Management of Multinational Companies : A French Perspective

Multinational companies play a major role in the globalization process and contribute significantly to the creation of wealth in national economies. Today, there exist about 82,000 multinational companies which possess 810,000 subsidiaries located across the world. In a rapidly changing environment, multinational companies need to find new management methods to improve their global competitiveness. This volume offers an innovative perspective of managerial practices adopted by multinational companies that operate in the French economy. It highlights the diversity of responses these companies have developed in regard to the challenges of market globalization. The authors examine the complexity of the internal organization of multinational companies, namely the management of headquarters-subsidiaries relationships, but also the performance of partnerships and networks they form with actors from other countries. The contributing authors present the findings of empirical investigations they conducted on the management of multinational companies and provide explanations illustrated with quantitative data, examples and case-studies of companies such as Accor, Alcatel-Lucent, Crédit Agricole, Danone, EADS, GL events, Google, Renault, Groupe SEB and Société Générale.