Global Strategies, Multinational Subsidiary Roles and Economic Impact in Scotland

Reflecting the changing nature of industries and competition worldwide, there has been an explosion of writings on the themes of global strategies and the globalisation of business, including authors such as; Doz and Prahalad (1987); Porter (1987); Hood and Vahlne (1988). A multinational company (MNE) pursuing a global strategy conceives its manufacturing, marketing, technology and other policies on a worldwide basis, and co-ordinates its resources worldwide in pursuit of global objectives, such as worldwide market share.1 It is not yet clear how many companies and industries can be categorised as global; but the view is that there is a strong trend towards globalization with developments in the world economy, including the emergence of new industries like informatics and biotechnology, the revolution in information and communication systems, the need to amortise investment in world-scale plants and R&D programmes, and a growing standardisation of tastes (Leontiades, 1986).