Title: Emerging capabilities in manufacturing companies: taxonomy of multinationals transformation

Authors: Omar Salgado; Yongjiang Shi; Jerry Banks

Addresses: EGADE Business School, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Carretera Lago de Guadalupe km 3.5, Atizapan de Zaragoza, Estado de Mexico, Mexico. ' Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge University, 17 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS, UK. ' Engineering School, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Ave. Eugenio Garza Sada 2501 Sur, C.P. 64849, Monterrey, NL, México

Abstract: This article presents an 80-year historical study of the evolution of a multinational company's manufacturing network. The study is based on business transactions and semi-structured interviews with managers. Company milestones and evolutionary stages emerged from the analysis and two evolutionary characteristics were identified; capability exploration and capability exploitation denoting how the company increased its corporate knowledge and deployed it corporate wide. The output includes a new taxonomy of company transformation that describes how subsidiaries of modern multinationals influence corporate growth.

Keywords: manufacturing networks; multinational corporations; MNCs; MNC evolution; MNC growth; subsidiary capabilities; MNC subsidiaries; firm growth; capability exploitation; corporate knowledge; knowledge management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBG.2012.050369

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2012 Vol.9 No.3, pp.275 - 310

Published online: 20 Aug 2014 *

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