Revisiting the multinational enterprise in global production networks

Abstract

This article presents further opportunities to develop the Global Production Network (GPN) approach by reopening the ‘black box’ of the multinational enterprise (MNE) through a structuration perspective. It emphasises three aspects to a renewed focus on the agency of MNEs, namely: the importance of the variety of relationships within MNEs between parent and subsidiaries; the importance of dynamic capabilities in underpinning corporate change; and, the micropolitics of MNEs and subsidiaries which impact on firm-institutional change within regional economies. The agency exercised by MNEs in these ways influences the ‘selection’ of investment locations, ‘coupling’ processes, and the depth and pace of host territorial institutional change. In conclusion, this article argues that future research needs to place greater emphasis on the contribution of dynamics internal to the MNE to understand evolution in regional economies and GPNs.