Edith Penrose and a learning-based perspective on the MNE and OLI

Abstract

We apply insights from Edith Penrose’s work to extant theory of the multinational enterprise (MNE) as enveloped by John Dunning’s Ownership, Location, Internalization (OLI) Paradigm. We suggest that Penrose’s knowledge-based approach has important implications on the nature of, and the interactions between, O, L and I. Importantly, the resource/knowledge-based perspective of Penrose helps endogenize and integrate the three elements of Dunning’s triad in the context of a dynamic, strategic and forward-looking knowledge-based perspective of the MNE.