This study considers the key strategic issues of the management of customer relationships in international industrial marketing, based on extensive original research by the International Marketing and Purchase Group. It reports on that research, in particular pointing out the differences in approach by different national groups in Europe.

This volume considers problems which can be serious obstacles in international marketing but which are much less difficult in domestic marketing, such as cultural differences; the establishing and maintaining of relationships with customers' and the special problems for firm strategy and organisation arising from the internationalisation process.

What are the options open to policy-makers in developing countries when dealing with multinationals? How can they maximize the contribution of multinational enterprises towards their economic growth? Multinationals dominate world trade and direct investment. However, less developed countries have often regarded this power as detrimental to their fragile, growing economies and have pursued a policy of regulation. Modern economic theories of multinationals need to evaluate the effects of such policies. By integrating theories of multinational enterprise and of development economics, the author...

This volume assesses the situation for multinationals at the beginning of the 1990s, bringing together contributions from academics recognized as world leaders in the field and from practitioners with wide experience in international management. Drawing on perspectives from Europe, the USA and Japan, the contributors outline the shape of the global firm of the future. They focus squarely on the development of the corporation as a whole, rather than on the narrow management of individual foreign subsidiaries, and they also explore the specific implications for areas such as strategic planning...

This volume provides important benchmarks for the integration of entrepreneurship and international business. It extends scholarship beyond the firm as single unit of analysis, instead including the role of the founder/entrepreneur. Exploration of this domain discusses possibilities for theory revision or development as well as providing information about an under-researched segment of companies.

When it was originally published this book presented the first independent review of the critical role played by multinationals in Europe. Extending its focus beyond 1992, the book examines both the economic and business strategy frameworks the firms need to develop to maintain a competitive advantage. Using case-studies from specific industries, it looks not only at the activity of multinationals within the single market but explores the competitive strategies of non-European firms with special emphasis on Japanese companies which were poised to exploit 1992. The importance of interaction...

This volume integrates the work of economists, management scientists and business historians. It applies the related concepts of transaction costs, internalisation, corporate strategy and market structure to explain the historical process of corporate growth in the international economy. Each chapter is written by a scholar who has specialized in a particular aspect of the growth of international business.

This volume, based on extensive original research, examines the spatial structure and geographical implications of modern multinational corporations. It looks at the geography of multinational corporations, relates this geography to management and decision making structures and discusses how these items are changing.

A comprehensive study of the role of multinational corporations in the economies of the Third World. It begins by providing a comprehensive overview of the activities of multinational corporations and the main areas of research and debate. It goes on to discuss specific sociological, developmental and material effects on Third World countries resulting from involvement with multinational corporations.

This book explores some aspects of the interface between technology, competitiveness and the role of multinational enterprises in the world economy. This group of essays stresses the role of asset creation and usage, rather than reliance on natural factor endowments as a basis for national competitiveness and examines the role of multinational enterprises as vehicles for technological transfer, and the efficient co-ordination of economic activity across national boundaries.