Studies in International Business

173 Pages·1992·14.551 MB·English

by  Peter J. Buckley (auth.)

STUDIEs IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Also by Peter Buckley
THE HANDBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE
(editor with Michael Z. Brooke)
NORTH-SOUTH DIRECT INVESTMENT IN THE EUROPEAN
COMMUNITIES (with Patrick Artisien)
THE ECONOMIC THEORY OF THE MULTINATIONAL
ENTERPRISE (with Mark Casson)
THE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS PRACTICES OF FOREIGN
OWNED FIRMS IN BRITAIN (with Peter Enderwick)
EUROPEAN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN THE USA BEFORE
WORLD WAR 1 (with Brian R. Roberts)
FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT BY SMALLER UK FIRMS
(with Gerald D. Newbould and Jane C. Thurwell)
THE FUTURE OF THE MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISE
(with Mark Casson)
THE MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISE: Theory and Applications
MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES IN LESS DEVELOPED
COUNTRIES (editor with Jeremy Clegg)
DIRECT INVESTMENT IN THE UNITED KINGOOM BY
SMALLER EUROPEAN FIRMS (with Zdenka Berkova and
Gerald D. Newbould)
STUDIES IN
INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS
Peter J. Buckley
Professor of Managerial Economics
University ofB radford Management Centre
Foreword by
Raymond Vernon
M
St. Martin's Press
1.0 Peter J. B ucldey 1992
Foreword 1.0 Raymond Vemon 1992
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1992
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Erst published in Great Britain 1992 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LID
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
tbroughout tbe world
A catalogue record for tbis book is available
from tbe British Library
ISBN 978-1-349-12176-2 ISBN 978-1-349-12174-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12174-8
Ftrst published in the United States of America 1992 by
Scholarly and Reference Division,
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
175 Fiftb Avenue,
New Yon, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-07601-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bucldey, Peter J., 1949-
Studies in international business / Peter J. Bucldey ; foreword by
Raymond Vernon.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-312-07601-6
1. International business enterprises. I. Title.
HD2755.5.B843 1992
338.8'8-dc20 91-44083
CIP
For Thomas Robert
Contents
Foreword by Raymond Vernon viii
Acknowledgements x
Notes on the Other Contributors xi
Part I Theory
Problems and Developments in the Core Theory 3
of International Business
2 The Frontiers of International Business Research 13
3 Multinational Enterprises in Less Developed Countries: 30
Cultural and Economic Interactions (with Mark Casson)
Part 11 Organisation
4 Organisational Forms and Multinational Companies 61
5 The Institutionalist Perspective on Recent Theories of 83
Foreign Direct Investment : A Comment on McClintock
6 Alliances, Technology and Markets: A Cautionary Tale 90
Part III Multinational Enterprises in the World Economy
7 Joint Ventures in Yugoslavia: Opportunities and Constraints 103
(with Patrick F. R. Artisien)
8 Swimming Against the Tide? The Strategy of European 131
Manufacturing Investors in Japan
(with Hafiz Mirza and John R. Sparkes)
9 New Multinationals for Old? The Political Economy of 149
Japanese Internationalisation
(with Hafiz Mirza and John R. Sparkes)
Index 161
vii
Foreword
At long last, the world is awakening to the fact that the dazzling advances
of the past few decades in the means of international transportation and
communication are producing equally profound changes in the way in
which enterprises conduct their business. The enterprises of the 1990s
routinely span distances with an ease that could not have been comtemplated
two or three decades ago, searching for opportunities and threats in distant
places.
Have the academics who profess to analyze the behavior of the world's
enterprises managed to keep up with this breathtaking rate of change? The
answer is a reluctant "not quite." Here and there one finds a revealing case
study. Even more rarely, one encounters a brilliant effort at synthesis. But
the pace of change is so swift as to defy most efforts to provide an altogether
satisfying explanation of the evolving behavior of multinational enterprises.
The hallmark of Peter J. Buckley's work is that he has never ceased to
try. At any moment, his work sits on the research frontier, raising issues and
proposing hypotheses that will influence the direction of the research to
follow.
That propensity sometimes carries Buckley into areas that are a little
daunting for those who are expected to follow. Among academics, the study
of multinational enterprises naturally enough tends to follow the structure
of the academic disciplines. Economists study the behavior of such enter
prises, as a rule, in terms with which economists are comfortable, that is, as
a problem in the economic theory of the firm. Political scientists dissect
their behavior as an aspect of international relations. Sociologists tackle the
effort at understanding as a problem in group behavior. Savants in business
schools, observing the enterprise in closer focus, tend to break down its
functions into the usual familiar categories: finance, marketing, production,
organizational structure, governmental relations, and so on. Without losing
sight of these elements in the puzzle, Buckley resolutely resists these one
dimensional views of the elephant, searching for the formulation that will
preserve a sense of its many dimensions. So politics, history, and culture
take a place alongside the motivations that Adam Smith and Max Weber so
aptly described.
The inexorable shrinkage of space that has characterized these past few
decades shows no signs of diminishing, bringing with it a succession of
consequences for which none of us is fully prepared. Superficially, the
viii
Foreword ix
various national economies appear to be converging in their institutional
forms and in their ways of doing business. But the increased intimacy
among economies also seems to highlight the differences that remain,
increasing the economic, political, and social importance of those remain
ing differences. Buckley's work helps to diminish the ignorance with which
scholars, politicians, and businessmen observe the business behavior of
those from other cultures. That increased understanding, one can hope, will
also diminish the inescapable tensions that the increased intimacy is bound
to generate.
Raymond Vernon
Acknowledgements
This book contains nine articles in the area of international business. Four
of the articles are co-authored and I would like to thank my co-authors
(Mark Casson, Patrick Artisien, Hafiz Mirza and John Sparkes) for their
help. I have worked closely with each of them over a long period and
appreciate their assistance, which is wider than simple research cooperation.
I would also like to thank Ray Vernon for writing the foreword and his help
and encouragement.
I am grateful for the permission of the copyright holders to reprint those
articles which have appeared elsewhere. Chapters 1 and 6 appeared in
Journal of International Business Studies, Volume 21, no. 4, 1990, and
Volume 16, no. 1, 1985. Chapter 2 appeared in Management International
Review, Special Issue 1991. Chapter 3 was first published in Multinational
Enterprises in Less Developed Countries, edited by Peter J. Buckley and
Jeremy Clegg and published by Macmillan, London, in 1991. Chapter 5 is
taken from Journal of Economic Issues Vol. XXIII, no. 3, 1989, and
Chapter 7 from Japan Forum Volume 11, no. 2, 1990. Chapter 8 first
appeared in Japanese and European Management: Their International
Adaptability edited by Kazuo Shibagaki, Malcolm Trevor and Tetsuo Abo,
published by University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo 1989. Chapter 6 is formerly
unpublished. Individual acknowledgements are given in each Chapter but I
would, in addition, like to record my thanks to the editors of the volumes
concerned.
It is also appropriate to thank the institutions where this work has been
nurtured. My primary debt is to the University of Bradford Management
Centre, which under its past and current directors, Chris Higgins and David
Weir, has been an excellent base from which to produce research. I would
also like to thank other institutions which have weathered my incursions as
Visiting Professor - the Department of Economics, University of Reading
under the Chairmanship of Mark Casson and Oslo Business School
(Handelshoyschole) where thanks are due to Stig Herbern and Pervez
Ghauri. My debts for secretarial assistance go once again to Mrs Sylvia
Ashdown and Mrs Chris Barkby.
Peter J. Buckley
x