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Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The use of expatriates to transfer individual and organizational know-how and knowledge is a practice widely used by multinational enterprises (MNEs). However, for service firms, the mobility of employees across national borders depends on the commitments made by countries under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). In particular, the Mode 4 form of supply under GATS can limit the ability of professionals to enter a particular country and can restrict the intra-organizational transfer of knowledge in multinational service firms. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how MNEs attempt to overcome these barriers and transfer knowledge through their global network.

Using Nonaka and Takeuchi’s SECI model of knowledge transfer, the authors study the intra-organizational knowledge transfer practices of an Indian multinational service firm. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 key informants involved with the organization.

The company uses global teams to transfer tacit knowledge and facilitates inpatriation through an internship program that helps the firm overcome nationality requirement that restricts the movement of their managers to other countries, which in turn limits their ability to transfer knowledge in the intra-organizational setting. The company uses the services of a not-for-profit youth organization that helps recruit interns for the program and also facilitates the relationship with the Indian Government, which provides support for this initiative by reducing barriers to entry for the interns.

This study takes the unique approach of studying barriers to movement of professionals and a firm’s strategic response. It identifies the pressures and barriers that companies face in the global economy and highlights the role of government agencies and other stakeholders in facilitating or restricting the transfer of knowledge within a firm’s international network. The paper articulates the implications for policy and practice, and a future research agenda.

As companies grow and increase the number of products they have on offer, they generally change and adapt their organizational structures, in order to arrange their resources and product mix in ways that will create value. We analyze various corporate structures that have been adopted by U.S., European, and Japanese companies, in the context of the resource‐based view of the firm. These corporate structures include functional, divisional, conglomerate diversification, core competence‐based diversification, and keiretsu. We also identify an emerging structure. This recent development is a network of alliances, aimed at pursuing economies of scale, scope, and speed.

The purpose of this paper is to map the relevant studies pertaining to internationalization in the mobile telecommunications (telecom) sector, with the aims of reflecting and categorizing what has already been studied on this topic, as a means of guiding future research.

The authors use the systematic literature review methodological approach, adopting the “Antecedents-Phenomenon-Consequences” theoretical framework as a guide. Consistent with this framework, they identify and categorize studies in the academic literature that have discussed the cross-border expansion of mobile telecom firms. Their review is based on 50 research publications, selected based on the relevance of their findings and their underlying arguments. The authors then categorized each piece’s findings and arguments into themes and sub-themes.

The authors find evidence that mobile network operators (MNOs) are driven into international markets by a collection of factors that can broadly be categorized as either firm-specific/country factors or the desire to capture first-mover advantages (FMAs). They also find evidence that the Uppsala stages model does not provide an appropriate explanation of MNOs’ internationalization patterns, with firms tending to skip posited stages. Market size, the regulatory environment and government policies appear to be key influences in MNOs’ choices of foreign investment locations, and despite being a driver of internationalization, FMAs often erode with the entry of competitors. MNOs tend to prefer collaborative entries over greenfield investments, especially in countries in which telecommunications infrastructure is already in place. Finally, there is no consensus with respect to whether internationality is positively associated with financial performance for MNOs.

This review of the literature offers value to both academia and practice, by providing both insights into what has already been studied with respect to the internationalization of mobile telecom firms and a guide for future research.

When terrorism threaten geopolitical stability, many policymakers turn to economic sanctions. In this way, governments and multilateral organizations continue to affect corporate and managerial choices, through the shaping and constraining of international trade policies. Still, most of the international business remain relatively quiet about the impact of the non-market environment on firms’ strategic efforts. Questions remain about how firms adjust their strategies in the face of the often-sudden impact of changes in multilateral rules and enforcement mechanisms. This study aims to address this question by shedding light on three potential adjustment strategies for firms that have been impacted by sanctions.

As part of a larger, multimethod study, the authors undertook 16 semi-structured interviews with senior managers of firms whose operations have been affected by international sanctions.

International and political tensions can affect businesses in many ways, from exporting to strategies associated with global knowledge sourcing. Learnings from organizations that have had to respond to sudden and extreme changes in their fragile ecosystems will aid this study. In this commentary paper, the authors offer suggestions about how to adapt, respond and operate in a new reality.

While the imposition of long-term political sanctions, especially by powerful nations and multilateral institutions, has become more frequent, how businesses cope with these extreme external shifts still remains unknown. This paper focuses on firms operating in a sanctioned regime, investigating how they deal with these sudden changes in their environment.

The relationship between parent firms and their subsidiaries is a crucial aspect of corporate governance, and is increasingly complex in the global environment. We analyze an organizational arrangement quite common in Japan, the corporate spinoff, focusing on the relationship between parent firms in the Japanese service sector and their spinoff subsidiaries. The level of parental ownership is negatively related to the parent firm's net income and number of subsidiaries, but positively related to its advertising expenditures. In addition, parent firms tend to have lower ownership of more profitable subsidiaries. The ownership arrangement between the parent and the subsidiary appears to be based on issues broader than direct profit maximization.