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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 purpose of this paper is to revisit the Chinese patent application upsurge among Japanese MNEs.

The authors extended the sample provided by Nakata and Zhang, from the period of 1995 and 2003 to 1995 and 2007, and paid more attention to the market advantage of Japanese MNEs and competitive relationships such as those between Japanese MNEs and domestic as well as other foreign firms in China.

The present findings indicated that after China revised its patent law for the second time and joined the WTO, patenting by Japanese MNEs became increasingly driven by those that operated diversified businesses in China. Competition in IPR measured by the technology proximity of Japanese MNEs with domestic as well as other foreign firms showed a positive correlation with regard to increased patenting.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper that focused on the effects of Chinese IPR reform on the Chinese patenting behavior by Japanese MNEs.

In the modern knowledge-intensive economy, a nation’s competitiveness depends on the ability of its constituent firms to innovate. Extant research in national systems of innovation highlights institutions and public policies toward innovation as key determinants that affect firms’ innovation activities. This paper aims to widen the investigation by arguing that co-inventor connectivity allows firms to access the most tacit knowledge within global innovation systems. Therefore, it is one of the key factors that underpin a nation’s ability to develop and sustain its competitiveness.

Using a data set of 406,168 patents from US Patent and Trademark Office during the period of 1975-2004, this study analyzed the Japanese system of innovation through co-inventor networks.

Surprisingly, the authors found that compared to other advanced countries such as Germany and Denmark, the Japanese innovation system is quite closed.

The dimension of tacit knowledge is crucial in the current environment of rapid cycle time, short product lifespans and increasing emphasis on exploratory innovation. Hence the authors speculate that closedness to global innovation systems could be one of the reasons why many of Japan’s traditionally powerful multinational enterprises exhibit weak performance in recent years.

In evaluating Alan Rugman's work on MNE environmental strategies, the subject of this chapter, it is too tempting not to start with a 2×2 matrix. Fig. 1 is meant to roughly indicate four different types of work that might characterise an academic's research portfolio. Obviously, all the well-known caveats of such a scheme apply, and perhaps more than usual. However, the main purpose is, by way of introduction, to situate Alan's output on environmental issues and the MNE, compared and related to other topics. While the horizontal axis of Fig. 1 refers to a regular division into theoretical and empirical work, the vertical axis differentiates main foci of research from other, more sideline, areas. Applied to Alan Rugman's research portfolio, the latter category characterises his work on environmental strategies of MNEs best, particularly quadrant 2, although some of it (generally more exploratory work) can be placed in quadrant 4 as well.

Gender diversity and equality vary tremendously among countries. This is a particular challenge for foreign subsidiaries, when the level of gender diversity and equality differs between the home and host country. Various indicators such as a low-gender pay gap or a high ratio of females in managerial positions suggest that Scandinavia is ahead in terms of gender diversity and equality, whereas those indicators suggest that the level in Japan is currently lower. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how executives leading Scandinavian subsidiaries operating in Japan perceive this situation, and whether and what kind of actions they take to initiate change.

This study is based on a qualitative analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with executives of Scandinavian subsidiaries in Japan.

Findings reveal that executives of Scandinavian subsidiaries respond to the major differences in gender equality between Scandinavia and Japan with three strategies of change: resistance and rigid change, compromise and moderate change, and adaptation and maintaining status quo. Moreover, the findings indicate that the strategy of change varies depending on individual differences of the executives, e.g., nationality, and organizational differences, e.g., subsidiary size.

Due to the small sample size, the generalizability of the findings is limited. Given the paucity of research on this topic, this approach provides first insights for building a basis for future studies.

This study contributes to the scarce literature on gender diversity and equality in multinational enterprises by identifying strategies of how gender equality can be fostered in a non-Western context from a top executive perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine recent trends in R&D offshoring by US multinational enterprises (MNEs) against a well‐established conceptual framework derived from transaction cost and internalization theories, as well as challenges to it.

The paper develops and tests a parsimonious model of cross‐country variation in R&D performed by affiliates of MNEs based on a 31‐country, 15‐year dataset of US non‐bank majority‐owned foreign affiliates (MOFAs).

Consistent with the implications of transaction cost and internalization frameworks, the findings show that the location of R&D offshoring is significantly determined by ownership of physical assets by MNEs in the host country and host country technological capability.

R&D offshoring can enhance the quality and the quantity of knowledge flows between home country and host country R&D centers. The resulting positive knowledge spill‐over effects can increase the welfare and productivity of an MNE and its home country in the long run.

The paper provides a comprehensive explanation for MNEs' R&D offshoring based on transaction costs, internalization framework and technological factors.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the debate forum on internationalization motives of this special issue of Multinational Business Review.

The authors reflect on the background and evolution of the internationalization motives over the past few decades, and then provide suggestions for how to use the motives for future analyses. The authors also reflect on the contributions to the debate of the accompanying articles of the forum.

There continue to be new developments in the way in which firms organize themselves as multinational enterprises (MNEs), and this implies that the “classic” motives originally introduced by Dunning in 1993 need to be revisited. Dunning’s motives and arguments were deductive and atheoretical, and these were intended to be used as a toolkit, used in conjunction with other theories and frameworks. They are not an alternative to a classification of possible MNE strategies.

This paper and the ones that accompany it, provide a deeper and nuanced understanding on internationalization motives for future research to build on.

This study aims to explore how sub‐dimensions of home country influence multinational enterprise (MNE) ownership strategy in international subsidiaries.

Following a grounded theory approach, the authors interviewed 36 managers of US and Japanese MNEs. Among 36 managers, 21 worked for Japanese firms, 12 for US firms, and three for the US‐Japanese IJVs.

This study proposes a list of cultural and resource‐based explanations for MNEs' divergent ownership patterns by nationality.

This research focused on two home countries, Japan and the USA. Future studies are required to extend and validate the findings in this study.

By considering sub‐dimensions of home country effect, managers can make a more accurate prediction of the potential partner's willingness to form an IJV.

This study suggests that host countries' ownership restriction can make divergent effects on foreign investors by their nationality.

The central contribution of this paper is identifying a set of underlying factors of home country effect and explicating their individual effect on MNE ownership strategy.

This paper aims to investigate whether Japanese manufacturing multinational enterprises (MNEs) maintain local legitimacy in their host countries through adequate informing of local stakeholders with targeted corporate sustainability (CS) reporting.

The paper first identified specific CS activities that were considered important in four Association of Southeast Asian Nations host countries, through semi-structured interviews with 58 participants of 16 Japanese manufacturing MNEs. The degree of establishment of local legitimacy was then measured through the number of references made to these CS activities and other activities specific to the respective host countries in the CS reports of the MNEs across a five-year period.

The majority of MNEs in the sample were under-reporting items of specific interest to localhost country stakeholders potentially undermining the MNEs’ image. There were found to be differences on the topics published in CS reports compared to those mentioned in the interviews indicating potential issues with regard to internal communication between the subsidiary and headquarters offices.

A novel approach is taken to investigate the degree of local legitimacy established by MNEs through comparing the contents of interviews held at subsidiaries with their respective CS reports. This paper highlights the importance of considering MNE subsidiaries when addressing Target 12.6 of the Sustainable Development Goal 12: responsible consumption and production.