Purpose

The purpose of this study is to critically evaluate the canonical contribution of the classical theories of multinational enterprises (MNE) and complement them with congruous multi-theoretical lenses to a propose a meta-theoretical view for competitive advantage. The proposed framework is applied to fundamental questions of MNE, and exploratory insights are revealed.

Design/methodology/approach

This study sought to review the literature on various paradigms such as resource-based view, knowledge-based view, attention-based view, relational view, dynamic capability view and institution-based view to propose a meta-theoretical approach explicating the phenomenon of competitiveness.

Findings

This study proffers that the key to global competitiveness lies in building micro-foundational, multidimensional and multilevel multinational orchestration capabilities. The requisite orchestration capabilities are capabilities par excellence that explain: how organizational capabilities originate through the cognition of individual employees at the micro level; how individual-level abilities are amplified when they are harnessed through relational capabilities to form knowledge capabilities at the meso-level; and how the confluence of knowledge capabilities and higher order dynamic capabilities gives rise to heterogeneous firm-level knowledge-based dynamic capabilities that can be combined with institution capabilities to aggrandize the prediction of competitive advantage for MNEs.

Originality/value

The successful development of MNE competitiveness as a field of academic inquiry, brought about by an increasing amount of theoretical specialization, has come at the price of significant fragmentation of the overall scientific quest. The abovementioned paradigms and their underlying constructs have primarily been conceptualized in silos. The classical theories of MNE have been used a starting point to which complementary multidisciplinary views have been scaffolded to gain a more nuanced understanding of global competitiveness.

中文翻译：

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跨国协调：一种获得竞争优势的元理论方法

目的

本研究的目的是批判性地评估跨国企业 (MNE) 经典理论的典型贡献，并用一致的多理论镜头对其进行补充，以提出竞争优势的元理论观点。拟议的框架应用于跨国公司的基本问题，并揭示了探索性的见解。

设计/方法/途径

本研究试图回顾各种范式的文献，如基于资源的观点、基于知识的观点、基于注意力的观点、关系观点、动态能力观点和基于制度的观点，以提出一种解释竞争力现象的元理论方法.

发现

本研究认为，全球竞争力的关键在于构建微观基础、多维度、多层次的跨国协调能力。必要的编排能力是卓越的能力，可以解释：组织能力如何通过个体员工在微观层面的认知而产生；当个人水平的能力通过关系能力被利用以形成中观水平的知识能力时如何被放大；以及知识能力和高阶动态能力的融合如何产生异质的企业级基于知识的动态能力，这些能力可以与制度能力相结合，以加强对跨国公司竞争优势的预测。

原创性/价值

由越来越多的理论专业化带来的跨国公司竞争力作为一个学术研究领域的成功发展，是以整体科学探索的显着碎片化为代价的。上述范例及其基础结构主要是在孤岛中概念化的。跨国企业的经典理论已被用作起点，互补的多学科观点已被搭建起来，以获得对全球竞争力的更细致的理解。