The Future of the Multinational Enterprise in retrospect and in prospect
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The Future of the Multinational Enterprise in retrospect and in prospect Peter J Buckley1 and M Casson2
Journal of International Business Studies (2003) 34, 219–222. doi:10.1057/ palgrave.jibs.8400024
1
Centre for International Business, University of Leeds (CIBUL), UK; 2University of Reading, UK Correspondence: Professor P Buckley, Centre for International Business, University of Leeds (CIBUL), Leeds University Business School, Maurice Keyworth Building, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. Tel: +113 343 4646/4592; Fax: 113 343 4754; E-mail: [email protected]
Received: 15 January 2003 Online publication date: 13 March 2003
We are sometimes asked how The Future of the Multinational Enterprise came to be written, and whether we think that a similar book could be written today. It is always difficult to be objective about your own work, but we doubt that a similar book could appear today. This is not because there is a dearth of talent, or because all the important issues have been resolved. It is simply that the academic environment in which research in international businesses is carried out has fundamentally changed. Political salience. The Future was written at a time of great debates in international political economy. Multinationals stood accused of global hegemony. There were strident calls for the ‘American challenge’ to European industry to be repelled (Servan-Schreiber, 1968). Foreign investment in Third World countries was leading to ‘uneven development’. Technology was overpriced. A conspiracy of oligopolistic firms was holding consumers and workers to ransom. What nonsense, you might say. But the United Nations took it seriously enough, and set up a Committee of Eminent Persons to consider a possible code of conduct for multinationals – a process that led to the formation of the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations. In this heady atmosphere, separating fact from fiction was crucial. A lot of good statistical work was being done – indeed, it is probable that more was known about patterns of foreign direct investment than about any other aspect of industrial economics at the time (US Bureau of Commerce, the Harvard Project led by Raymond Vernon). But how could the statistics be interpreted? General equilibrium theory did not seem to be up to the task. A new framework was needed that would allow the statistics to reveal the underlying dynamics of multinational behaviour. With the right theory it would be possible to use the statistics to pass judgement on competing views. Positivism. Political salience prompted many scholars to write about multinationals. The Future was distinguished by its strongly positivist stance. The book began by summarizing the stylized facts revealed by the published statistics. The well-known distinction between direct and indirect investment was carefully examined.
The Future of the Multinational Enterprise
Peter J Buckley and M Casson
220
The strong correlation between the degree of multinationality an
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