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  • 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
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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

Entrepreneurship; 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.
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About The Author

Geoffrey G. Jones

General Management
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    • 2021
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    International Business History and the Strategy of Multinational Enterprises: How History Matters

    By: Geoffrey Jones and Teresa da Silva Lopes
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    Bollywood, Skin Color and Sexism: The Role of the Film Industry in Emboldening and Contesting Stereotypes in India after Independence

    By: Sudev Sheth, Geoffrey Jones and Morgan Spencer
    • December 2020
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    George Soros: The Stateless Statesman

    By: Geoffrey Jones and Grace Ballor
More from the Authors
  • International Business History and the Strategy of Multinational Enterprises: How History Matters By: Geoffrey Jones and Teresa da Silva Lopes
  • Bollywood, Skin Color and Sexism: The Role of the Film Industry in Emboldening and Contesting Stereotypes in India after Independence By: Sudev Sheth, Geoffrey Jones and Morgan Spencer
  • George Soros: The Stateless Statesman By: Geoffrey Jones and Grace Ballor
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