8114 - STRATEGIC DESIGN OF THE MULTINATIONAL FIRM

The aim of this course is to prepare students for a future position in a multinational company (MNC) in which operational and strategic projects on a global scale have to be tackled. The course addresses the essential tasks MNCs face when they attempt to create globally integrated strategies and work procedures. The course starts off with a review of how the first MNCs were designed and how they evolved over time. Next, students focus on the relationship between the headquarter and the subsidiaries: how much decentralization is needed? What roles should be assigned to the subsidiaries? Rather than limiting subsidiaries to the exploitation knowledge developed in the MNC's home base, MNCs have to a larger extent given their subsidiaries increasing autonomy to assume geographic and product responsibilities. Subsidiary roles in the MNC have shifted from being home-base exploiting to home-base augmenting, where knowledge is being created in centers of excellence or regional innovation centers. Expanded roles of increasingly autonomous subsidiaries in the MNCs learning network enhances learning and capability development. To control autonomous subsidiary initiatives, module 3 explores how the strategic planning function may be designed. Module 4 shows how lateral knowledge flows are organized and best practices are transferred from one unit to another. Module 5 helps students understand how large MNCs can facilitate innovation by intrapreneurial initiatives. The last module addresses more operational issues on project level. Students learn how to plan and organize practical corporate initiatives such as (1) competitive intelligence processes, (2) post-merger integration, (3) global product launch and management, (4) global after sales service management, (5) transfer pricing, and (6) the orchestration of global supply chain activities. This last module gives students a taste of how it is to work in international project teams.

• Module 1: The Evolution of MNC Types
• Module 2: Managing Subsidiary - Headquarter Relationships
• Module 3: Strategic Planning and Control
• Module 4: Organizing Knowledge Flows
• Module 5: Corporate Entrepreneurship
• Module 6: Managing Corporate-level Projects

This course uses a combination of lectures, case studies, class discussion, project presentations, simulations and guest speakers in order to expose students to the challenges multinational corporations and their managers are facing. Class sessions are interactive and rely heavily upon the ideas and examples provided by class members.

Student evaluation consists of a written exam at the end of the course and a project work completed during the course. 

• Selected cases and articles.
  
• G. JONES, Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005.