شرکت های چند ملیتی در اروپای نو: آیا آنها واقعا جهانی اند؟

Recent empirical research has demonstrated that the vast majority of the world's 500 largest firms have most of their sales in their home region of the triad. By triad is meant the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade (NAFTA) region, and Asia Pacific. Of the 380 firms reporting regional sales data, the 118 from Europe average 62.8% of their sales in their home regions, the 185 from North America average 77.2%, and the 75 from Asia average 74.3% at home. The data are shown in Fig. 1. While each region has three truly global firms, Europe has 86 home-region-oriented firms, North America has 167, and Asia has 66. These data indicate a lack of globalization in the sense of a commonality of interests and the homogenization of markets as envisaged by many observers. The limited global expansion of most large firms also suggests that competitive advantages are more difficult to leverage in foreign markets than most observers assume. There is a system of regional business activity or semi-globalization in which firms and initiatives are strongly localized. This implies that analysis of global strategy has been too simplistic, and reflects an inaccurate interpretation of the data. For example, Wal-Mart Stores is often considered to be a global business, yet the company has 94% of its sales in North America, and therefore its business is better explained by regional issues, such as NAFTA, than global issues.

This article shows that the vast majority of European firms among the largest 500 firms worldwide have most of their sales in their home regions. The 118 from Europe that we examined average 62.8% of their sales in their home region. Only 3 are global, 8 are host-region oriented and 16 are bi-regional, while 86 are home-region based. We also found very strong bias in academic management research that focused on the much smaller, less-representative subset of more global European firms. The nine case studies we discussed begin to examine the differences between the main categories of European multinationals. Specific drivers have pushed Nokia and Philips to compete across the triad of Europe, North America, and Asia, and particular circumstances underlie the evolution of host-oriented and bi-regional firms (such as the series of acquisitions and divestments that created Diageo). These patterns are atypical compared with the more representative examples of home-region-oriented firms that compete predominantly within their local markets. The main implication for managers is to forget about the need for a global strategy. As the large firms in Europe are home-region based, it is also highly likely that small and medium-sized firms are even more local, as they are often within clusters led by these “flagship” large firms. Such firms appear to view their home-region markets as the best option when weighing up the risks and rewards of international expansion. This also implies that their competitive advantages do not readily apply outside these home region markets, in other parts of the Triad or beyond. The European firms in our study are amongst the largest and most important, and yet the vast majority of them have evolved specific assets, resources and capabilities primarily to meet the needs of regional customers, with strategies and structures primarily suited to the regional context.