Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • December 2015
  • Article
  • Journal of International Management

Entrepreneurial Imagination and a Demand and Supply-side Perspective on the MNE and Cross-border Organization

By: Geoffrey Jones and Christos Pitelis
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

This article explores the role of entrepreneurial imagination on the international expansion of multinational enterprises. The focus is on supply- and demand-side factors that help explicate cross-border expansion. The article explores how appropriability-informed and legacy-shaped entrepreneurial imagination motivates a process of creation and co-creation of the cross-border business context (such as markets, demand, and supporting infrastructures, including business ecosystems) and, when feasible, the wider institutional, regulatory, and even cultural context that conventional International business literature takes as a datum. This is examined conceptually and by using illustrative business history case examples. The article claims that by focusing on agency, learning, intentionality, and demand-side factors, our approach complements and also challenges extant sometimes static, supply-side, agent-agnostic theories of the multinational and helps appreciate better phenomena such as the creation and co-creation of markets and value, multinationals without firm-specific advantages, and born-global firms.

Keywords

Imagination; Globalization; History; Entrepreneurship; Multinational Firms and Management; Africa; Asia; Europe; North and Central America

Citation

Jones, Geoffrey, and Christos Pitelis. "Entrepreneurial Imagination and a Demand and Supply-side Perspective on the MNE and Cross-border Organization." Journal of International Management 21, no. 4 (December 2015): 309–321.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Read Now

About The Author

Geoffrey G. Jones

General Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • March 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Ghassan E. Nuqul: Establishing the Core Values of a Family Business

    By: Geoffrey Jones
    • February 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Aristotle Onassis and the Greek Shipping Industry

    By: Geoffrey Jones and Melanie Sheehan
    • January 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Vicky Tsai and Tatcha: Confronting Stereotypes

    By: Geoffrey Jones and Mona Rahmani
More from the Authors
  • Ghassan E. Nuqul: Establishing the Core Values of a Family Business By: Geoffrey Jones
  • Aristotle Onassis and the Greek Shipping Industry By: Geoffrey Jones and Melanie Sheehan
  • Vicky Tsai and Tatcha: Confronting Stereotypes By: Geoffrey Jones and Mona Rahmani
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College