European Sharpbenders: Meta-regional Strategy and Regionalisation

Abstract

This paper develops a new concept of the meta-regional strategy, drawing on the contingency view of the meta-environment. The paper contributes to the regionalisation perspective and regional versus global strategy research in international business and global strategy. The study analyses European multinational enterprises (MNEs) that have markedly improved their standing in the Fortune Global 500 after a relative fall. We build on and extend the concept of the sharpbending process. Focusing on case studies of Daimler and BMW and their growth beyond their home region (notably in Asia), we incorporate regional integration into the analysis as a trigger of the sharpbending process. This helps us to define the meta-regional strategy: a strategy that maximizes the strategic fit between an organization’s firm-specific advantages and its unique meta-environment including resource munificence, institutions and markets of its home and host countries and regions where it operates. The paper offers answers to our main research question (When and how should MNEs adopt a global strategy?) and implications for future research on international diversification and performance, including lessons for European MNEs (such as that they can and should consider growing aggressively in the Asia-Pacific region, if they have a good strategic fit between their firm-specific advantages and their meta-environment.)

Keywords: regional and global strategy, meta-regional strategy, meta-environment, strategic fit, regionalisation, regional integration

JEL Classification: F23