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Edith Penrose and a learning-based perspective on the MNE and OLI

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Abstract and Key Results

  • We apply insights from Edith Penrose’s work to extant theory of the multinational enterprise (MNE) as enveloped by John Dunning’s Ownership, Location, Internalization (OLI) Paradigm.

  • We suggest that Penrose’s knowledge/learning-based approach has important implications on the nature of, and the interactions between, O, L and I, and it helps endogenize and integrate the three elements of Dunning’s triad in the context of a dynamic, and strategic perspective of the MNE.

  • More importantly, a learning-based perspective adds a cognitive dimension to the MNE and OLI.

  • This supports a forward looking, synchronic decision making view, that may lead to apparently sub-optimal decisions, taken in view of anticipated changes, along-side strategic behaviour, aiming to effect such change, once decisions have been reached.

  • A Penrosean-inspired knowledge/learning-based perspective helps render the OLI more dynamic, strategic and forward looking.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK

    Christos Pitelis (Director of Centre for International Business and Management (CIBAM), and University Reader in International Business & Competitiveness)

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  1. Christos Pitelis
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Pitelis, C. Edith Penrose and a learning-based perspective on the MNE and OLI. MANAGE. INT. REV. 47, 207–219 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-007-0012-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-007-0012-6

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