Regional integration and the international strategies of large European firms

Article type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 28, Issue 9

OhC. H., Rugman A.M.International Business Review, June 2012, Vol. 21 Issue: 3, Start Page: 493, No. of pages: 15

From the perspective of regional economic integration we decompose international strategy into regional integration strategy and three types of global strategy (global sales, global production, and pure global integration). Using 1,100 firm-year observations we find that 60 percent of the largest European firms pursue a regional integration strategy. We also find that global strategies vary. We examine the firm specific factors that affect global strategies. In general, R&D capability determines a global production strategy, whereas firm size and managerial capability determine both a global sales strategy and a pure global integration strategy. Article type: Research paper ISSN: 0969-5931 Reference: 41AH165

Keywords: European firms, Multinational enterprises,Regional integration, Regional versus global strategy