Research Seminar by Valérie DUPLAT !!! POSTPONED !!!

Research Seminar by Valérie DUPLAT, Assistant Professor, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

“If it's good enough for innovation, is it good enough for globalization?"
An empirical investigation of corporate globalization among the most innovative MNEs

R. Coeurderoy and V. Duplat
March 2019

For long, there has been a widespread belief that a sizeable chunk of multinational enterprises (MNEs) expand globally. The globalization phenomenon would be seen as a counterpart of external trends for lower transportation costs, improved information and communication technology, decreased discriminatory treatment of foreign firms and trade links around the world (Ghoshal, 1987; Levitt, 1983; Yip, 1992). A certain homogenization of customers’ needs and industrial standards worldwide would also encourage MNEs to globalize their activities. Homogenization enables MNEs to standardize products/services and eases the coordination of dispersed and heterogeneous activities throughout the globe. Popular books of Cairncross (2001) and Friedman (1991, 2005) reinforced the belief of globalization phenomenon along the way. In that perspective, MNEs have thus been considered as the Trojan horses of globalization. The globalization perspective has still recently been adopted by the supporters of the merger attempt between Alstom and Siemens; their argumentation resting on the competitive threat raised by a Chinese firm (i.e., ECCR) in the “global” railway industry (https://www.ft.com/content/153a4d84-6d73-11e8-852d-d8b934ff5ffa).