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The Virtue of in-between Pragmatism – A Balancing Act between Responsiveness and Integration in a Multinational Company

Gabriel R. G. Benito

Randi Lunnan

Sverre Tomassen

Orchestration of the Global Network Organization

ISBN: 978-1-78350-953-9

Publication date: 13 August 2014

Abstract

In this paper, we offer insights that combine a network perspective of the multinational company (MNC) with an analysis of different types of interdependencies. We develop and illustrate our arguments with a company case (LIMO) and argue that types of interdependencies have consequences for the orchestration of MNC activities. The experience from LIMO suggests that extreme organizational designs, where orchestration is either purely local or mostly global, fail to capture the nuances necessary to ensure efficiency and profitability. The main theoretical contribution in this paper is to show that the search for orchestration through an organizational design must involve the combination of several perspectives of activity combinations and their interdependencies. Simply optimizing through a tight network or looking at the firm as a loose federation is too simple to understand the complex trade-off facing modern MNCs.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

We thank Arnaldo Camuffo, Paul N. Gooderham and the Editors Timothy Devinney, Torben Pedersen, and Markus Venzin for many helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version presented at the “Orchestration of the Global Network Organization” Workshop organized by Bocconi University, Milan, 22–23 November, 2013. The financial support of the Norwegian Research Council (NFR) is gratefully acknowledged.

Citation

Benito, G.R.G., Lunnan, R. and Tomassen, S. (2014), "The Virtue of in-between Pragmatism – A Balancing Act between Responsiveness and Integration in a Multinational Company", Orchestration of the Global Network Organization (Advances in International Management, Vol. 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 75-97. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1571-502720140000027002

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited