Managing across Borders: New Strategic Requirements

Abstract

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSES FACED NEW STRATEGIC challenges in the 1980s. Corporations that had once succeeded with relatively one-dimensional strategies—efficiency, responsiveness, or ability to exploit learning—were forced to broaden their outlook. Successful "transnational" corporations integrated all three of those characteristics. They did so by building on the strengths—but accepting the limitations—of their administrative heritages. This is the first of two articles; the second will describe how actual companies made that transition. Ed.