Special Issue: Japanese Multinational Companies in the Global Economy: Strategies, Management and Capabilities

摘要

Researchers have, quite justifiably, begun the process of investigating multinational companies (MNCs) from developing or transition economies. Yet MNCs from the developed economies will continue, for the foreseeable future, to control a large majority of total foreign direct investment (FDI) assets, and they still enjoy, overall, significant global scope and advantages in technology, brands and management. In the heyday of Japanese management, in the 1980s, 'globalization' was directly associated with 'Japanization'. Japanese companies with strong competitive capabilities -or, as outlined in Dunning's eclectic paradigm for FDI, ownership advantages - took the lead in MNC investment. Since 1990, however, Japan has simultaneously faced increasing competitive pressures from other Asian countries and witnessed slow and even negative rates of growth at home. Once responsible for over a fifth of annual global outward FDI flows, Japan more recently accounted for less than 4 per cent. In 1990, Japan's share of world outward FDI stock had reached a total of 9.7 per cent; then, by 2010, this had fallen to about 4.0 per cent.