Post-crisis developments in multinational corporations’ global organizations

Abstract

This paper investigates multinational corporations’ organizational responses to the global financial crisis. Relying on qualitative content analysis of the annual reports of multinational corporations in the automotive, electronics and machinery industries, and drawing on the results of interviews made with senior local executives, the association between the adverse turn in the business cycle and multinational corporations’ organizational reconfiguration actions is analysed, together with the key drivers of organizational restructuring. We find that the global crisis has reinforced and intensified ongoing organizational reconfiguration trends and argue that crisis-prompted responses need to be separated from fundamental organizational transformation catalysed by the crisis. Strategic organizational realignment programs have been driven by long-standing technological and market trends rather than by transient developments.