Multinational enterprises,international relations and international business: reconstituting intellectual boundaries for the new millennium

The rapidly changing nature of the international political economy along with its increasing complexity, poses challenges for both theoreticians as well as policymakers; the former in terms of developing innovative frameworks of analysis able to model and understand the constitutive nature and contours of its parameters; the latter in terms of developing suitable frameworks of analysis able to inform policy analysis and practical management strategies. This article explores these dilemmas from two disciplinary perspectives. First, from international relations (IR) theory, particularly how various theoretical approaches have failed to consider more fully the role of non-state actors like multinational enterprises (MNEs) despite the growth in their importance and the resources they control. Second, from the perspective of international business (IB) which, while focusing on MNEs, has done so in the absence of more contextual approaches that situate MNEs in power-political, regulatory, and inter-state environmental settings. By highlighting the weaknesses of both disciplinary approaches, the article then suggests that the construction of new interdisciplinary rubrics jointly created from IR and IB, offers a better means of appreciating the changing character of the global political economy and some of its most important actors and emerging processes.     

The far side of international business: local initiatives in the global workshop

This article presents a case study of the entry of two Norwegianlifeboat companies into the Chinese production system. Ratherthan merely studying the situation through the eyes of thesecompanies, it includes a perspective from the far side of internationalbusiness, i.e., the local competitors. The article argues thatto understand the dynamics and development of both internationalcompanies and localized production systems in a global economy,it is necessary to explore how international and local actorsreflexively evaluate and act upon each other. The article, thus,presents a model for studying the internationalization processand localized production systems.