ABSTRACT
There has been tremendous interest in understanding why and how organizations expand into the global arena. Recent interest has been in gaining an understanding of how multinational companies (MNCs) are best organized and managed to be effective in the global arena (e.g. Bartlett and Ghoshal 1989; Evans 1993; Hedlund 1986, 1994; Nohria and Ghoshal 1994, 1997; Pralahad and Doz 1987). This chapter emphasizes the importance of history in understanding the current organization of MNCs, and how these organizations are changing. In addition, we cast doubt on deterministic versions of contingency theory as providing explanations of the role of history (Chandler 1977; Chandler and Daems 1979).
