Multinational enterprises nonmarket strategies: Insights from history

Marcelo Bucheli and Thomas DeBerge

International Business Review, 2024, 33(2): 102198.

Abstract

This paper aims to provide an historical perspective that offers insights from existing business historical research for the enrichment of current international business (IB) nonmarket strategy literature. Identifying seven questions that are of interest to IB nonmarket strategy scholars, we highlight exemplary historical studies to illuminate insights into each of these questions. We maintain that historians’ ability to provide such insights is rooted in their methodology consisting of archival research and an analysis of firms’ decisions within the context of long-term political and economic processes. The questions discussed in this paper cover various areas: the adoption of rhetoric that embraces host-country nationalism, the use of an MNE’s third-country status to gain advantages over other MNEs, the development of secret nonmarket strategies, the building of coalitions to obtain support from home-country stakeholders, the elements that turn the political ties between the MNE and the host-country elite from an advantage into a liability, the direct intervention of MNEs in international diplomacy, and the strategies developed by MNEs to confront global anti-corporate activism.

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This paper makes two contributions to the IB nonmarket strategy literature, specifically by highlighting the role that business history can play in bringing: (1) a richer and more nuanced understanding of MNE nonmarket strategies attainable through archival research methods; and (2) a longitudinal approach to nonmarket strategy studies that captures the firms’ decisions within the context of larger political and economic processes. More importantly, historical research can contribute to developing unique perspectives in answering these questions, whether by refining existing concepts with new definitions, challenging dominant assumptions within the literature, or overcoming barriers that can
limit the reach of other methodologies. In particular, exploring aspects of the ‘dark side’ of nonmarket strategies – often inaccessible to most research methods – is a task for which we show the value of archive-based historical methods. We hope that this perspective paper can highlight the areas of business historical research that can be of use to IB nonmarket strategy scholars in exploring issues of interest to them... Read more