THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO MANAGING AND LEADING COMPANIES THAT
COMPETE INTERNATIONALLY

Drawing on the course material developed at the Harvard Business
School and Yale School of Management by David Collis, International
Strategy provides theoretical insight and pragmatic tools that
address the decisions facing senior managers in multinational
corporations. International Strategy explores the critical
differences between domestic and international competition: the
heterogeneity of markets in which companies are involved; the
volatility of economic conditions that firms face; and the
increased scale of activities fostered by global participation. The
text examines how these phenomena create tensions and tradeoffs for
executives concerning which product to offer around the world,
which countries to compete in, where to locate various activities,
and how to organize the firm worldwide. Making those choices
in an integrated fashion, it is explained, requires pursuit of a
coherent strategy that builds an international advantage.
Filled with illustrative examples from a wide range of
international companies, International Strategy, offers an
accessible guide to help managers navigate the myriad decisions
they must make in order to create value from their foreign
operations and outperform competitors in an increasingly integrated
world.

David Collis is the Thomas Henry Carroll Ford Foundation Adjunct Professor of Business Administration within the strategy unit at Harvard Business School, and an advisor to several well-known multinational corporations. He was previously a professor at the Yale School of Management and at Columbia Business School.

THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO MANAGING AND LEADING COMPANIES THAT COMPETE INTERNATIONALLY

Drawing on the course material developed at the Harvard Business School and Yale School of Management by David Collis, International Strategy provides theoretical insight and pragmatic tools that address the decisions facing senior managers in multinational corporations. International Strategy explores the critical differences between domestic and international competition: the heterogeneity of markets in which companies are involved; the volatility of economic conditions that firms face; and the increased scale of activities fostered by global participation. The text examines how these phenomena create tensions and tradeoffs for executives concerning which product to offer around the world, which countries to compete in, where to locate various activities, and how to organize the firm worldwide. Making those choices in an integrated fashion, it is explained, requires pursuit of a coherent strategy that builds an international advantage.

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xi

Introduction: Motivation and Definition - What is International Strategy? 1

PART ONE The Context Facing Multinational Firms 7

1 The Ubiquity and Importance of International Competition 9

2 Why Do Firms Go International? The Justification for the Existence of the Multinational Corporation 41

PART TWO Conceptual Framework: What is Different about International Strategy? 73

3 What is Distinctively International about International Strategy? 75

4 What is Uniquely Strategic about International Strategy? 99

5 Generic International Strategies 119

6 Choice of Generic International Strategy 163

PART THREE Managerial Implications 179

7 What Product? 181

8 Which Country? 217

9 Where to Locate? 259

10 How to Organize? 307

11 The Modern Multinational: Is There One Best Strategy? Are We All Transnational Now? 349

About the Author 361

Index 363