We describe the extent to which the world’s largest companies (in terms of revenues), achieve sales around the globe, and have been able to penetrate markets outside of their home region. We try to answer the following question: Has there been a recent increase in the world’s largest firms achieving a global sales orientation, meaning a balanced, global distribution of sales? Rugman & Verbeke (2004) found that few of the 2002 Fortune Global 500 (Fortune Magazine 2002) firms, accounting for over 90% of the world’s stock of FDI, actually had a global sales orientation. A majority of multinational enterprises (MNEs) were home-region oriented, suggesting that much work on corporate globalization was normative, rather than accurately describing reality. We present the equivalent data for the 2017 Fortune Global 500 (Fortune Magazine 2017) list. Our data confirm that many large firms are still home-region oriented, but to a lesser extent than before, with 36 MNEs (up from only nine in the 2002 list), now having widely distributed sales across the world’s core economic regions. The question arises whether this relative increase in the number of MNEs with a global sales orientation holds any normative value for the firms that presently do not have such a sales distribution.
参考文献：Rosa, B., Gugler, P. & Verbeke, A. Regional and global strategies of MNEs: Revisiting Rugman & Verbeke (2004). J Int Bus Stud 51, 1045–1053 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-020-00347-5
This paper examines the impact of the extent of the regionalization of MNEs’ R&D activities on their inventive performance. By joining the regionalization theory with the recombinant view of invention, we challenge the implicit assumption that all foreign knowledge-seeking activities will necessarily offer new knowledge to the firm. We introduce the (dis)economies of interdependence, defined as the (dis)advantages that the firm derives due to the interdependence among countries within a region, as a new theoretical mechanism explaining the benefits and costs of regionalization. Our analysis of global pharmaceutical firms shows that an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between the number of regions in which a firm has R&D activities and its inventive performance. Our results also indicate that a firm’s recombinant capability moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship in such a way that, when a firm’s recombinant capability is high, it reaches its turning point in a larger number of regions and the inverted U-shaped relationship is flatter. These results underscore that recombinant capability significantly influences the firm’s ability to derive benefits and reduce costs from the regionalization of its R&D activities. Our findings suggest that it is through the consideration of the (dis)economies of interdependence that offers the essential reasoning needed to unwind the inferred assumption that all foreign knowledge-seeking activities will offer access to new knowledge.
参考文献：Kim, M., Lampert, C.M. & Roy, R. Regionalization of R&D activities: (Dis)economies of interdependence and inventive performance. J Int Bus Stud 51, 1054–1075 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-020-00314-0
Our study reveals the financial performance implications of the speed at which Chinese multinational enterprises (CMNEs) expand into intra-regional versus inter-regional host countries. In doing so, we propose a framework that integrates internationalization speed and home regionalization literatures. Using data from 767 publicly listed CMNEs from the years 2002 to 2014, we discover that the faster the intra-regional internationalization, the better the firm’s financial performance, whereas faster inter-regional internationalization demonstrates a poorer financial performance. We also find that fast-mover CMNEs’ technological and marketing resources are valuable in intra-regional host countries, but vulnerable in inter-regional host countries. We discuss the implications of these findings for studies of the Uppsala internationalization process model and regional MNEs.
参考文献：Kim, H., Wu, J., Schuler, D.A. et al. Chinese multinationals’ fast internationalization: Financial performance advantage in one region, disadvantage in another. J Int Bus Stud 51, 1076–1106 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-019-00279-9
A multinational enterprise develops its subsidiary portfolio by investing in new foreign markets and subsequently pursuing further investments within these host countries. We find that firms which locate their first equity investment closer to the national capital city can subsequently expand their subsidiary portfolio within the host country at a higher speed. This effect is particularly strong in emerging economies. Further analyses of various contingencies support the robustness of our findings. We discuss different theoretical mechanisms which could cause these effects, in particular face-to-face interactions with governmental actors and opportunities to develop political connections. Our research contributes to the literature on internationalization processes by analyzing how the initial location choice affects the development of the subsidiary portfolio.
参考文献：Hutzschenreuter, T., Harhoff, P. National capital city location and subsidiary portfolio expansion: The negative effect of geographic distance to the capital city at inception on the speed of subsequent investments. J Int Bus Stud 51, 1107–1132 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-020-00305-1
Understanding the antecedents to, and consequences of, a firm’s degree of internationalization is integral to international business research. In order to be accepted by scholars, empirical research that tests hypotheses regarding drivers and/or consequences of firm internationalization needs to use a valid measure of firm internationalization. In this paper, we develop a new measure, the ratio of international market shares (RIMS); RIMS measures a firm’s degree of conformance to the theoretically grounded characteristics of a maximally internationalized global firm. RIMS is theoretically and empirically compared to three widely used measures of firm internationalization: foreign sales to total sales (FSTS), international diversification, and international scope. Each of the three is shown to have serious limitations while RIMS does not. In addition to being theoretically based, RIMS also has the advantages that it: measures the degree to which a firm has penetrated the rest of the world’s market relative to the degree it has penetrated its primary market; captures the combined effects of the breadth and average depth of internationalization; is easy to calculate; is easy to interpret, and is calculable for more firms than measures of diversification or FSTS. All four measures are tested on a sample of large manufacturing firms.
参考文献：Marshall, V.B., Brouthers, L.E. & Keig, D.L. RIMS: A new approach to measuring firm internationalization. J Int Bus Stud 51, 1133–1141 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-020-00320-2
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6. 区域与全球范围的重要性有多大？审查美国跨国公司
从Rugman和Verbeke（J Int Bus Stud 35（1）：3-18，2004）开始，几位国际商务学者提出，大多数大型跨国公司不是全球性的，而是区域性的。最近这个论点在理论和实践上受到了双重挑战。我们旨在通过重新审视区域和全球的定义，利用来自美国经济分析局的最新文献资料，以及通过分析跨国公司在销售和生产方面的范围，来为这场探讨做出贡献。我们发现，美国跨国公司的全球性要比之前国际商务文献中认知的范围大的多。
Beginning with Rugman and Verbeke (J Int Bus Stud 35(1):3–18, 2004), several international business (IB) scholars have proposed that most large multinationals are not global but regional. This argument has recently been challenged for both its conceptualization and its implementation. We aim to contribute to this debate by revisiting the definitions of regional and global, by leveraging data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis that is new to this literature, and by analyzing multinationals’ scope in terms of both sales and production. We find that U.S. multinationals are significantly more global than has previously been acknowledged in the IB literature.
参考文献：Jeong, Y., Siegel, J.I. How important is regional vs. global scope? An examination of U.S. multinationals. J Int Bus Stud 51, 1142–1160 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-019-00298-6
Although international business scholars have begun to recognize the division of entrepreneurial labor between MNEs and SMEs, there is a fragmented understanding of the different forms MNE–SME cooperation can take. We develop a typology that takes into account not only complementarity of capabilities but also, crucially, the compatibility of intent between MNEs (exploration vs. exploitation) and SMEs (international vs. domestic orientation). The framework offers a novel way to understand the forms and dynamics of MNE–SME cooperation. We also show how it can be applied more broadly, by considering its application to societal challenges, such as achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
参考文献：Prashantham, S., Birkinshaw, J. MNE–SME cooperation: An integrative framework. J Int Bus Stud 51, 1161–1175 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-019-00214-y
