Theories of the multinational firm: A microfoundational perspective
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Research Summary We analyze the six core international business (IB) strategy frameworks highlighted by Forsgren (2013) to identify the explicit or implicit microfoundations embedded therein. We start from two, broad microfoundations, namely bounded rationality and bounded reliability, covering a total of ten microfoundational facets, recently put forward as supposedly essential to any predictive and managerially relevant theory of the firm (Kano and Verbeke, 2015). We show how these various facets, embedded in the conceptual foundations underlying the various theoretical approaches, can be made actionable by articulating them explicitly and by connecting them to firm‐level IB strategy outcomes. We also describe how reflecting on these microfoundational facets and on the likely actionable implications thereof for managerial decision making, allows enhancing these theories’ conceptual power, predictive capacity, and managerial relevance. Managerial Summary We analyze the six main theories of the multinational enterprise (MNE), as described in Mats Forsgren's (2013) classic book, Theories of the Multinational Firm. We assess whether individual‐level assumptions about managerial behavior and decision‐making are present in the logic of the theories. We find that each theory builds upon specific micro‐level assumptions, but these assumptions are typically neither articulated, nor linked to MNE strategy decisions, e.g., in the realm of geographic footprint, operating mode selection, interaction with the external environment, internal organization etc. We show how assumptions about human behavior implied in IB theories can be made actionable by spelling these out and connecting them to international strategic choices by MNEs. We also describe how reflecting on micro‐level assumptions can enhance actionable managerial implications of IB theory.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".