Building competitive strength in international markets

For a number of years, many large American and European firms have expanded their operations to multiple, international locations and increased the number and types of products/services that are offered in these locales. For some, less than satisfactory performance has been achieved from these efforts. Problems associated with managing the diversity that results from expanding and enhancing product lines and services (brought about through implementation of a diversification strategy) and establishing international locations (called internationalization) may contribute to these performance difficulties. Use of particular structural forms to manage diversity has not succeeded. This paper proposes the development of competitive advantages that can be applied across diverse business units as a means to manage diversity more successfully in large, multinational corporations. These competitive advantages may be achieved in terms of product markets served, technologies used, the dominant logic of key managerial personnel and establishment of corporate level distinctive competencies that can be applied across all of the organization's business.