ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors examine multinational corporations in the context of overcoming external and internal boundaries posed by national culture or geography. These boundaries challenge management of globally dispersed organisations and their related knowledge integration processes. The need to integrate knowledge across different boundaries and interfaces remains essential for multinational corporations to exploit the local competencies in subsidiaries in host countries. Attempts to achieve knowledge integration across internal and external boundaries are often discussed in relation to boundary-spanners and digitalisation. However, our understanding of the interplay between boundary-spanning activities and the dynamics introduced by digitalisation, within the multinational corporation, is poorly understood. The authors address the boundary issue and the related solutions of boundary-spanning and digitalisation and suggest some directions for future research.
