Micropolitics in the Multinational Corporation: Foundations, Applications and New Directions

Over the past decade, politics perspectives in international business have moved into the mainstream repertoire of research, theory development and teaching about the organisational behaviour of multinational corporations (MNCs). Politics perspectives contribute substantially to understanding the behaviour in and of MNCs in their different contexts and environments but so far these burgeoning perspectives have not been systematically and comprehensively reviewed. This book offers the first detailed overview of the theoretical foundations, methodologies and empirical applications of politics perspectives in MNCs. A group of international authors discuss twelve seminal contributions to the study of politics, power and conflict in MNCs, followed by a summary and synthesis of the literature into a comprehensive analytical framework. The book closes with a discussion of future directions in the field. This is a thorough introduction to political behaviour in MNCs written for scholars and graduate students in the fields of organisation studies and international business.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Stewart Clegg; 1. Introduction Florian A. A. Becker-Ritterspach, Susanne Blazejewski, Christoph Dörrenbächer and Mike Geppert; Part I. Foundations of Politics, Power and Conflict in MNCs: 2. Theoretical foundations and conceptual definitions Susanne Blazejewski and Florian A. A. Becker-Ritterspach; 3. The evolution of a politics perspective of the multinational enterprise – past developments and current applications Florian A. A. Becker-Ritterspach and Susanne Blazejewski; Part II. Seminal Contributions: 4. Seminal contributions of the rationalistic-managerialist school Florian A. A. Becker-Ritterspach and Jens Gammelgaard; 5. Seminal contributions of the institutionalist and micropolitics schools Mike Geppert and Karen Williams; 6. Seminal contributions of the critical management school Christoph Dörrenbächer and Joanne Roberts; Part III. Analytical Tools and Applications: 7. Understanding organisational behaviour in MNCs from a micropolitical perspective: a stratified analytical framework Florian A. A. Becker-Ritterspach and Susanne Blazejewski; 8. Doing research on power and politics in MNCs: a methodological perspective Rebecca Piekkari and Susanne Tietze; Part IV. Reflections and New Directions for Research; 9. Advancing research on political issues in and around MNCs: the role of discursive sensemaking Mike Geppert and Christoph Dörrenbächer; 10. Zooming in on politicking and issue selling tactics as new research directions for the study of micropolitics in MNCs Christoph Dörrenbächer and Jens Gammelgaard; 11. Advancing research on micropolitics in MNCs: an elite perspective Christoph Dörrenbächer and Mike Geppert; 12. Micropolitics in emerging market MNCs as a field of new research Knut G. Lange and Florian A. A. Becker-Ritterspach; Index.

About the Author :
Florian A. A. Becker-Ritterspach is Professor of Economic and Organisational Sociology at HTW Berlin University of Applied Sciences. Next to knowledge transfer and learning, his research focuses on issues of power, politics and conflict in multinationals. His main theoretical interest centres on combining international management approaches with organisational theory. Susanne Blazejewski is Professor of Management and Organisation at Alanus University of Arts and Social Science, Bonn. Her research interests focus on micropolitics and conflict in multinational organisations, identity, aesthetics and work design, and sustainable organisational development. Christoph Dörrenbächer is a Professor of Organisational Design and Behaviour in International Business at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. His current research focus is on management, subsidiary role development, headquarters-subsidiary relationships and careers in multinational corporations. He is the founding director of the Berlin Institute for International Business Studies. Mike Geppert is Professor of Strategic and International Management at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, and Visiting Professor at the Turku School of Economics. His current research focus is on socio-political issues and sensemaking within multinational companies, and on cross-national comparisons of management and organisation in various industrial sectors, including beer brewing, food retailing and the airline industry.

Review :
'While James March analyzed the business firm as a political coalition in his classic 1962 paper, his seminal insights were neglected until relatively recently. Nowhere is this neglect more apparent than in international business, where from the early work of Hymer through a series of influential contributions like those of Kogut and Zander, the multinational enterprise has long been viewed as a cohesive social unit, rather than a factionalized political network. Therefore I welcome the efforts of Becker-Ritterspach, Blazejewski, Dörrenbächer and Geppert to 'bring politics back in'. In their new book, the authors provide valuable new insights into the micropolitics of the business firm. This scholarly volume opens up new avenues for future research.' Ram Mudambi, Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University, Philadelphia 'Power, politics and conflict are ever-present in multinational corporations, but most mainstream academic literature acknowledges them only on the margin. This book, for the first time, brings together and synthesises the different ways of thinking about power, politics and conflict inside multinationals. It is a hugely impressive book in terms of the scope and depth of its analysis. It will be a highly valued resource for academics and students working in this area.' Julian Birkinshaw, London Business School 'Until very recently the multinational corporation was seen as a unitary actor, cultivating the highest form of economic rationality … A series of empirically oriented studies gradually emerged that undermined [this] view … Instead, an image of political games and rivalling powers emerged, question[ing] the ease with which MNCs could establish [successful] collaborative relations … a huge literature based on diversified theoretical perspectives has [since] emerged that sees the MNC as a setting for micro-politics. The great contribution of this volume is that it provides us with an excellent and highly systematised overview of this new burgeoning literature [from the perspective of] a number of different theoretical traditions, [enabling] the authors to suggest a number of new routes for research. Organization studies [is] in [great] need of … analytical skills for … suggesting improvements in the operations and governance of MNCs, which play an overwhelming role [in] … our economic futures. This volume is an important step in this direction.' Peer Hull Kristensen, Copenhagen Business School