From Global to Metanational: How Companies Win in the Knowledge Economy

STMicroelectronics, a semiconductor company, is a firm that is at home in the world. Its headquarters are scattered across Europe, split between Geneva, Paris, Milan, and Amsterdam. STM's units and subsidiaries carry the name of town or cities in which their are located, not of countries or continents. Indeed, there are no national subsidiaries, and national flags are conspicuously absent. When the CEO was asked by the authors where his company's home base was, he hesitated for a moment then replied, half-jokingly, "Perhaps the world?" Nation-states and their capitals are rather irrelevant when what the company needs to access are pockets of knowledge clustered around localities like Grenoble, Silicon Valley, or Bangalore.Companies like STMicroelectronics see the world as a set of three interconnected planes. Imagine at the top level a map dotted with pockets of technology, market intelligence, and operational know-how, like bright spots representing cities as seen from a satellite at night. This is the map of the knowledge infrastructure that the company needs to access. The bottom plane is the map of operations representing production sites, logistics chains, and distribution channels, like the hubs and spokes between airports as viewed by an airline company. This map will be familiar to traditional multinationals, which have become proficient in managing a global network of production, distribution, and sales.Connecting these two maps is an intermediary plane, where devices described as "magnets" translate new knowledge into innovative products or specific market opportunities. Magnets can take different forms and importance, and they do not necessarily have a physical locus. They are teams of experts built around selected lead customers, global platforms, or global activities, and their mission is to bring together specialist knowledge accessed around the world and to "meld" this knowledge into innovative products or services.These three planes--the bright spots of knowledge, the hubs and spokes of operations, and the magnets connecting them--in turn describe three capabilities--sensing, mobilizing, operating--that a company needs to develop in order to compete in the global knowledge economy. The stakes involved in managing these three planes go beyond the traditional tension between global integration and local responsiveness. They require new forms of organizational structure and strategy, a new breed of multinational firm that the authors describe under the term "metanational". Indeed, exploring this new universe requires a new vocabulary different from the standard terms used in strategic management. Along with "magnets", readers will discover a world of "knowledge hotspots" and "sensing units", where knowledge can be "sticky" and needs to be "melded" into innovative products or services.When I first read this book, I didn't pay it much attention. I thought that the metanational model that was heralded by the authors as the next frontier for multinational firms was nothing but a theoretical construct, or a kind of anomaly as it sometimes happens in the evolution of species. The business cases that were presented had very little in common, and each story could be interpreted as the result of specific constraints or idiosyncrasies: the Japanese cosmetics company struggling to expand out of its domestic market, the Nordic telecom firm conquering the world starting from an improbable location, the "global startup" pioneering a technology on a worldwide scale without time for regional consolidation or, in the case of STMicroelectronics, a European champion trying to break from its origins as the result of the merger of two state-owned, loss-making companies.But I now think that Yves Doz and his coauthors were really up to something when they came with this new model, and that recent developments have confirmed their claims. Convergence between industries has increased the complexity of technologies needed for new product development. The knowledge base that a global company needs to absorb is becoming increasingly dispersed around the world. Places in India or China that were unknown a decade ago are now major sources of innovation and market knowledge. R&D is no longer concentrated near headquarters and is now managed on a global scale. New global firms have entered the world stage starting from peripheral or disadvantaged locations. Multinational firms need to relinquish their goal of projecting a homegrown formula and instead seek to build advantage by learning from the world. From Global to Metanational offers them a blueprint toward that goal.

The world has changed and not just for business...However, business is the focus of the book and it a good read. Also, the best book I have read on this 'new way' on needing to look at our economy. Ron

This book has been great and well worth the investment. I would recommend it to anyone for either professional or personal growth.

The only reason anyone should read this book is because its mandatory for a class. Its a pedestrian rehash of ideas found in other books. It offers no personality that would make it vaguely palatable and its filled with jargon in an attempt to convince the reader of how learned the authors are without offering meaningful ideas.

Great

What does a large company need to concentrate on for sustained success in a globalized world? Doz and his colleagues claim that it is to become metanational and to become good at innovating from a platform of bringing together knowledge from many different parts of the world. Metanationals differ from globalized companies in that they recognise that new ideas, products or directions may originate somewhere other than the corporate centre.The focus of the authors is on innovation and they argue that this requires that the organization becomes good at :* identifying where good ideas and special competencies are;* mobilizing the often scattered capabilities and opportunities (they use the term 'becoming a magnet' for such capabilities); and* optimising the size and configuration of operations for efficiency, flexibility and financial discipline.This is a book that makes an important point about success in a globalized world, but presents one factor in success as if it was the whole. As with a number of books, I had an uncomfortable feeling that the content of a very good article was expanded into an only moderately good book.The core message is important and useful. Organizations that operate on a global scale need to move beyond the extension of a unitary culture into new localities and recognise that new knowledge is found in unlikely places. They need to become excellent at recognising that knowledge, becoming an attractor for it, mobilizing it to provide a superior stream of innovations and operationalizing production, distribution and marketing into diverse markets.The weakness is that the book is written at a fairly high conceptual level - for all the detailed example - that fails to get to grips with how to manage multiple cultures or the detail of innovation, or the issues of governance across countries. It also has surprisingly little on the major changes that are occurring in world consumer markets.The book also falls into the 'one size fits all' trap. Issues of being effective globally are very different for a consumer fashion business, a high tech product or service industry and a major commodity business, but this is not recognised explicitly in the book.

知識経済下における真のグローバル企業の姿が描かれています。かつては競争優位の源泉として本国を中心に偏在していたナレッジが、現代の知識経済下では世界中至るところに遍在するようになった。本国至上主義、自前主義、先進国至上主義、これらの２０世紀的マインドセットを捨てなければ、グローバル市場において日本企業は勝ち残れない。そんな気にさせる一冊です。書かれた時期は若干古いですが、実践できている企業（特に日本企業）は少なく、今日的な解決策として十分参考になるものと思われます。かなり分かり易く書かれているので、英語が苦手な人でも十分読めるでしょう。