Identifying Leading-Edge Market Knowledge in Multinational Corporations

Niklas Arvidsson and Julian Birkinshaw

Chapter 8 in Knowledge Flows, Governance and the Multinational Enterprise, 2004, pp 151-176 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In his seminal article, ‘The hypermodern MNC - a heterarchy?’ Gunnar Hedlund (1986) argued that one of the distinctive features of the heter-archical multinational corporation (MNC) is its holographic qualities. By this he meant that knowledge about the whole is contained in each part, which is very different from the archetypal hierarchical organization in which each part understands only its only narrowly defined task. Hedlund acknowledged that such holographic qualities were ‘only a theoretical ideal’ (1986: 24) but his argument nonetheless reinforces a critical point: that large MNCs need to become much better at managing the internal flow of knowledge between units, in order to leverage their geographically dispersed capabilities.

Keywords: Absorptive Capacity; Market Orientation; Multinational Corporation; Cultural Distance; Strategic Management Journal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-52387-6_8

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230523876

DOI: 10.1057/9780230523876_8

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().