Designing the Global Corporation
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Designing the Global Corporation

Jay R. Galbraith
Jossey-Bass, 2000
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Editorial Rating

8

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Recommendation

Globalization has become such an overused buzzword that it has become nearly devoid of meaning. Here, author Jay R. Galbraith injects new precision into the concept: Going international means plenty of hard work and painstaking attention to detail. Because every company's strategy, market and competitive advantage is unique, it's impossible to define one single, perfect, organizational structure for an international business, but Galbraith provides some fascinating alternatives to consider. Although Galbraith's book is jargon-filled and dense, it is full of useful, illustrative examples. He manages to reduce international business to its simplest form: A company develops an edge, and then tries to take it abroad. This involves many challenges, which Galbraith describes in rich detail. So if your company is multinational - or wants to be - getAbstract recommends this book to you. It is tailor-made for executives who are involved in international business - or who hope to expand their global reach.

Summary

Managing the Multinational

Setting up a company to compete internationally is an exceedingly complex managerial task. Many companies claim to be multinational, yet few are actually able to organize and compete globally. While some managers apply the concept of keeping it simple to cross-border organizations, more astute advisers realize that simplicity doesn't always work. In a complicated world, organizations have become more and more complex. Still, it's difficult to say exactly which type of structure will work best for a given company. International businesses must accept structural indeterminacy - the idea that no single organizational structure is exactly right. The multinational must take advantage of global opportunities and cross-border efficiencies while remaining firmly rooted in local markets. Successful international corporations must be global and local, according to Percy Barnevik, former chief executive officer of ABB. Sony's Akio Morita calls this concept "glocalization."

Foreign direct investment, or FDI, helps drive corporate globalization. Companies that make foreign direct investments establish a presence in the countries in which they do business...

About the Author

Jay R. Galbraith is professor of management at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is on leave from his faculty position at the University of Southern California, and has served on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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