Twenty-first century capitalism has been marked by an increasing international economic independence, and considerable differences between dominant economic systems of coordination and control. In this context, national competition and coordination within industries has increased, but the governance of leading firms, and the kinds of competences they develop, remain quite diverse. This book shows how different kinds of firms become established and develop different capabilities in different societies, and as a result are effective in particular kinds of industries and markets.By integrating institutionalist approaches to organizations with the capabilities theory of the firm, Richard Whitley suggests how we can understand this combination of diversity and integration by developing the comparative business systems framework in three major ways. First, by identifying the particular circumstances in which distinctive business systems and innovation systems become nationally established and reproduced, as well as how changing endogenous and exogenous pressures have affected the major kinds of business systems that developed in many OECD states during the postwar period. Second, by showing how variations in authority sharing with employees and business partners and in the provision of organizational careers lead institutional regimes to affect the nature of organizational capabilities that dominant firms develop and enable them to deal with different kinds of risks and opportunities in particular technologies and markets. Third, by identifying the circumstances in which multinational firms are likely to develop distinctive transnational organizational capabilities through such authority sharing and careers, and so become different kinds of companies from their more domestically focused competitors. In many, if not most, cases of cross national managerial coordination, these conditions rarely exist, and so the extent to which multinational firms do indeed constitute distinct organizational forms and strategic actors is much less than is sometimes claimed.
Author(s): Richard Whitley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 405
Contents......Page 10
Figure......Page 12
List of Tables......Page 13
Abbreviations......Page 15
Part I. Introduction......Page 18
1. The Comparative Analysis of Competing Capitalisms......Page 20
Part II. The Changing Nature of National Capitalisms: Institutional Regimes, Business Systems, and Innovation Systems......Page 50
2. The Contingent Nature of National Business Systems: Types of States and Complementary Institutions......Page 52
3. Constructing Innovation Systems: The Roles of Institutional Regimes and National Public Science Systems......Page 74
4. Changing Institutional Regimes and Business Systems: Endogenous and Exogenous Pressures on Postwar Systems of Economic Organization......Page 103
5. The Growth of International Governance and the Restructuring of Business Systems: The Effects of Multi-levelled Governance in Europe and Elsewhere......Page 131
Part III. Constructing Organizational Capabilities in Different Institutional Regimes......Page 162
6. The Institutional Structuring of Organizational Capabilities: Variations in Authority Sharing and Organizational Careers......Page 164
7. Developing Innovative Competences in Different Institutional Frameworks......Page 192
8. Constructing Capabilities in Entrepreneurial Technology Firms: A Comparative Institutional Analysis of Germany, Sweden, and the UK......Page 220
9. Project-Based Firms: New Organizational Form or Variations on a Theme?......Page 245
Part IV. Internationalization and the Development of Transnational Organizational Capabilities......Page 266
10. Divergent Multinational Firms: Home and Host Economy Effects on Internationalization Strategies and Organizational Capabilities......Page 268
11. Developing Transnational Organizational Capabilities in Multinational Companies: The Role of Cross-National Authority Sharing and Organizational Careers......Page 293
12. The Changing Japanese Multinational: Application, Adaptation, and Learning in Car Manufacturing and Financial Services......Page 319
References......Page 351
B......Page 383
C......Page 384
D......Page 386
E......Page 387
F......Page 388
H......Page 389
I......Page 390
J......Page 393
K......Page 394
M......Page 395
O......Page 398
P......Page 399
S......Page 401
T......Page 403
U......Page 404
W......Page 405
