Transnational Corporations Advantage

Since the 1990s, the global operation environment has changed dramatically. Especially, great changes have taken place in the information technology realm, which accelerates the economic globalization. As the operation environment for Multinational Corporations (MNCs) increasingly becomes dynamic and complex, many premises and hypotheses of traditional theory about the MNCs no longer hold today. The great changes in the operation environment profoundly affect the operation activities of MNCs, and, as a result, the operating advantages of MNCs have also changed. The MNCs cannot deal with the increasing global competitions by solely relying on their traditionally home-based advantages. Instead, they have to look for new sources of differentiated advantages. In this background, theoretical research on MNCs are turning to "development mechanism" from its traditional "formation mechanism," and the study on the operating advantages also need to transfer from "advantage exploitation" to "advantage acquisition". The basic objective of this dissertation is to answer this question: how the MNCs should acquire advantage in the current dynamic and profound background of economic globalization?From the perspectives of resources, this dissertation sets up a new analysis framework— the MNCs' "advantages acquisition" framework. This framework is mainly based on one topic, two concepts and three levels of analysis.One topic: From the perspectives of resources, the main topic of this dissertation is: in the dynamic and complex international operating environment, how the MNCs forge and acquire resources, integrate resources, transfer and utilize the resources in the global scope, and finally acquire integrated global advantages.Two concepts: the new framework defines two concepts "multinational corporations" and "operating advantage". Distinct from the common definitions of MNCs, this dissertation views MNCs as "resources ensembles" from the perspective of resources, as "network organization" with internal variety from the perspective of structure, and facilities essence of the MNCs. Regarding the "Operation Advantage", this dissertation emphasizes its relative, competitive, layered, and dynamic features, that distinguished it from the "traditional advantages".Three levels: according to the main topic, in three aspects this dissertation analysis how the MNCs acquire advantage through transnational operation.