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The purpose of this paper is to model and test the dynamics of home-regional and global penetration by multi-national enterprises (MNEs).

Drawing on international business (IB) theory, the authors model MNEs adjusting their home-regional and global market presence over time. The authors test the resulting hypotheses using sales data from a sample of 220 of the world’s largest MNEs over the period 1995-2005. The authors focus specifically on the relationship between levels of market penetration inside and outside the home region and rates of change in each domain.

The authors demonstrate that MNEs do penetrate both home-regional and global markets, often simultaneously, and that penetration levels often oscillate within an MNE over time. The authors show firms’ rates of regional and global expansion to be affected by their existing regional and global penetration, as well as their interplay. Finally, the authors identify differences in the steady states at which firms stabilize their penetration levels in the home-regional and the global space. The findings broadly confirm the MNE as an interdependent portfolio with important regional demarcations.

The authors identify complex interdependencies between home-regional and global penetration and growth, paving the way for further studies of the impact of regions on MNE expansion.

As the peaceful uses of atomic energy became an accepted part of modern life, the veils of secrecy were removed from most aspects of nuclear research. Cautiously at first, the developed countries began to exchange nuclear information at scientific meetings and through journals and other media. However, with the widening range of peaceful nuclear applications came a corresponding increase in information, and the complexity of information storage and retrieval was suddenly a concern of paramount importance. National nuclear information centres were set up to satisfy the needs of scientists in their home countries, but a gap still existed in the exchange of information on the international level.

Micro‐finance institutions are critical to Africa's quest for solutions to the continent's development challenge. The area of their greatest potential impact, rural Africa, is not only home to the bulk of the continent's population, but also the vast majority of Africa's poor. This paper not only defines MFIs with examples from Zambia, South Africa, Mali and Zimbabwe, it also establishes a clear link between MFIs and both poverty eradication and the empowerment and equality of women, two of the major Millennium Development Goals. The paper concludes with some policy recommendations and a set of “best practices” for the future success of MFIs on the continent, including the need to ensure flexibility and careful government regulation and supervision of MFIs.

The purpose of this paper is to critically assess the theoretical underpinnings and extant progress of the research on regional multi-national enterprises (MNEs) and offer a blueprint for future research by re-conceptualizing how (regional) boundaries relate to the international diversification of MNEs.

The paper integrates key insights from the theory of the regional MNE and economic geography to re-orient the treatment of regional borders within international business (IB) literature.

The paper suggests that the (L) component within the ownership location and internalization (OLI) paradigm should be disaggregated into continuous “distance effects” and discrete “border effects”. Within this rubric, regional borders represent discrete border effects that generate discontinuities that are permeable, fluid and firm specific. Such reconceptualization opens up avenues for future research and more tightly integrates the research on regional MNEs with other research streams.

IB scholars need to make concerted effort to think of regions as one among several parameters in studying the strategy and structure of MNEs. A stronger focus on internal processes and mechanisms elucidating the main drivers of MNEs strategies is needed.

The paper offers innovative ways in which future research can advance the study of how regions matter in the internationalization strategy of MNEs.

Acquisition is an essential element in Universal Availability of Publications. An extensive literature review and a questionnaire survey revealed that few countries have a national acquisition policy but that there are numerous examples of informal arrangements involving substantial numbers of libraries. Factors influencing the existence and nature of a national acquisition system include the level of national commitment to libraries, attitudes of libraries to co‐operation, and administrative responsibility for libraries. National plans must be geared to national needs and circumstances; systems may be centralized or decentralized (by subject or other features), and may be centrally planned or based on voluntary co‐operation. The National Library may have a critical role to play. Five possible models are: a centralized unit of first resort; a decentralized region‐based system; centralized national subject libraries; decentralized responsibilities; and a central collection of journals only. Each country can decide on the appropriate model for its situation and requirements.

While publications on the regional nature of multinational enterprises have sparked a lively debate about the nature and measurement of regionalization and (semi)globalization, and performance implications are starting to be addressed, the broader societal and sustainability dimensions have received limited attention. Likewise, international business research on these issues has generally not considered regionalization and its consequences. This paper extends insights from the regionalization literature and broadens the debate by exploring aspects that arise when societal and sustainability implications are taken into account as well. It outlines several areas for further research, addressing geographic scope, organizational levels, and upstream/downstream and country/industry/issue peculiarities

The aim of this paper is to explore the role of affect evoked among customers of differing expertise within a business‐to‐business credence service context and examine how this affects overall satisfaction judgements.

Drawing on the affect and satisfaction literature, the paper examines affective reactions to service delivery within multi‐national and regional corporate legal services markets. A two‐stage methodology is adopted incorporating explorative interviews and a survey comprising 252 users of corporate legal services.

Findings suggest the customer's ability to form expectation and performance assessments about the core service may have a moderating influence on affective reactions within a business‐to‐business credence service context. Customers of differing expertise will vary in the way they set service expectations and evaluate service delivery in relation to the technical, functional and affective components.

Organisations should devote effort to devising appropriate service delivery processes that are pertinent to the individual customer. This in turn has implications for the recruitment, training and empowerment of employees in credence services that have traditionally focused on technical qualifications and experiential knowledge as the key drivers of human resource management strategies such as recruitment and reward systems.

This paper contributes towards an understanding of the role of customer expertise on affect evoked within business‐to‐business credence services.

As manufacturing becomes a truly global affair, the basis of competition will switch from individual companies and their supply chains to regional clusters. Large multi‐nationals can relocate operations to any part of the world, with significant impact on the regions into and out of which they move. This will introduce new considerations for managers seeking to achieve agile manufacture. In particular, they must recognise the interdependence of all the stakeholders in the economic infrastructure of their part of the world. This contribution discusses the nature of clusters giving some examples. It comments on the role of governmental agencies in economic development.