The Oxford Handbook of International Business Strategy

Abstract

Abstract The present volume discusses the progress made in progress made in the theory and practice of international business (IB) strategy in the last few decades. The book captures the differences in motivations and decision-making processes between smaller and larger firms, private, family and state-owned, emerging or developed market multinational enterprises (MNEs). The book highlights how the increasingly uncertain conditions in the IB environment demand superior firm-level capabilities for MNEs to achieve and maintain long-run competitive advantages. We elaborate on the links between international strategy and the social responsibilities of the firm in its, often differing, host market contexts, including the deployment of effective and ethical human resource practices in international markets. Most importantly perhaps, this handbook lays out how the classic principles of international competitive strategy are transformed in today’s markets, in great part due to digitalization, and provides suggestions about how MNEs can develop IB strategies to respond to these transformations. The implications of such discussions for IB strategy and practice are becoming ever more profound and will likely influence the next generation of IB scholars and practitioners.