شرکت های چند ملیتی به عنوان یک سیستم بازار داخلی

This paper builds on Birkinshaw's model of multinational enterprise (MNE) as an internal market system [Birkinshaw, J. (2000). Entrepreneurship in the global firm. London: Sage]. This model addresses the issues related to the emergence of market-based mechanisms of coordination within the MNEs and the strategic decisions that affect internal competition. Birkinshaw argues that subsidiaries simultaneously participate in three different internal markets within an MNE: a market for intermediate goods and services, one for charters and another for competencies and practices. The goal of the paper is to expand Birkinshaw's concept of internal market and analyze the logic behind internal competition by considering more fully existing literature and developing an organizing framework to position such a model within that literature. There is specific focus on discussing how the internal market model relates to modern network-based configurations of the MNE. In addition, the study shows that factors affecting the extent to which each of the three internal markets is established can be better understood if we link such a model to the contributions developed by three mainstreams of research: internalization theory, resource-based view and organizational learning literature.

This paper analyzes Birkinshaw's (2000) model of multinational enterprise (MNE) as an internal market system. This model addresses the issues related to the emergence of market-based mechanisms of coordination within the MNEs as well as the strategic decisions that affect the working of internal markets. By splitting the internal market into three (one market for intermediate goods and services, one for charters, and one for competencies and practices), Birkinshaw's framework can be a useful starting point for analyzing the logic behind the way internal competition works in a modern MNE. However, the theoretical foundations and implications of the model are not discussed in Birkinshaw's book. The author himself states that the framework of the MNE as an internal market system has not been widely developed. He recognizes that ‘it is not yet clear if this approach will yield any valuable insights’ (Birkinshaw, 2001, p. 388). Exploring this is within the scope of this paper, which is structured as follows. Section 2 briefly describes the shift from a hierarchical to a network-based configuration, which characterizes recent theoretical perspectives of the MNE. In the 1990s, research, in particular, on network theory and resource-based view provided new insights for the analysis of strategies and configurations of modern MNEs. In spite of the differences in their contributions to the theory of the MNE, these more recent theoretical perspectives share a common emphasis on processes, decisions and patterns of capability development that take place at subsidiary level and on their influence over the MNE's strategic behaviour and competitive advantage. Section 3 analyzes the context that the internal market model best fits. As the strategy and organization of MNE have changed considerably over the last 20 years, the explanatory power of the different models is to be evaluated in close connection with the conditions in which the MNE's activities take place. Through analysis of the essential features of market and hierarchy, this section focuses on what is meant by internal market and embodies the discussion of the model within the modern network-based view of the MNE. Building on Birkinshaw's identification of three types of internal market within the MNE, Section 4 develops a set of propositions concerning factors affecting the extent to which each market is established. The thesis around which the framework is developed is that internalization theory, resource-based view and organizational learning literature provide useful contributions to the analysis of the MNE's internal markets. Section 5 summarizes advances and limitations of this study and shows some directions for future research in the field.

This paper critically revises and expands Birkinshaw's (2000) model of the MNE as an internal market system. Theoretical assumptions and implications of the model, which are not covered in its original formulation, are discussed in the study. It advances Birkinshaw's model in two basic respects: The analysis of the internal market model is deepened through positioning it within existing literature so as to explore its linkages with different theoretical perspectives of the MNE. Specifically, the discussion of the model is embodied in the modern network-based perspectives of the MNE. The analysis of the coordination mechanisms within the MNE network, made of a number of dispersed and interdependent subsidiaries, is an increasingly relevant research issue. By developing a stronger theoretical basis of the internal market model and focusing on the logic behind internal competition in the modern network-based MNE, this study provides a contribution within that stream of literature. 2. This paper advances Birkinshaw's identification of three kinds of internal market (one for intermediate goods and services, one for charters, and one for practices and competencies), through the analysis of the factors which affect the creation and working of internal markets. I demonstrate that literature on internalization theory, resource based view, and organizational learning can help us understand when we would expect to see the three different types of internal market within an MNE. Two further considerations are to be pointed out, which can be viewed as both limitations of the study and directions for future research. Firstly, the set of propositions does not explicitly take into account an evolutionary component. The factors described in the paper as affecting the extension of an internal market and (consequently) the propositions developed might change depending on the stage of internationalization of the firm. Hence, the analysis could be further expanded by taking into account the issues related to an evolutionary perspective. Secondly, though useful for analytical purposes, the distinction between the three markets does not entail that connections and commonalities among them cannot be identified. Moreover, in the context of international business research, the three theoretical perspectives adopted for the analysis of internal markets are not to be intended as separate approaches, but as providing complementary contributions to a modern theory of the MNE (Rugman & Verbeke, 2003). In other words, there are strategic issues which affect the three markets as a whole. For example, flows of products and services go along with knowledge flows. The effective working of an internal market can be reduced because of the stickiness of existing relationships within the MNE (Birkinshaw et al., 1998). Stickiness does not characterize only knowledge transfer (Szulanski, 1996) but also refers to the market for charters or intermediate goods and services. For example, other factors being constant, it can be difficult to switch from one internal supplier of a given intermediate product to another just because the former has always carried out that activity. Therefore, the choice of the same supplier can assume the characteristic of a routine rather than a decision which is renewed periodically. The same point applies to charters: the fact that a subsidiary has fulfilled a specific charter for a long time can lead the parent company to preserve stability and confirm that assignment for the future. Finally, future research could also focus on the normative rather than theoretical side of the model and its implications for management, for example, by applying this theoretical lens to the analysis of case studies.