Published by:
MIT Sloan School of Management
Length: 13 pages
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.
About
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.