The Regional Multinationals
MNEs and 'Global' Strategic Management

Although many firms label themselves 'global', very few can back this up with truly global sales and operations. In The Regional Multinationals Alan Rugman examines first-hand data from multinationals and finds that most multinationals are strongly regional, with international operations in their home regions of North America, the US or Asia. Only a tiny proportion of the world's top 500 companies actually sell the same product and deliver the same services around the world. Rugman exposes the facts behind the popular myths of doing business globally, explores a variety of regional models and offers an authoritative agenda for future business strategy. The Regional Multinationals is the essential resource for all academics and students in International Business, Organization and Strategic Management, as well as those with an interest in finding out how multinationals really work in practice and how future strategy must respond.

List of figures; List of tables; Acknowledgments; 1. Introduction; 2. Regional multinationals: the data; 3. Two regional strategy frameworks; 4. Regional and global strategies of multinational enterprises; 5. Retail multinationals; 6. Banking multinationals; 7. Pharmaceutical and chemical multinationals; 8. Automobile multinationals; 9. Profits of leading multinational enterprises; 10. Analysis of the regional and global strategies of large firms; 11. Regional multinationals and government policy; 12. Regional multinationals: the new research agenda; Appendix. The 500 companies with the triad percent sales, alphabetical, 2001; Company notes; Case references; Academic references; Author index; General index.

L. Leslie Waters Chair of International Business, Professor of International Business and Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University.