality of global strategic management within multinational enterprises (MNEs). Today many MNEs operate with multiple home bases as they seek to develop an appropriate balance of location bound firm specific advantages (LB-FSAs) and nonlocation bound firm specific advantages (NLB-FSAs). Such MNEs need to develop a "transnational network" in which complex organizational learning issues of isomorphism need to be resolved. We develop an organizing framework which permits analysis of both interorganizational and intraorganizational network issues within the context of single or multiple home bases. We use this to contrast strategies of isomorphic flexibility and institutionalization.